My heart nearly stops in my chest when I round the corner and see Madison in some bloke’s arms. About five yards away, he’s dragging her backwards towards a waiting vehicle blocking the entrance—one hand around her mouth, muffling her screams and profanity, and one arm wrapped around her, trying to subdue her as she fights him like a wildcat.
I recognize Madison’s gun on the ground between us, so I dart for it, lift it and aim it at him. Luckily, he’s at least a full head taller than her, so she’s not directly in the line of fire. “Let her go!”
When he sees me, he stops, frozen by an unexpected witness. Madison, however, renews her struggle. I see a flash of her teeth just before he howls.
In that instant, when her attacker is distracted enough to loosen his grip, I watch, dumbfounded, as Madison totally flips the situation. It’s like seeing Eleanor or Nicole practicing the moves Dimitri has been drilling into them for months. She gets her feet under her, drops into a strong base, brings her arms together and flares her elbows. With enough room under his arms now, she slips from his grip, dropping to the ground and twisting to land on her back.
No time to be amazed.
As soon as she’s completely free of him, I aim the gun at his stomach, flick off the safety, and pull the trigger. The hammer falls and the gun snaps, but the kickback feels wrong. There’s no ringing in my ears from the muzzle blast. The gun didn’t fire.
Bloody hell.
Madison recovers from the confusion before the attacker or I do, landing a kick to his groin from her position on the ground underneath him that makes my body jerk in totally uncontrollable sympathy. The man goes down, and Madison scrambles away.
“It’s not loaded!” she squeaks, darting towards me and safety.
“I gathered,” I growl back, tossing it to her as I close in on the man, who is recovering quicker than I would’ve from a kick to the dick. As he gets to his feet, he pulls a switchblade from his back pocket, making me falter.
I reassess the situation, falling back on Dimitri’s training more easily than I would have thought. It’s calming, this feeling of knowing what to do in a high-stakes situation.
Assess, plan, and act. Be quick so your opponent does not have time to do the same.
He’s a massive bloke, thick around the middle and a few inches taller than me. He’s also got a knife. I’m quick and I can throw a punch, but I don’t have a knife.
Mistakes will be made in every fight, but losing your upper hand is usually the last one.That’s one of my favorite “Dimitri-isms” from the running log we keep to document his unintentionally poetic, violent advice. And he’s right, so it’s a good thing I haven’t lost the upper hand. I’ve still got a trick up my sleeve.
I charge, taking advantage of my speed. Predictably, he slashes at me, but his elbow flares before he moves, and it’s easy to tell what trajectory the assault will take. I’m there, ready, blocking him and ramming my fist into the inside of his wrist. It causes the nerve there to spasm, and his knife clatters to the ground. I get behind him so I can wrap an arm around his thick neck. He starts thrashing against me instantly, and I have to flex with all my might to keep my hold.
A hard jab to my liver steals my breath in a white-hot burst of agony that radiates outward. As I reel from the blow, the man breaks free of the chokehold and turns on me. He smiles with the gleeful menace of a man who knows he’s going to win a fight he didn’t start but very much wants to finish.
Unfortunately for him, this one’s over—he just doesn’t know it yet.
I was never really trying to overpower him; I prefer to outsmart them, anyway, and I’m partial to a bit of sleight of hand. When the game is life and death, you might as well stack the odds.
While he focused on the bicep against his windpipe, he missed the prick of the micro-needle from the custom-built ring I always wear, and the double dose of etorphine straight to the side of his neck. The fast-acting opioid is normally used for bringing down animals, but right handy in a pinch.
As he settles into a pose meant to threaten, intimidate, and ready his own attack, I watch the effects of the sedative settle around his eyes, causing them toflutter closed. He shakes his head, confused by the sudden, unexpected sensation of darkness closing in.
He reaches for me, but he loses his balance and his entire body pitches face-first into the ground. The crack of his head against the pavement rings down the alley, a disgusting, violent sound that’s a relief. If the sedative hadn’t gotten him, that would’ve.
As I heave huge breaths, I wince and clutch my abdomen. Fuck, that smarts. Dimitri’s training involves learning how to take a hit, but every time I think I’ll be prepared for the breathtaking pain that accompanies a sharp elbow to a relatively soft organ, I’m proved a liar.
“Wesley?” Madison asks behind me, voice wavering.
Her voice stirs that creature inside me that’s all instinct and violence. I turn, grab behind her neck and pull her into a rough kiss meant to remind us both that she’s all right. She’s in one piece. “Are you hurt?” I demand, scanning her body for blood.
She grabs my biceps tightly, digging her nails in. “I don’t think so,” she chokes out. “I’m okay. Thanks to you… Is he dead?”
“Heavily sedated,” I reply, releasing her against my will and crouching down to check the man’s pockets. Empty. My stomach sinks—he’s a pro.
I stare down at him. The urge to take his life for daring to put his hands on my girl is strong—and it would be so easy—but there’s a reason I left him alive. There’s a reason it’s always part of my plan to leave them alive. Dead men tell no tales. “We need to question him—to find out why he attacked you,” I tell her.
She nods, understanding. “How long will he be out?”
“A few hours. But we have to get out of here,” I say, throwing a nervous look over my shoulder. More could be coming. Since we don’t know what motivated him, we have no way of knowing what the danger is. “I’m going to send my team in to collect him.”
Her lower lip wobbles. “He c-came out of nowhere while I was getting my suitcase out of my car… I got away and I ran, but he caught me…”
