Falling with Grace - Page 175

The air wheezed from my lungs as a blinding pain spider-webbed across my chest.

I rolled off the lounge chair, my hand holding my chest as the assailant hit my spine with a dull thud. I dropped, my chest connecting with the abrasive cement, my head hitting the ground as I coughed, my lungs deflated.

“You should have complied, motherfucker.”

The man rounded the chair as another walked up behind him.

I rolled to my back, my cock slapping against my thigh, and kicked at his knee.

The joint snapped in half with a sickening crack, adrenaline shooting through my veins like a hot dose of heroin.

He fell to the ground as I pulled myself up, his screams echoing around the veranda.

I kicked again in an upward arc, the top of my bare foot smashing into his nose as the second man raised his pistol.

Blood splattered across my foot as I tucked and rolled for my pistol, the man I kicked flipping onto his back—out cold.

A shot rang out, and a searing burn blazed over my thigh, my hand seizing the pistol holstered in my pants.

I pulled the trigger as he leveled his against me, dropping him to the ground, his knee blown out. I shot again, blood spray coating the ground in a fine mist, his other knee gone.

His gun skidded across the cement, dropping into the pool as he collapsed on all fours. His wailing grunts brought no greater joy.

What the hell just happened?

How did they get in?

Where’s Grace?

I spun in a circle.

Dark hair, bare skin, green eyes…

Nothing.

The man’s screams morphed into tight clenched teeth moans he hissed, saliva spewing as he exhaled.

I grabbed him by his black shirt and shook him. “Andrés really is a coward, isn’t he?”

He groaned as I tossed him onto his back, my chest and back aching like I’d been hit by a truck. I kneeled and pressed the butt of my gun to his forehead, my fist clenched in his shirt against his throat.

“Where is he now?” I shook him, and he bared his gold-rimmed teeth through tight lips.

He reached up, his hands wrapping around the pistol in a flash.

Bang.

Blood and brain matter splattered across the patio.

I fell back onto my naked ass, my gun smoking beside me.

His empty eyes stared up into the morning sky.

“Are you okay?”

I jumped, my reflex moving the pistol towards the voice.

Javier stood with his gun at his side, his other hand up in surrender.