“Shut up.” Leon pierces her throat, and a spot of blood appears on her skin. I grit my teeth.
“She’s right,” I say. “She is okay. Because you’re not going to hurt her.”
“You think you can stop me?”
“You bet your ass.” I nod. “And I think you’re already dead. You just don’t know it yet.”
At that second, Molly twists in Leon’s grip and drops, driving her elbow right into his junk. It shocks and knocks him off balance. Fuck, her hands were free the whole time. Her wrists are raw and bloody. I don’t know how the hell she managed to get free, but she did.
That’s my fucking girl.
He slashes at her with the knife but misses her throat. It catches her shoulder instead. She screams.
I fire a shot, but because I can’t risk hitting her, it goes too wide and misses him.
Leon tries to grab her again, the gun in his flailing hand, knife in the other. Molly scrambles away. He fires a shot that ricochets against the cinderblock wall. He’s a fucking horrible shot, thank fuck.
Another bullet cracks and Leon screams, dropping the gun. His hand was blown apart by the shot my brother just fired. His eyes blaze with rage as he lunges for me with the knife.
I catch his wrist. We go down hard, crashing into palettes. My gun skitters across the concrete floor.
He’s stronger than he looks. Desperate. The knife slashes toward my face and I barely twist away. The blade catches my cheek. Hot blood runsdown my jaw.
No bullets are fired. We’re too close for Cal to get a clean shot.
“You should have stayed in Ireland, you punk bastard,” Leon snarls, pressing down on me with all his weight. “And I should have let her die in that truckyard.”
I lean forward and headbutt him. His nose crunches. Blood sprays out of his nostrils.
But he doesn’t let go of the knife. He drives it down toward my chest and I catch his wrist again, this time with both hands, straining to keep the blade away from me.
“I’m going to kill you,” he yells, pushing harder. “Then I’m going to kill her. And your fucking brother. Then I’m going to disappear like her father, and no one will ever fucking find me.”
“You talk too much,” I rasp. Then I twist his wrist. Something snaps. He screams and the knife falls from his hand.
I grab it and drive it into his shoulder. He screams again, louder.
“That’s for Molly.”
I rip the knife out. Blood spurts.
“That’s for Lola.”
I drive it into his other shoulder.
“And that’s for making me chase you across this fucking city.”
Leon’s screaming now, writhing on the floor. I leave the knife in him and stumble to my feet, looking for my gun.
Molly’s got it.
She stands over Leon, hands shaking, blood running down the side of her neck from where he cut her. The gun is pointed at his head.
“Molly—”
“He was going to kill you.” Her voice is steady and cold. “Hewas going to trade you to the cartel and let them torture you to death.”
“I know.”
