“All this for a brat?” I hear a male voice sneer before a head pops into view; a young man with tanned skin and a face tattoo looks down at me. It takes all my strength to keep my eyes open, but something in my gut tells me I need to.
“Who’s the bitch?”
“Who the fuck cares? Grab the girl and let's go.” Someone I can’t see tells the guy staring down at me.
He groans but moves to climb through the door, reaching towards us.
“No.” I kick out, and I’m shocked when I not only have enough energy to move but also when my foot makes contact.
He jerks his hand back, and he curls his lips at me with a hiss of pain. “Watch it, bitch, or I’ll put a bullet in your head. Just give me the girl, and you can find a new job.”
“No!” I shout again as he once again reaches for her, but this time I’m not so lucky, and I can’t lift my leg high enough to fend him off.
He manages to grab her ankle, pulling on it with no regard for her or her possible injuries.
“Let her go!” I yell as panic threatens to choke me.
I can’t let them take her; I’d rather die.
“Mommy?” I look down to find Addy looking up at me. There’s a small gash on her head that’s bleeding, but it’s the fear in her eyes that really turns my stomach.
It’s my job to protect her.
“Mommy?” Face tattoo guy pauses in his attempt to grab Addy, turning his attention back to his partner, who I can’t see.
“The boss didn’t say shit about a mother.” He sounds concerned but also curious.
“It’s okay, honey, Mommy’s here,” I tell her, trying to offer a smile, but her eyes have already fallen closed again.
As much as I might want to comfort her, my words were really for these assholes who are trying to take her from me.
“Grab 'em both.”
No, that’s not much better.
Before he can reach for her again, I roll us so that Addy is mostly beneath me, my back to the door and the asshole reaching for her.
A sharp pain bites into my arm, and I look down to find it littered with shards of glass. I don’t get a moment to worry about how to handle them before my head is yanked back by my hair.
A scream is ripped from my throat as he yanks hard enough that I scramble to push myself up. I have no doubt he intends to pull me from the car by it.
“If you want to save her so bad, you can come first,” he growls in my ear. Reaching out, he grips my glass-filled arm and drags me out the door, seeming unfazed that he probably just got a few cuts himself.
He shoves me off the side of the car onto the pavement below, and I look up to find the vehicle on its side in the middle of the road.
My first instinct is to look around for help, but it doesn’t take long to realize there isn’t any. This area isn’t rural by any means, but it’s richer, the houses are further apart, the yards are bigger, and with the cold, nobody is outside.
Vince!
Everything hurts, but I know Vince is our best chance, Addy’s best chance.
“Who the fuck is this?” The faceless voice isn’t faceless anymore as he looms over me.
His skin is darker than mine, and his slight accent makes me wonder if he’s from here as I stare up into his dark eyes and face with a scattering of tattoos: a knife, a teardrop, a star, and some words I can’t read. However, I’m unsure if that’s because of the hit to my head or they just aren’t English, not that it matters right now.
He’s dressed in dark jeans and a black T-shirt, and I’m pretty sure there’s a gun tucked into the front of his pants. I look back at the man to find that they don’t look that different, though the guy who pulled me from the car definitely looks younger, and both of them have the same knife tattoo under their left eye.
Everything about them screams dangerous, and despite my current situation, all I can do is hope they don’t go back for Addison, that I can just keep them distracted.
