Page 114 of Break the Ice

The result is the two of us toppling over onto the ground.

“Fuck!” he grunts. “You little bitch!”

I’ve successfully wrangled his Glock 22 out of the holster. Wrists linked together by the metal handcuffs, it’s a struggle to slide the grip between my palms and curl my finger around the trigger, but I manage by the skin of my teeth.

Gomez is snarling at me, desperately outstretching his hand to grab onto mine, when I squeeze the trigger and shoot.

The bang reverberates throughout the large estate, even louder than the ruckus downstairs. Gomez goes from enraged and desperate to stop me to immobilized and slack-jawed. His eyes roll to the back of his head and he goes limp, a blood soaking through the fabric of his shirt where the bullet’s struck him.

Dead.

I can only sit where I am on the floor, sucking in erratic breaths, the gun still in my grip. Dizziness makes everything else in the room spin.

My hearing’s gone out. My sense of awareness is no more.

So much so, I don’t even realize the commotion downstairs has died out and that Rafe’s come upstairs to find me. He looks on the uncharacteristic verge of panic himself as he races into the room, maybe worried I was on the receiving end of the gunshot, but then once he lays eyes on the scene before him, he stops a few steps into the room.

Relief passes over his face, though a hard edge remains. Something intense and feral that tells me he’s covered in blood for a reason; he’d raced upstairs to continue doing what he needed to do to get to me.

My pulse quickens at the dazed realization he’s done it. He’s proven I could depend on him. He’d keep his promise and ensure we’d win.

“You didn’t go along with it…” I mutter in a daze.

The corner of his lip tugs slightly. His dimples punctuate either cheek. “What did I tell you, Sugar? You can count on me.”

After the past couple weeks I’ve had, I should be used to strange nights. I’ve woken up to dead bosses and driven limos to dispose of bodies. I’ve been held at gunpoint and booked an emergency trip out of the country. I’ve developed some darkly erotic arrangement with the NHL’s bad boy, a man who I thought I hated but can’t help craving.

But tonight might top them all.

The fire pit crackles, the only source of light across the woody terrain. Bright orange and gold flames curl up as if stretching for the inky sky. They cast a glow on the ground within a five-foot radius. Shadows fall on everything beyond.

The cold wind ripples through our hair and draws tiny gooseflesh on my arms.

I’m at Rafe’s side as we emerge from the trees and seek out the fire pit for warmth. The jeans, hoodies and boots we’ve changed into are no match for the plummeting temperatures. Rafe sets down his shovel and slides an arm around my hips to draw me close. We spend a moment admiring the spitting flames before our other two helpers show up.

Mitch appears first, also clutching a shovel, covered in much more dirt than either of us. He gleams with sweat like he’s been in sweltering conditions, but digging up three graves will do that to you.

“I’ll be inside showering,” he mumbles in his gruff tone.

Colt shows up last. He’s proven to be the biggest surprise of the night, mud and dirt caked on his clothes and a sudden grittiness about him. He not only walked in on his younger brother murdering their father, he’s helped us dispose of the bodies. How he feels about the matter remains vague and unspoken until he takes his place at the fire pit alongside us.

“It’s done,” he says. “We never have to speak about tonight again.”

“Except to the authorities,” Rafe counters.

“We’ll have our story straight. Our ducks in a row. Mitch is good at that.”

Silence fills the spaces between the crackling flames. The three of us stare into the glowing pit as though we’re in search of something. It quickly becomes obvious there’s unspoken tension in the air.

Suddenly, I feel like an intruder on a private moment between two brothers. Yet, Rafe makes no attempt to let me go. His arm is possessively, securely slung around my hip. He lets another second go by and then he goes for it.

“Dad said it was finally our time to have what was rightfully ours,” he says. “He was going to buy Hawk’s share of the team.”

Colt nods. “He’s been waiting years for the opportunity.”

“He said it was why he didn’t mind covering up for me. What happened to Hawk was a blessing in disguise.”

“No surprise. His biggest rival was taken out.”