Page 113 of Dark Breaker

“Go outside,” Carlo commands, still keeping his distance behind me.

I obey through gritted teeth.

He leads me like that to the beach in the backyard, until I’m standing close to a shed. Keeping the gun pointed at me, he inserts a key into the padlock and twists it off with one hand, then opens the door. The light of the waning sun illuminates a woman with a swollen cheek inside.

It’s Rosa.

Her arms and legs are bound with duct-tape. She’s lying listlessly on the floor with her eyes closed.

I instinctively take a step toward her. I want to go to her more than anything.

“Don’t move!” Carlo shouts.

I halt.

“What have you done to her?” I snarl.

“Nothing,” he says. “She fell asleep. Gets pretty boring when you’re cooped up in a box all day. Rosa, wake up. It’s time to watch Fabio die.”

He steps into the shed and rocks her gently with his boot. “Rosa.”

It was a trick, though—she’s wide awake and immediately latches onto his leg. She pulls ferociously.

“Don’t you touch my husband!” she screams.

Carlo shouts in surprise but I’m already on him: her distraction was all I needed. I wrestle the gun from his grasp but he head-butts me and, stunned, I drop it.

I stumble backward, pulling him with me, wanting to get him away from Rosa so he can’t hurt her. We fall onto the sand outside the shed.

I roll on top of him and reach toward my heel, grabbing the knife from my ankle holster. I plunge it toward his head but he dodges to the side and I stab sand.

Carlo throws sand into my eyes and I’m momentarily blinded. I try to keep my weight on him, but since I can’t see, he’s able to slip away by ramming a hand into the crook of my arm and twisting his body the other way.

I stand, blinking rapidly, and forcing my eyes open despite the fact it feels like sandpaper is rubbing all over my eyeballs.

He’s holding the knife and standing in front of me.

I doubt he’s ever used a knife in a fight before, but it doesn’t matter at the moment, considering that my vision blurs immediately, courtesy of the tears filling my eyes.

So I have to guess his moves.

When he lunges, I slip to the right.

I guess correctly.

It’s my turn to throw the sand I secretly scooped up into his face. But I must miss, or he blinked in time, because a moment later he’s coming at me again and I narrowly dodge to the side. He gets a foot behind mine and trips me.

He’s on top of me, shoving the blade down toward my neck. I wrap my fingers around his wrists, slowing its motion.

How the fuck did this happen? I’m better than this asshole. Stronger. Better trained. Been in hundreds of fights.

But now, when it counts, I can’t win?

Fuck this.

I press upward with all my strength, twisting his wrists and reversing the direction of the blade so that it’s pointed up at his throat.

I can actually see now—those tears have done a good job of cleansing the sand from my eyes. Carlo is leaning away from me now, trying to rip his hands from my grasp, but I won’t let him. I push upward mercilessly.