Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I made it three steps before my ankles were grabbed and pulled hard enough to send me falling forward. There was barely enough time to throw out my arms to catch my fall.
The wind knocked out of me, leaving me gasping as panic rose in my system when I couldn’t catch my breath.
A hand reached out, grabbing my ankle again, this time pulling until he threw me over onto my back.
My knees pulled up automatically, creating a barrier as I tried to crawl backward.
“Fucking bitch,” he hissed again, bending forward toward me.
It was pure instinct that had me throwing out my legs, my feet catching him in the midsection, sending him stumbling back into the table under the windows.
I didn’t waste even a second, scrambling up, and rushing toward the window, then yanking it open.
When I saw shadows in the alley below.
It could have been anyone. Employees from another business. Addicts looking for a place to get high. Even homeless seeking shelter from the wind the backs of all the buildings provided.
But something inside of me told me it was none of those possibilities.
It was the other brothers.
Waiting to come up and take their turns with me.
Just as I was about to turn to run toward the door instead, a hand grabbed the back of my neck, fingers digging in, pulling my head backward, then violently slamming it forward.
My forehead slammed into the window with enough intensity to crack the single pane of glass.
The pain was a jackhammer through my skull, making my eyes tear and my vision go in and out for a moment.
It was sheer force of will that had me twisting under his arm, wrenching away from him, and stumbling into my kitchen, reaching—half-blinded with my pain—toward one of my drawers.
I’d been seeking a knife.
But I came back with a damn meat tenderizer.
Not a knife.
But solid, heavy, capable of doing damage.
A hand shot out toward me, and I just… swung.
The crack of it hitting bone had my stomach twisting and sloshing.
The roar that escaped him told me I was winning though. Even if his hand wasn’t broken, it would be weaker from the strike.
When the other hand reached out, and I swung again, though, he’d been prepared, snatching it from me, and swinging it toward my head.
“Help!” I started to yell, but the sound barely escaped before a hand was crushing over my face again, muffling the sound against his palm.
No, damnit.
I was too close.
Just a few feet from the door.
From help.
This couldn’t end here.
My hands reached out, grabbing the man’s waist, trying to use him as leverage and to gauge where to bring up my knee.
Which I did.
Hard.
With freaking everything in me.
Right into his crotch.
Another roar escaped him as he fell backward, one hand cupping his junk.
Knowing he would only be more pissed, I didn’t try to run. Not yet. I turned, pushing myself further into the kitchen, yanking open a cabinet, and reaching inside until I felt the weight of it.
A cast iron skillet.
“You’re gonna pay for that, you fuckin—“
He didn’t get a chance to call me a bitch again.
I grabbed that skillet with both hands, and swung it with every goddamn bit of strength in my body. Enough so that when it collided with his head, the impact made my shoulders scream.
Heart pounding, I watched as he stumbled, then fell backward with a loud thud.
I leapt over his body as I rushed toward the door, the skillet still in one hand while the other fumbled for the knob, throwing open the door, and looking both ways into the hall before rushing down the front stairs.
How long would it be before the brothers came looking for the one who’d come for me?
I was in the lobby when I damn near screamed my head off, seeing a man there, half slumped forward, his leg kind of dragging behind him as he shuffled forward.
I must have made a sound without realizing it, because his head rose.
I didn’t know him.
Not really.
But I knew those Timbs and that leather jacket.
And I remembered what the other guard had said about him.
He had one brown eye and one brown and green eye.
This was Venezio.
If it weren’t for the eyes, I could never have known.
Because his entire face was a bloody mess.
As was his t-shirt.
“Venezio,” I gasped, rushing forward, reaching for him, sensing he was having trouble just staying upright.
It was as I was slinging his arm over my shoulder that I realized there was something shiny in his other hand.
A gun.
There was a second where my stomach dropped before I realized that a gun in the hands of a guy who was on my side was a good thing.
“You gonna fucking make me dinner? Drop the skillet,” Venezio said in a voice that sounded like gravel.
The skillet fell from my hand as I half-carried him with me toward the front.