The guy releases her just long enough for her to break away and me to strike. I pull the baton from my purse and open it with a lightning-quick flick of my wrist. I hit him in the arm, the side, and the thigh in a swift combo.
“Motherfucker!” He drops to his knees as he tries to shield himself. Sorry, dickhead, you’re done.
“G, run!” I order as I beat the guy down, and two more men filter out of the car.
With no argument, she books it down the alleyway, one of the guys attempting to go after her. I get a quick hit on him before I’m attacked by douchebag number two. He pulls a gun, and I knock it out of his hand with the end of the metal baton as I’m grabbed from behind. I throw an elbow back and hit him in the gut before whacking him in the head over my shoulder with the baton. He drops, but they keep coming. These fucking guys are tough, and I’m not exactly dressed for combat. My heels keep slipping on the slick ground, and the tight dress restricts my range of motion. Not to mention the constant bouts of nausea making me lightheaded.
I’m not one to run from a fight, but I’ve never had to worry about anyone else but me before. Now I’m carrying secret cargo. Secret cargo I have my heart set on keeping. But one wrong kick or punch could cost me, and I am just not willing to take the risk. Regina is safe, and that’s all that matters for now. Not who got in more punches or who took more bullets. Backing away slowly, I swing the baton in a defensive figure eight just as a fourth man exits the vehicle.
Great.
He comes at me dressed in a dark black suit and mirrored aviator sunglasses, hair pulled back in a high bun and brown beard manicured perfectly. Wielding a butterfly knife as he approaches, he looks as lethal as one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, the glinting blade and handles helicoptering expertly in his right hand. He barges between the two men’s shoulders like a bull, barricading me back into the brick wall. He doesn’t stop coming until his massive forearm is crushing my windpipe. I try to fight back, drawing on every fucking martial art move I know, but he’s like a goddamn rock, and I can’t get the footing I need as I hover off the ground to get a penetrative kick in.
The aggressor’s lips curve into a cold, amused, triumphant smile as I struggle, attacking with futile arm strikes.
“Gah!” I get in a shot to his face, cracking the glasses right on his nose.
He laughs, shaking his head until the broken frames fall to the ground. That’s when I get a tried and true look at him. A clear, unobstructed view of his features. No, not just his features.His eyes.Green, like cut emeralds. Incandescent and wild. Green, like the man’s I was sent to kill. The man who I fell for before I could stop myself. The man I fled from. The man whose child I’m carrying.
But although they’re the same color, they’re different. Empty, ruthless, bloodthirsty. Nothing like the ones I came to adore. Nothing like the warm, sincere, humane eyes that made my insides kindle. That made me tumble head over heels.
“Baz?” I struggle to swallow, stunned.
His inhuman gaze narrows, heavily trained on me. In this aging moment, I’m a stranger. A nobody, a nothing. I barely recognize him, and it breaks my heart. He was clearly playing me the same way I was playing him. Although, I stopped playing after a while. It was all real for me. The time was real, my feelings were real, this baby is real.
“Baz, let go!” I demand.
“After you’re dead.” He raises his free hand and puts on another show with the butterfly knife, flipping it through his fingers like a deadly pinwheel.
“Baz!” I thrash fitfully, desperate to break free. He closes the knife then opens it again in a stealthy move before rearing his arm back, the tip aimed right at my torso. “Baz, don’t!” I screech. A bloodcurdling, ear-piercing sound. I protect my abdomen as something shifts in his stare. Clarity? Recognition? Realization? I bet on number three as he inspects my trembling eyes. As he reads my mind, placing me under that damn spotlight like only he can do. His gaze drops for a fraction of a second to where I’m protecting my stomach. A dark, harrowing expression mars his freshly trimmed face. An entire decade passes before he moves again. Before he fists the handle of the knife in his hand and smashes me right in the face, catapulting me into darkness.
“GET UP, STEVIE.”I hear his voice raise from beyond the grave in the darkness, and my chest aches.“Don’t punk out.”Then he laughs. God, that sinister, demented laugh. “Don’t be fucking weak. You know who’s weak? Pussies, that’s who. And just because you have one doesn’t mean you have to be one.”
My face hurts. “Benny?” I can’t see him in the darkness, but I can feel him. Feel his wrath after I disappointed him.“I’m not weak!”I scream. “I am not weak!”
I startle awake, and my head throbs. Oh, God. I have the hangover from hell. I look around the foreign room. Where am I? I try to get up, but I’m deterred by the handcuffs shackling me to the bed. What the fuck? I yank my arms, the metal chain links clanking against the iron part of the headboard above me.
I try to remember how I got here. Benny? No.Baz. Shit. It all comes rushing back. Baz in the alleyway. Baz with the knife. Baz almost killing me,again. I clench my jaw and my face stings. Damn, he hit me fucking hard. He hit me like he hates me. Which also fucking hurts.
Baz isn’t the first man to hit me, and I doubt he’ll be the last. When I first went to live with Benny, he would beat me often. Once or twice a week, at least. Even through all my training, all my collection of skills, he made sure I knew who was boss. I let him do it for years. Layering bruises on top of my already bloodied lips and black eyes from sessions with my trainers. It didn’t matter how hard they hit me, Benny’s blows always hurt more. They hurt deep down inside because I loved him. I wanted to please him, but I felt like I never could. Until the day I hit him back. I couldn’t take the abuse anymore. The rage was storming inside me. I was older by then. Nearly twenty. I had taken down men twice my size, killed in cold blood, and bloomed into a seductress. But I was always fearful of Benny. He was the one person who scared me most. He was unpredictable, and unpredictability is a dangerous thing. But I didn’t care at that moment. I just wanted him to stop hurting me. I wanted him to stop hurting my heart every time he touched me with violent hands. I snapped, hauled off and clocked him square in the mouth. He fell back, lip split wide open, blood pouring onto his black shirt. When I realized what I did, I panicked, knowing I was in for the beating of my life.Shit, shit, shit.I almost started to cry when Benny started laughing. A huge, crazy cackle booming from his bloody mouth. I stood there gaping at him, completely confused.
“It’s about fucking time.” He looked up at me from his seat on the floor.“You have finally awoken.”
I just stared at him dumbfounded.“Awoken?”
Benny stood up, wiping his bloody lip, his teeth stained red.
“Yes. Little fox, awoken.”He stalked toward me until my back hit the wall. He placed his hands on my neck and forced my face up by stabbing the tips of his thumbs into the tender flesh below my jaw. I swallowed hard, feeling their uncomfortable pressure.“Don’t ever let anyone push you around, Stevie. Not even me.”
With that statement, a monumental lesson was learned. Looking up into Benny’s crazy green eyes, I realized who I was and exactly what I was capable of. I really had awoken.
The door to the bedroom creaks, ripping me from the memory. I tense, my hands securely secured above my head. Could I be any more of a sacrificial lamb right now? How pathetic. I hate being helpless. My stomach ripples once Baz comes into view. I’m hit with a wave of nausea as my little one reminds me of its presence.
I gulp in a deep breath, trying to reign in the revolutions making me sick to my stomach. I watch with wary eyes as Baz sits down next to me on the edge of the bed. Our gazes locked in a deadly stare.
“Sleeping Beauty is awake,” he muses as he looks me over with bat-shit crazy eyes. Where the fuck did the Baz I know go? He couldn’t have been playing me that well. The person sitting in front of me is the polar opposite of the man I know. My guard is up and completely impenetrable.
“Where the fuck are we?” I demand.
