I had no clue what happened inside the house, but common sense told me it had Muñoz written all over it. No civilian would have the balls to set foot on Carrera grounds, much less touch one of their men.
Pressed up against a corner wall, my breath came hard and heavy. Sweat rolled down my temples, and I forced myself to calm down enough to think when the realization hit me.
I was completely alone.
Joaquin was dead, Val and Mateo were God knew where, and I’d crossed the border into a nightmare.
“Eden Lachey…”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I crossed my arms against my chest with a gun in each hand and a layer of sweat building between the grips and my palms. The thick accent snarled with contempt as heavy footsteps moved around the living room.
“Come out, Eden Lachey. The longer you make me chase you, the worse it’s going to be for you.”
Stifling a scream, I pushed myself farther into the wall. As the footsteps moved closer, I opened my eyes and scanned the alcove for an escape route. Near panicking, I finally located a cracked door that led to a pantry the size of my dad’s entire house. I’d run into it earlier in a self-guided tour of the estate.
Five hundred feet was all that stood between life and death.
I was prey, hunted in a fatal game of cat and mouse.
I wonder if this is what Nash felt like before he died?
Leaving the security of my dark alcove scared the shit out of me, but logic told me I was seconds away from being found. Needing a free hand, I shoved my gun back into my thigh holster and held the grip of Joaquin’s with a sweaty grasp. Giving theSanta Muertependant a rub for good luck, I counted to three and pushed off the wall. My chest burned as I ran like hell toward the door, keeping a straight-line focus with a prayer on my lips.
With no footsteps behind me, my heart beat wild with adrenaline.
Holy shit, I’m going to make it.
Just as my fingers closed around the corners of the open door, my phone rang.
The phone I’d left in the pantry down the steps in front of me rang loud and repeatedly.
No!
Rapid footsteps pounded behind me.
Tearing the door open, I took one step when a rough hand grabbed me by the hair and jerked me backward until I lost my footing and tumbled against a hard chest. Terror shot through me, and I managed one scream before a dirty and calloused hand clamped hard against my mouth. Out of nowhere, his other hand ripped the gun from my hands the moment I took aim.
“Going somewhere?”
When Emilio took me outside my father’s house, it was from behind. I never saw it coming and was unprepared for the attack. I never had a chance to defend myself or fight back.
If death came for me tonight, it’d be with blood under my nails.
Opening wide, I bit down as hard as I could on his fingers, immediately tasting blood on my tongue. Yelling loud, he shook his mangled hand, as droplets of blood splattered across the white walls. Seizing the opportunity, I quickly turned around and raised a knee, grazing the side of his nuts. It was enough to double him over and draw out a tortured groan.
With no time to wipe errant tears, I took the pantry stairs three at a time, praying I didn’t stumble and fall. Part of me wanted to stop and look for the incessantly ringing phone to call Val, but I knew there wasn’t time. Once my eyes landed on the door leading to the courtyard, I broke into an all-out sprint.
Almost.
Every Thanksgiving, Nash would invite his buddies over to play tackle football after dinner. Every year, I’d beg him to let me play. Every year he’d give me the same answer.
“No, Edie. You’re too breakable. Girls don’t play rough sports like this.”
The year I turned sixteen, I’d had enough. Dressed in my sluttiest outfit, I talked Nick Tunstall into letting me play on his team, in exchange for letting him see my boobs. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but I had a point to make. I rationalized that the ends justified the means.
Nash had been half-right. It wasn’t that girls couldn’t play football; it was that they didn’t play with huge, two-hundred pound men. The first hit I took felt like what I imaged hitting a concrete wall at two-hundred miles per hour would feel like.
That tackle felt like a massage compared to a direct hit from a Muñoz henchman.
