Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“If they surround us, we’re dead.” She tightened her arms around Tate’s limp body.
“Goddammit.” Van slammed the shifter through the gears and recklessly weaved around dumpsters and metal stairs in the alley.
The motor revved, and the end of the alley glowed like a beacon. Police on motorbikes zoomed in behind them, but there were no barricades up ahead.
They can make it. They can make it. Go, go, go…
The air vibrated with a rumbling reverberation right before the end of the alley filled with half a dozen police on bikes.
“Hold on.” Van accelerated.
Twenty feet, ten feet… Holy fuck, he was going to plow through them.
Heart pounding, she bent over Tate’s head, wrapped her arms in a death grip around him, and braced for impact.
A ringing sound split her eardrums, buzzing with the clamor of gunshots and Van’s shouting. Then sirens.
Sirens on a police car, in the alley, careening toward them head-on. The alley was too narrow, and they were traveling too fast and close to avoid collision.
Van jerked the car, hit the side of a building, then slammed into something else. The world spun, and time became heavily compressed and fractured.
The jarring impact catapulted her to Peru, shackled in the back of a transport, falling, rolling, flailing in the memory of twisted metal, broken bodies, crushed bones, and the scent of blood.
CHAPTER 27
Tate surfaced to a muffled symphony of pandemonium. Banging, shouting sounds pulsed in and out, as if trying to penetrate the cotton stuffed in his ears. He lay twisted in a mangled car, covered in glass and throbbing in excruciating pain.
Lucia was there, her tears drenching his face and her hand stroking his hair. Her agony was unbearable, her fear palpable. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe as he tried to make sense of the clamor around him.
He remembered gunfire and running and the speeding car. The front hood was bent against the broken windshield. The dash was too close to the front seats, and the pungency of coolant, gasoline, and burnt chemicals fumed the air. They must’ve crashed.
Black spots dotted his vision as he dragged his good arm beneath him and lifted. He blinked. And blinked again.
Multiple rifles pointed through the shattered window beside Lucia, aimed at her head. The armed men shouted something, and she screamed back at them, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably.
His pulse raced, and his senses sharpened. The men wore helmets and uniforms with arm patches and name tags. They surrounded the car, training rifles through every window and shouting in Spanish.
Where was Van? The airbags were deployed, and the front seat was empty.
Overpowering pain tore through his body and stole the strength from his neck. His head dropped onto her lap, and his muscles trembled with never-ending agony.
This wasn’t him. He wasn’t weak or puny. He was physically fit, stubborn, aggressive. He was a survivor. He needed to get the fuck up. He should be able to protect her.
The door beside her opened with a godawful squeal of grinding metal. Hands dove in, yanking her out of the car. She fought and kicked and screamed his name, but he couldn’t reach her. His arms wouldn’t respond to his urgent orders.
“Lucia.” Seething with pain, he tried to scramble after her.
His limbs wouldn’t cooperate, moving sluggishly, inch by inch across the seat. He reached his working arm through the open door and clawed at the pavement, yanking himself forward in a fevered frenzy of ripping flesh and dizzying anguish. He felt things tearing and breaking inside him, but he was separated from his body, completely fixated on getting to her and nothing else.
With his torso hanging out of the car and his legs caught within, he watched uniformed men with guns haul her away. Police cars and motorcycles filled the alley, and at the far end, several cops wrestled Van into the backseat of an armored transport.
If they were incarcerated, she wouldn’t see a doctor. Wouldn’t have access to medicine. Maybe Matias or Cole would find them and grease the right palms to get them released, but it would be too late for her.
She would be dead by tomorrow.
A roar ruptured from his throat as he twisted around, searching the car for a weapon and coming up empty. A seat belt tangled around his leg, and he wasted miserable seconds and precious strength to free himself. Then he crawled on one arm, rolling onto the pavement and nearly blacking out. He muscled through it, compartmentalizing the pain and fumbling forward, scraping his chest along the ground.
She thrashed and swung her legs in the clutches of the men who carried her. When she found his eyes, her expression hardened, and she redoubled her efforts. But she was outnumbered, and he was too slow, too fucking weak.
He couldn’t reach her, couldn’t touch her, couldn’t save her.
But he tried, and tried, and kept trying.