“Malachi, look at me.”
The heavy feet thud closer.
“Isla.” Her name is a croak from my suddenly-dry throat. “Go.”
“Look at me, Malachi.”
I can’t see anything, and then realize my eyelids have closed on their own accord, so I lift them. She’s there, hovering over me, tears spilling from her terror-ridden, russet eyes. Her hair falls in an ebony curtain around our faces, just like hundreds of moments from before when we were wrapped as tight and close as humanly possible.
“You were right.” Another croak from my parched mouth that I know is a result of at least one hit taken to my gut, but I have to tell her. She has to know. “All of it was a set-up. They set you up. For this.”
Isla’s wide, red-rimmed, spilling eyes darting back and forth between mine, her lips parted as hitched breathing exits in tiny puffs of air. “It doesn’t matter. Just look at me. Just—”
She’s suddenly ripped away from me. The ring leader yanks her head up by her hair, wrenching her neck backward in a way that causes her elbows to buckle, and she falls with her chest flush against mine. He’s a smarmy, spindly little shit, and I would pop off bullet number four right through his goatee-framed mouth, but the Desert Eagle suddenly weighs about a ton as it rests in my hand on the rug at my side.
He crouches next to my head, angling himself to face both me and Isla while still pulling her head back, and then a shitty smirk tugs across his face.
“That’s right, that’s right.” He chuckles jovially, the sick fuck. “I did set her up. She’s my bargaining chip.” He raises a 1911 and points it at my face. “And you areEl Duque. You meddled with our plans in the past, and you sent your spies to meddle with mytia abuela, and I had to kill her.” He presses the cold steel muzzle to my forehead. “Do you like that you made me kill my sweet, little, oldtia?Do you enjoy having so much blood on your hands,El Duque?” He turns the pistol away from me and wedges it against Isla’s forehead. “I think you do. I think you like it so much that you will enjoy it when I put a hole in my cousin’s head, and her blood spills all over you.”
Isla whimpers, but it comes out pinched and throaty with her neck wrenched backward. Tears stream down her flushed cheeks. Fortuna sobs from somewhere in the room, and I can hear Ernesto huffing and puffing. My breath is coming shallow through my nostrils, and my periphery is darkening, but I blink it away and drag in oxygen, pulling stamina from God knows where to lift my hand that’s not gripping the gun that is suddenly too heavy. It’s futile, but I swore that I would go down swinging, and for as long as I remember, I made a vow to her, and even though I’m failing her again, I have to try.
My arm waggles and shakes as I raise my hand to her forehead and wedge my palm between the cold muzzle of the gun and her petal soft skin. If he’s going to pull the trigger, the bullet will have to go through me first. It’s not enough, but it’s all I can do.
The ringleader lifts his brows and chuckles sardonically. “Oh. That’s adorable. You think you are Superman. You think this bullet will bounce off of you, and you’ll save her.” He leans his greasy, tan face closer to me while pressing the gun harder against my hand, pressing my palm harder against her forehead, and I stroke my thumb along her temple. “You are not Superman,El Duque.And your insolence makes me think that you deserve a little something extra before I blow her fucking brains all over your fancy fucking shirt.”
He jerks his chin and gives a quick whistle, and footsteps stomp toward us.
“Can you see this guy,El Duque?”he goes on. “Turn your head so you can look at him.”
My breath is even more shallow, and I can’t so much as move, let alone turn my head. But then the guy steps into my line of sight, and I recognize him, too.
The other guy from the photo.
And all I can do is grit my teeth and mumble, “Fuck… you.”
“Ahhh…” The ringleader chuckles again. “I think you mean, fuckher, ‘cuz he already did once. And you know that, don’t you? You’re looking really pale,El Duque,but I can still see that you know this guy from the sexy photo they sent you. Right?” He leans down toward me again. “Did you like that picture? Did you look at it while you were beatin’ your meat and crying over how she cheated on you withtwo guysat once?” Another sardonic laugh as he pulls his face away from me. “Well. I’m thinking the perfect send off for you is to let you watch him do it again, right here in this beautiful living room.”
He whistles again, jerking Isla’s hair tighter, causing her to yelp, and I can’t even move aside from my thumb that’s still stroking her temple.
“Isla.” Her name spills from my dry mouth, and the other piece of shit is chuckling while licking his lips, and I grip the Desert Eagle on the rug at my side, my finger inside the trigger guard, and all I have to do is lift my arm.
The ringleader right fucking there, and all I have to do is lift my arm.
I drag in a breath in the ultimate test of stamina, holding the grip with trembling fingers, and it feels like hefting the weight of the earth.
A wall-rattlingPOPechoes through the room, and the ringleader’s head flies backward, blood and gore spraying the air behind him. He teeters for a second, and then slumps and falls to the floor.
My finger is on the trigger, but my arm is still on the ground, and I didn’t make that shot.
From somewhere behind me, a bolt-action rifle chambers a round, and anotherPOPricochets in the silence of the room, and the remaining piece of shit who raped Isla drops to the floor.
Idefinitelydidn’t make that shot.
A thirdPOP. Another heavy thump of a body hitting the floor.
Still not me.
My vision is blackening faster, and my extremities are starting to go numb, and I don’t know who made those shots, but all six men are down now, and Isla’s no longer in immediate danger, so I focus all my energy on blocking everything out but her.
