Pain tore through her body, though she refused to focus on it. The taste of blood filled her mouth. She ripped the Guinness sign off the wall and clubbed Bazarov over the head with it, but the blow didn’t faze him. He punched her in the kidneys, kneed her stomach, and threw her back against the wall. His right hand wrapped around her throat, his grip harder than iron.
“You owe me an eye, bitch.” Bazarov’s voice was a gravelly growl. With his free hand, he reached for the knife on his belt, and a fresh burst of adrenaline surged through her system.
Years of training kicked in as Essie struck his forearm to break his grasp. She grabbed his wrist and twisted to the left, throwing the Russian off-balance. From there, she tried to put him in a headlock, but he grabbed her around the waist and bulldozed her back toward the dining room table. Halfway there, they hit a patch of soapy tiles and crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
Heart pounding, gasping for air, Essie rolled to the side. She grabbed a large chunk of broken ceramic and jammed it into Bazarov’s side. He muttered in Russian, but his words were too low and guttural for her to understand what he said. Not that it mattered. It was kill or be killed. Breathless, she scurried on hands and knees across the slippery floor.
Bazarov’s man lay dead by the door, a pistol still in his shoulder holster and a knife strapped to his thigh. As she reached for the gun, Bazarov grabbed her ankle and yanked her back toward him.
With a labored grunt, she used her free leg to kick at him, and a sick sense of satisfaction filled her when she heard the crunch of bone. Blood gushed from his broken nose, but he acted as if the pain didn’t even register in his mind.
She kept on kicking until his grip on her ankle loosened enough for her to break free. Not wasting a heartbeat, she crawled to the dead mercenary and grabbed his gun.
As she twisted around, pain seared her side, but she didn’t have time to check what had caused it. Bazarov was on his feet and coming her way, a look of murder on his face and a long serrated knife in his hand.
Essie fired the pistol again and again, not stopping until the gun clicked empty and Bazarov dropped to the floor in a pool of blood. To be sure he was dead, she checked his pulse. When she found none, she stripped him of his weapons.
Chest aching, lungs burning like a furnace, she staggered across the room, leaned against the wall, and lowered herself to the floor. Her whole body hurt, making it difficult to catalogue the full extent of her injuries. No gunshot wounds, which was always a plus, though she’d torn a few of her stitches and the reopened wound had bled through her shirt.
She listened for signs of Jackson. In all the excitement, she’d completely lost track of him. No gunfire, and no sounds of struggle, and a sliver of fear slid through her.
“Kitchen’s clear,” she called out. It hurt to speak, and she gingerly moved her jaw to make sure it wasn’t broken.
Seconds passed. No response. Her stomach lurched. If something happened to him—
No.She forced the thought from her mind. There’d be time for panic later. “Jackson?”
Another few seconds passed, and she heard a rapid series of thuds, followed by the deafening boom of a shotgun.
Then Jackson’s large frame filled the entryway to the kitchen, and relief hit her so hard she felt dizzy.
“Piece of cake,” he said between huge gulps of air. He held the shotgun in his right hand. A flashlight was in his left. There was a gash on his forehead above his left eye, and a splatter of blood across the front of his shirt, but he otherwise seemed okay. A cocky grin warmed his face, but it fell at the sight of her.
“Shit, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” she grunted. “Never been better.”
“Shot, stabbed?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m riding on a lot of adrenaline.”
Jackson knelt beside her to assess the damage. “Aw, hell. Pinto’s going to be mad you tore his stitches.”
“I’ll send him a note of apology.” Feeling slightly disoriented, she took stock of the ruined kitchen. If it looked this bad in the dark, she could only imagine how it would look once the power returned. “Sorry about the mess.”
“Don’t worry about it. You should see the living room. Navarre is going to be pissed.” He ran the flashlight over the kitchen, stopping at the bullet-ridden stove and ruined cabinets. Overall, the room was a total loss, though a few items here and there somehow managed to escape the carnage. “Damn, I was kind of hoping that ugly-ass backsplash would get taken out.”
Essie raised the gun she’d taken off Bazarov’s body and fired two shots at the backsplash. “Better?”
Jackson gaped at her. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“What? You said you wanted it taken out. Mission accomplished.” She looked around what was once a beautiful kitchen. Jackson had told her all about the work he and Navarre had done to renovate the house, and she felt a twinge of guilt over bringing so much destruction to his door. “I’ll pay for the damage.”
“The hell you will,” Jackson said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s not your fault some psycho tried to kill us. Besides, that’s what insurance is for.”
She could only imagine explaining this to an insurance claims adjuster. “At least let me cover the deductible.”
He made a low, masculine noise. “We’ll talk about it later.”
