But okay. All right. They were obviously doing this.
Rio played it dumb and friendly, forcing his body to remain relaxed even though inwardly he was preparing for battle. Both men—white, tats, beards, beefy, ballcaps—had four to six inches and about fifty pounds on him. Which didn’t mean jackshit if he could stay out of reach, because he had not just his speed but his training in hand-to-hand. But both also wore jackets over their T-shirts, which meant yeah, like their friend, Van Guy, they were probably carrying. Confirmation came in a flash of a holstered handgun as Red Cap’s open jacket flapped.
Meanwhile, Red’s good buddy, Camo Cap, was hiding something in his right hand in a laughably bad switchblade carry—knuckles bent and hand flat, palm carefully to the back where Rio couldn’t see what he was holding. A knife made more sense as a weapon in the broad daylight. Shooting a target in this world of doorbell cams and cell phone videos would be extra reckless. A sharp blade to the gut, however, could be deployed silently and could damage a man pretty damn badly. No gunshot to trigger any 9-1-1 calls.
Rio, however, had brought only a too-soft apple to this impending knife fight—he’d been planning to toss it into the dumpster out in the parking lot. He also had his keys and wallet in his pockets, his cell phone, his hands, elbows, knees, unbooted feet...
He stopped walking, dropped the apple, surreptitiously stepped out of his flip-flops, and reached for his keys, because hauling ass back the way he’d come and getting himself through his locked door and inside his apartment was his only real shot here. Once inside, during the five and half seconds before they kicked down the door or blasted their way through the front window, he’d grab his boots and adios his weaponless ass out the window in the bedroom. Then run like hell.
So okay, it wasn’t great, but at least he had a plan.
Rio made himself smile at the two men who were clearly approaching him—had to be—because there was no one else around, damnit. “Hey, sorry, I gotta tell you, landlord’s pretty intense when it comes to his no-solicitation rule. Lotta cameras around the complex, plus he’s always watching out his window. Hey, Fred! How’s it going, my man?” He waved up to the window on the second floor middle unit even though he had no clue who actually lived there, they weren’t even home, and his real landlord was a soulless corporation without a first or last name.
Red Cap turned to peer up at that window while Camo glanced back at the van, nodding to the man standing beside it who—fuck—opened the sliding side door.
Yup, Rio was about to get stabbed and grabbed and tossed into the back of that van. The choose-your-own-adventure selections at that point were not optimal, the least-desirable being a quick drive to the desert and a double-pop to the back of his head. Another, equally undesirable, was him being used as exhibit A to show Jon just how much it hurt when fingernails got pulled out... before getting that drive and double-pop.
And that was fucking not going to happen, not if he had anything to say about it. He had an amazing woman to talk out of hating him. Dying was not an option.
So Rio lunged and spun and slammed still-distracted Red Cap in the side of the head with his elbow, using the blow both to domino the dude into his camo-capped friend and to launch his own bolt back toward his apartment door.
Red went down hard, but Camo was quicker on his feet than he had a right to be, considering his size. He managed not to stab Red or himself with his hidden knife, which was a crying shame. Instead he sidestepped Red and swiped at Rio, catching the back of his shirt with the tip of the blade. Fuck. This dude was fast and that knife had to go.
So Rio turned on a dime, using all of his force and energy to drive his full body mass toward Camo Cap. He grabbed the dude’s right arm, jammed his elbow, and the blade hit the sidewalk with a clatter.
Red was still down on the sidewalk, wheezing and struggling to push himself back to his feet—maybe try a little cardio along with the deadlifts next time, bro. Still, that knife landed a little too close to Red’s massive hands so even as Rio simultaneously slammed his fist into Camo’s face, he also kicked it out of Red’s reach.
Fuck. Bare foot. Sharp blade. Bad combo. But surely there was some ancient adage about no room for crybabies in a knife fight, and if not he’d fucking write one. Just as soon as he survived this shit and made sure Casey and her dickhead brother were both safe, too.
The knife obligingly skittered across the sidewalk as Camo’s head snapped back and his arms flailed out, exposing his somewhat softer belly and oh yeah. It was right there for the taking, and Rio didn’t need an engraved invitation. He kneed the fucker, as hard as he could, square in the balls.
Out on the tarmac, Van Guy had drawn his weapon but was still staying safely back—until now. Now he hustled towards them as Rio met Camo’s face with a slamming uppercut as the man collapsed in on himself. The blow sent him staggering back—directly into Red, who hit the ground again even as Camo Cap tripped over him and went down, too.
Rio ran.
This was it. The moment of truth, in which he’d find out whether or not Red, Camo, and Van Guy—or their overlord and master—wanted Rio dead badly enough to fire their weapons at high fucking noon in downtown San Diego.
The first bullet whined over his head as he fumbled to get his deadbolt key into the lock on his door.
That would be a yes, then.
The second grazed his right arm, as the shooter—Van Guy—stopped trying for a head shot and aimed instead for the larger target of Rio’s torso. And mostly missed, thank you Jesus.
Still, Rio’s blood did what blood did when bullets were launched out of handguns, spraying onto his previously pristine white door, slicking up the knob, which he grabbed and yanked, hurling himself through the doorway. He slammed the door shut behind him, throwing the bolt.
Were they gonna follow?
Rio didn’t wait to find out. He slipped and skidded on his tiled kitchen floor—fucking bloody foot, what a pain in his ass—until he threw himself forward onto the living room carpet where he finally found traction—and rocketed into his bedroom.
No one shot out the living room bay window. No one attempted to kick in his door.
At least not yet.
Rio jammed his feet into his boots, grabbed a T-shirt from his pile of clean laundry to staunch the blood from his arm, and was out the window in a flash.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Incoming text from Mario Rosetti.”
