“Literally,” mocks the man pushing Aerin further and further over the edge.
She screams, clawing at his shoulders and slapping him as hard as she can, but it doesn’t faze him.
“Aww,” mocks the woman, and she loops her arm containing the bottle around her lover’s neck. “Don’t look so scared! Trust me, we’re going to have thebestsex of our life after we get paid for?—”
I don’t let her finish.
Reaching the top of the walkway, I lift my gun and fire off three rapid shots.
The first hits the man in the back and goes straight through, shattering the vodka bottle on the other side of his chest and landing in the shoulder of the man holding Aerin.
My second bullet thuds into the woman’s lower back as she screams, and my third collides with the back of her knee.
The impact forces her leg to give way and she falls while her lover crumples to the side and topples off the walkway.
I sprint forward and fire my fourth shot through the middle of the couple as they part and it hits the third man square in the throat.
He stumbles.
His grip loosens on Aerin, and she screams in terror as her weak grip on his shirt slips.
Her fingers only brush thin air as she topples backward.
Aerin falls.
I throw myself forward and land on the walkway just as my hand closes around her wrist.
Her scream cuts off when her body jolts from my grip, and she’s left dangling over the abyss.
The weight of her body drags me an inch further over the edge where the ridge of torn, rusted metal scrapes painfully against my chest.
“Stop moving!” I yell at her.
She just screams and screams, twisting back and forth in terror while clutching at my forearm with her other hand. “Help me!”
“I am! Just—” A ragged gasp behind me forces me to roll onto my back, twisting my shoulder in the process. I take the shot before I’ve even fully processed the bleeding woman standing over me with her own gun raised.
It hits her in the chest, and she stumbles back one step, then two, before toppling over the railing and joining her lover on the floor far below.
“Falco!” Aerin screams. “Help me!”
“I’ve got you! I’ve got you.” With a pounding heart and throbbing shoulder, I roll back over and grab her arm with both hands. “I’ve got you, Aerin. I’ve got you.”
I pull her back up onto the walkway and Aerin collapses in my arms, trembling and sobbing. She clutches at my shirt and buries her wet face in my neck, unable to speak through the sobs tearing out of her.
The relief is unimaginable, and it hits me as hard as a lungful of frozen air on a cold December day.
Panting harshly, I lie back and hold her close with one arm. My other rolls back and forth to try and ease the pain in my shoulder, then I reach for my phone and call in the code.
Code fourteen. Lethal attempt on her life.
“Thank you,” Aerin gasps out, choking through her tears. “Thank you.”
“You’re safe,” I say breathlessly. “You’re safe. I’m right here. I’m here.”
Aerin balls herself up in my lap and sobs.
After a few seconds, I wind my second arm around her and hold her as close as I dare, but it quickly turns into me holding her tightly as she clings to me and a surge of affection crawls up from the cold, dark depths of my heart.
