I couldn’t help the small, sad smile that tugged at one side of my mouth. Digging my fingers into her tighter and pressing my forehead harder to hers, I sighed softly. “You’re a fighter. My fighter. Don’t give up, not even if…”
There was no need for me to say the rest.
“Okay, time’s up,” Cortez said, and you could practically fucking hear the roll of his eyes. “Gentlemen, bring in the guns.”
The frown on my face was immediate. When one of his goons dropped a box full of weapons at the side of either of us, I felt like someone had just handed me the winning lottery ticket. I could reach one of those fuckers quickly and it would be all over.
Only that trail of thought went nowhere as the two of us became surrounded by more men again. As I looked back up into Ayda’s eyes and felt our faces suddenly being forced even closer together than they already were, that small glimmer of hope quickly drifted away.
We each had two guns pressed against the back of our heads.
One wrong move, one attempt to do anything that wasn’t an instruction and we’d both be wearing each other’s blood.
All I could do was close my eyes and wait.
I finally understood it all.
“I like to call this game,he loves me, he loves me not.”
“You sick fuck,” I growled.
“Thank you,” he said through an obvious fucking grin. “As I was saying, here we have twelve guns. Six loaded, six not. You each have three turns to pick up a weapon of your choice, point it at your RomeoorJuliet’s head and pull… the… trigger.”
Ayda’s tremble ran through every connection of our bodies. Her breathing picked up as her eyes darted to the side to look at the box next to her. I thought she was going to protest, but then I saw her head rolling to where Maisey was lying dead, and she forced her eyes closed instead, an almost inaudibleoh Godcoming from somewhere deep inside of her.
“That gives you a fifty-fifty chance of survival, my little lovebirds, which, considering how much I’d really like to see you both at the bottom of the ocean, I think is incredibly fair. And allisfair in love and war, no? Here we have both love and war. I wonder which one proves to be more powerful?”
My jaw rolled back and forth in some kind of rhythm that made no sense to me, but had the adrenaline slowly risingthrough my broken body again.
“I guess what the two of you need to ask yourselves today is this…” He paused, leaning closer towards us until his stale breath washed over the sides of our faces and clung to all the open wounds on our skin. “Who will be on your side tonight? Will it be God? Or will it be the reaper you so proudly wear on your chests every day?”
I shook my head slowly against Ayda’s as the trembling of her body started to take on a more violent form.
“Breathe,” I whispered softly. “It’s going to be okay. You can do this. We can do this,” I lied to her. “We’re not dying today.”
Ayda’s eyes moved between the boxes and me again. She balled and released her good hand several times before letting it rest on my leg, squeezing with more strength than I expected from her. She seemed to have accepted that, even if we made it out of this particular torture, there was a chance this wouldn’t be the end of it.
Dragging in a deep breath, she released it and nodded, her lips forming words that were never spoken out loud.
“Do what they ask,” I said so only she could hear. “I need you to stay alive, Ayda.”
“Let’s get to it!” Cortez jumped up, kicking the guns closer to us until they crashed into our legs. “Ladies first.”
I’d never been one to tremble at the reality of death, but before Ayda came along, I’d never really had such a significant reason to live. Nodding slowly against her head, I inhaled her as much as I could and held onto her waist tightly. My body seemed to protest and I swear to all that was fucking holy, all the wounds that were already slashed across my body opened up even more just to protest and make themselves heard. Theycried for me to stop this. They begged for me to save her. My biceps suddenly felt wet and warm again. A small trickle of blood fell down past my eye and over my cheek, but I was ready. I was ready to die for her if that’s what I had to do.
Letting off a shaky breath, Ayda’s hand reached for the box. The moment her fingers glided over the cool steel, her eyes slid closed and another tear made a track through the dirt on her face. The gun rattled slightly in her grip as a sob broke and her eyes opened again.
“I can’t do this, Drew,” she whispered, her gaze flickering to the gun in her hand. “I’d rather turn it on myself.”
Staring into her eyes with determination, I reached out to her arm, guiding the gun up to my head and positioning it where it needed to be. My chest was heaving, every breath I took not doing enough, not giving me what I needed.
“If you don’t, they’ll shoot me anyway. This could be empty,” I whispered, curling my fingers around her wrist to try and soothe her in any way I could. “Itwillbe empty. We were meant to be together, Ayda. We were meant to cross paths. Not even God is cruel enough to take me away from you now. It will be empty. Itwillbeempty.And if it’s not, you win.”
I attempted to smile, but all that came out was a paralyzed smirk that held no other emotion behind it but grief.
“I love you. Pull the trigger, darlin’.”
Chapter Forty-Three
