Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
I crouch down so we’re both eye level. “I’m coming back for you, Regan. I won’t leave you until you’re safe. I promise.”
“Why?”
It’s an easy question and there are easy answers if I trusted her to keep her mouth shut, but it’s not just my life that is on the line. It’s Nick and his girl Daisy, who happens to be Regan’s best friend. I don’t know what story they want me to tell her, so until I can make contact with them, I have to keep my mouth shut. But I don’t want to leave her hanging.
“Because you’re too important not to save.” I know it’s the truth the minute I say it. I’m not going to let her be hurt again, not on my watch, not while I’m still breathing. Because I’m a stupid piss, I lean in even closer and I give her a soft kiss on her temple. The air around us grows thick with tension. I know what the tension is on my side because I can feel my pants getting too tight. Her tension is fear based. I stand swiftly, feeling something like embarrassment, and pull up my pants to check my service revolver strapped around my ankle.
“Why can’t I have that gun?” she asks. “It looks like it would be easier to shoot.”
“Nope.” I shake my head. “This baby only has a .22 and your big-girl gun is a .45. You can shoot a lot bigger holes with a .45.”
Shrugging on a loose-fitting linen top over my beater tank to cover the two knives I have strapped to my sides, I turn to face Regan. She’s pointing the goddamn gun at me. “You aiming to shoot me, sugar?”
“What?” She looks confused and a little distressed.
“Then don’t point the gun at me.” I point to the ceiling. “You only point the gun at a target, so ceiling or floor unless I’ve done something to piss you off so much that nothing short of a bullet is going to clear the air.”
She flushes but lowers the gun.
“Good girl.” I pull open the door. “What’s our code?”
“Your name is safety. ‘Honey, I’m home’ is danger.”
“Good girl,” I repeat and close the door behind me. The door’s thin and I can hear a muffled sob and then a deep breath. Then . . . nothing. Good girl, indeed.
I run downstairs, not wanting to be gone too long. The drumbeat in my blood says that Regan needs me back soon, soon, soon.
Once on the street, I head for Copacabana Palace Hotel. While there are dozens of small stalls along the beach, I figure it will be easier to get everything I need from one place. But first . . . I duck down the closest alley I find and then wait three heartbeats. When my tail, a dark-haired male in his late twenties with pockmarks and loud boots, pauses at the mouth of the alley, I reach out and grab his windpipe. His hands come up to claw at my fingers, but my grip doesn’t abate. With a fierce jerk, I pull him into the narrow passage between the two cement structures. It’s easy to swing his head back against the wall, and though he might outweigh me by a good twenty pounds, I’m far stronger than him and at least four inches taller. My forearm keeps him from breathing for thirty seconds. When he’s turning blue and his breath is noisy and labored, I ease off slightly.
“Why does Gomes want her back so bad?”
He spits in my direction. Gross. This is why I hate close-up contact. All the fucking fluids like blood, piss, spit, and vomit can cover you like spray from a shaken soda can. Maybe he doesn’t speak English. I ask him, “Falas Inglês?”
He presses his lips together in a universal nonverbal refusal to answer, so I reapply my forearm to prevent a bunch of spit in my face again. “I don’t care if you speak English or not, because if you don’t give me a good answer, you’re going to die here.”
“Engasga na minha porra!” he gasps out, telling me that I should choke on his come.
“No, thank you. I prefer eating pussy to drinking some stranger’s come.”
“That puta does not belong to you,” he finally says, showing that he does speak English just fine.
“Who does she belong to?”
Gomes’s man struggles ineffectually against me. I lift him higher until he can barely reach the ground. The muscles in my right arm are shaking, and I know I’ll have to put an end to this soon.
“Não é da sua conta.”
None of my business? Is he fucking kidding me? “Since you’re following me and trying to kill me, it kind of is my business.”
He tries to swing his head forward to head butt me, but the forearm against his windpipe prevents such movement. An evil grin spreads across his face, and I know what he’s going to say even before it comes out of his mouth. “That whore loved every minute of my cock inside her.”