Page 69 of House of Cards (The Devil’s Den #2)

Smith doesn’t seem to care that I’m being hauled off.

He turns to Miguel, who’s still writhing on the floor clutching his what’s left of his manhood, and points a gun he must have taken off the dead guy leaning crookedly against the wall.

He points it straight at Miguel’s face and squeezes off three ear-splitting rounds.

Miguel’s skull only bounces once against the marble with a sickening thud .

After the first shot, it’s lost all structural integrity, and instead goes splat .

My stomach clenches. Bile rushes up my throat and somehow makes its way past Luis’s chokehold. But wrenched back against him as I am, when it comes spluttering out of my mouth, most of it hits his arm.

“Fuck!” he grates out in disgust. “You’re gonna pay for that, puta .”

Smith turns to me like he suddenly remembered I exist. He aims, and I feel my soul catapult straight out of my body as the muzzle of his gun gapes at my face.

Luis jerks me backward, his arm crushing my windpipe, his gun’s muzzle digging into my temple.

“I’ll fucking kill her! Stay back!” he screams, his voice cracking with fear.

I can’t breathe. Can’t think. The edges of my vision are going dark, and all I can see is Smith’s face. And as soon as his gaze locks with mine, those cold eyes come alive with something primal and protective.

“Let. Her. Go.” My heart stutters at the danger in his voice.

“Fuck you,” Luis spits.

Smith moves his gun, trying to line up a shot, but Luis keeps shifting, using me as cover.

There’s a flicker of frustration on Smith’s face. It’s obvious how badly he wants to end the creep behind me, but hard as it is to believe, I think he’d rather not injure me.

It’s up to you, Zoey.

“Let her go, and you walk out of here alive.”

Luis laughs, and I don’t even blame him. I don’t believe Smith either.

“I am walking out of here, and ratoncita is coming with m?—“

I slam my head backward hard as I can. There’s a stab of pain, and I feel more than hear how the cartilage in his nose crunches. Warm blood soaks into my hair, instantly cooling.

Luis’s grip loosens just a hair, but before I have time to think, the butt of his gun slams into my temple.

Lights pop and flash behind my eyes as I swoon like my corset’s too tight. My already shaky legs collapse, my full weight pulling me out of Luis’s already slippery grip. I’d love to think I’m a bad-ass, but it’s less of a calculated move and more just a series of fortunate events.

As I hit the marble and roll onto my side, I see a figure uncurl from what’s left of the palm’s large pot.

Troy straightens, aiming a matte black gun with a long silencer attached to the muzzle. He says nothing, he just fires. The bullet hits Luis square in the chest, throwing him onto his back.

I love how confident these men are in their aim.

Smith surges forward and drops to his knees on the floor beside me, dragging me against him.

“Zoey.” He smooths hair from my face, eyes scanning for signs of injury.

He’d need an MRI for that.

And an actual heart, not one carved from stone.

As much as I would love to be held and soothed right now, all I can think about is the expression on Smith’s face as he shot Miguel in the head. Or, rather, the lack thereof.

“I’m okay,” I murmur. “Get Elonzo!”

Smith blinks at me like he’s wondering who the fuck I’m talking about. Then I hear Troy’s boots thundering over the marble toward us. He slams into the bedroom door where Elonzo locked himself in, and Smith jolts like he’s just remembered we’re in the middle of a gang war.

“Go!” I wriggle in Smith’s grip, and he reluctantly lets me slide back to the ground. “I said I’m fine!”

I’m lying, of course.

I’ll never be fine again.

But if that psycho Elonzo escapes, I’ll never be able to sleep either. Always wondering if he’s around the corner, still so eager to sample the goods. Smith stands, gun braced in both hands but held low as he heads for the bedroom door.

I don’t dare close my eyes, because gravity still wants to suck me under, and fuck knows if it’ll just be a little nap or something more…permanent.

Thank God I force myself awake, because as Smith reaches the door, I see movement from the corner of my eye.

Luis.

I thought he was dead, but I guess that’s why these guys wear bullet-proof vests. Except Elonzo, because he thinks he’s God. Or the Devil, more likely.

No, Luis is alive. And he’s aiming his gun at Smith’s bare back.

If he gets a shot off, there’s nothing between Smith and that bullet.

We’re less than a yard apart, but it might as well be a mile. I’m on my back, shellshocked, and Luis already has Smith in his crosshairs. In the time it would take me to scramble over to him, Smith’s dead.

But I push onto hands and knees and yell out, “Hey, asshole!” anyway.

Luis must have thought I was unconscious, because he jerks in surprise at the sound of my voice and misses his shot. Wood sprays into the air inches away from Smith, just as he’s about to step into the bedroom behind Troy.

Luis glances over at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. Because as Luis takes aim again, I throw myself at him.

My weight isn’t enough to knock him back, but I grab his gun hand and wrestle the weapon free. It clatters to the ground, but my victory is short-lived, because a second later I’m pinned to the ground right beside it.

Something long and sharp and shiny appears in Luis’s hand.

A knife.

I hear Smith’s bare feet slap over the marble as he runs to us, but that knife is already arcing toward my face.

Someone fires.

Luis jerks away from me, tumbling onto his back on the floor with a hoarse scream. All I want to do is lie where I am, maybe close my eyes for a bit—forever—until this is all over.

But what if he gets up again?

I roll onto my side, see the knife still held loosely in Luis’s right hand, and dive for it. Luis groans and tries to hold on, but he was shot in the chest, right beside his vest, and it’s weakened his arm enough for me to pull the knife free.

Smith appears in my peripheries, but I’m done waiting for him to save me. He’d probably just try to trade me to Luis for a pack of cigarettes or something, anyway.

It shouldn’t be this easy to stab someone’s eye.

I expect resistance. Blade against bone, tearing muscle, I don’t know. This is a first for me.

But Luis’s blade just slides right in to the hilt, and only then does it stop.

Like stabbing Jell-O.

Even looks like it.

Bile rushes up my throat again, and I turn to retch. Luis slumps onto his side, his slack expression faintly dumbfounded, like he’s wondering how the hell little ratoncita took him down.

Smith skids to a halt, drops to his knees, and yanks the knife out of Luis’s mushy eye socket.

I make the mistake of not looking away as he falls on Luis like an avenging angel.

It’s horrific, but beautiful. Like ballet, but with knives and blood.

The knife rises and falls, again and again. Blood splashes up with each thrust, not because Luis’s dead heart is still pumping, but with the force of Smith’s attack. It speckles his face and chest with red, soaks his hand and arm.

When all that’s left of Luis’s face is a chopped-liver Jell-O mess I wouldn’t feed to a dog, Smith staggers to his feet.

He stares down for a moment and then comes back to himself with a shake of his head.

The eyes he locks on me are bleak and lost. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but before he can speak, Troy hurries out into the hallway.

“Elonzo’s gone. Probably scaled down from the balcony.”

“Fuck!” Smith drags a hand through his hair, glancing first at Troy, then me, eyes narrowing as he thinks.

Below us, a muffled shot fires.

“They’re killing the hostages,” Smith grates out, his jaw clenching. He glances over at Troy. “Go! I’ll meet you there.”

Troy races off without a backward glance, leaving the two of us alone in a hallway scattered with dead bodies.

I have no idea what happened while I was concentrating on Luis, but it looks like more men must have come upstairs when they heard the gunshots.

None of them made it past the landing, though.

“Zoey.”

I rear back when Smith reaches down for me, but I’m too cowed to actually flee. There’s a numbness spreading through me, color and sound draining from the world like a gray veil being drawn over my head.

Smith grabs the back of my hoodie and wrenches me to my feet. He shoves me into the bedroom as hard and merciless as Luis had been wrangling me not five minutes ago.

“Stay in here until I come fetch you.” There’s a deep frown on his face, like he’s pissed he has to waste so much time looking after me when he could be saving hostages.

As if he’s not the reason I’m in this mess in the first place!

If he hadn’t caught me that night at his casino, I’d have walked out of there with enough money to repay Elonzo.

He can say what he wants about grudges and shit, but it looks like the only beef Elonzo has is with Smith, for sleeping with—and then killing—his sister.

I’m just a convenient pawn in their violent chess game.

…is what I would have yelled at him if I had even an ounce of energy left in me.

Smith glances at the broken lock and gives his head a shake as he hands me the bloody knife he’s still clutching. “You’ll be safe here.”

The knife is warm, gooey with blood and other things I don’t want to think about. But I take it and slip it into my hoodie’s pouch anyway before backing deeper into the dark room. False dawn makes it seem later than it is, but the sun is still hiding under the horizon.

“I will be. Soon as you’re gone.” My eyes fixate on his bloody hand as he drops it to his side.

I flinch at the sudden fury in his eyes. Then again at another muffled gunshot from downstairs.

My hand goes back into my hoodie, wrapping around the now sticky knife.

Maybe it’s because I’m still flooded with adrenaline, or because I can’t quite convince myself this is over yet, but it feels like every shadow is hiding another Luis, another Miguel, another Elonzo.

“Guess we finally agree on something,” Smith deadpans as he pulls the door closed behind him.