The gasp across the room made everyone’s head swivel toward Gracie.
So I had an excuse for my gaze to linger, to watch the way her pretty blue eyes went round in shock.
“Gonna guess Cameron never grew up to be as big as you,” Brooks commented.
“Fucking Russia isn’t as big as him,” Pagan mumbled.
“Cameron could never put on weight, no matter how much he tried. He also never had to take a life before. He had no fucking idea what he was doing.”
I had my life to thank for that.
Because if he had the balls that came from a penchant for ending lives, that knife would have been deep in my carotid before I could even wake up. And there was no coming back from that shit.
But he’d hesitated.
And I’d slept lightly, thanks to a lifetime of being in and out of prison.
I remembered that night with a clarity that immediately put me back there, pulse pounding, betrayal burning a hole in my stomach.
I’d grabbed his wrist with one hand, fingers crushing as I pulled his hand away from my neck.
The other arm cocked, swung, and landed right to one eye. Then the other.
I scrambled up as we both fought over the knife.
I could still feel the sting of the blade as it sliced my palm, the warm trickle of my blood as it dripped from my skin to the ground.
Then, well, it was pure rage.
I pummeled his face, hearing the crunch of his nose, feeling his hot blood on my skin.
“Then he landed a lucky punch to my fucking liver,” I told the club.
I saw the understanding on all their faces… and the commiseration from former cage fighters like Laz, Pagan, and Niro.
Because a punch to the liver is fucking excruciating.
But only for thirty seconds to a minute.
By the time I’d recovered, the bastard had found my gun.
We struggled over it.
“Then it went off,” I admitted.
The image came back.
Even in the low early morning light, I could see the gaping hole, watched the blood ooze out, saw the life draining from his eyes.
“Or so I thought.”
“Didn’t check for a pulse?” Brooks asked.
“Man, I wrapped him up in black trash bags and carted him across the fucking state. He was dead weight when I dumped him in the woods. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.”
Or so I thought.
Maybe I hadn’t looked closely enough.
