Page 80 of Lethal Vengeance

Enraged, he raises his hand.

Taking advantage of it, I loop the garotte around his wrist and yank the two ends. It slides through the skin and muscle surrounding like a hot knife through butter, but unfortunately, it stops at the bone.

Screaming in agony, he drops the knife and stumbles away, cradling his hand.

Quickly snatching it from the ground, I dance forward to hit him again. Cuts on his arms and legs don’t seem to faze him, but hopefully, his face is different. I slash from his hair to his chin. A line of blood appears. He freezes.

Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?

With a roar, he swivels toward me, a gun glinting in his hand.

Can he shoot with his left? Not willing to risk it, I drop to the floor. The gun goes off above me.

I army crawl forward and stab the knife into one of his calves, hoping to bring him down.

He laughs. Drawing his foot back, he punts hard.

Pain explodes across my entire face. It’s agonizing. I roll into a ball, clutching my face. My mind is screaming for me to get up, but it’s impossible. The pain is overwhelming. He kicks out again, and it glances off the side of my head. When the third kick misses its target, I move my arms and look up.

He’s staring at the wall behind me.

I scramble back to figure out my next move.

He sways and goes down on one knee.

“Drugging me? That’s beneath you, isn’t it?” He sneers.

I eye the gun in his hand. “Talk is cheap when you bring a gun to a knife fight.”

Silence. He’s out.

I slump to the carpet.

“Fuck me, that was brutal,” I whisper, tears flowing down my cheeks as a river of adrenaline releases all at once.

His body twitches. How long did Zane say he would stay asleep? Ten or fifteen minutes? Not long enough. Bones creaking, I make it to my feet and look down at the man I’ve been hunting since the day I found Sophia in the desert.

He looks like he lost a round with a meat grinder. One hand is dangling by the bone. The cut on his face is flayed open. Blood seeps from every part of his body.

I smile to see the amount of damage I did.

Now, how the hell am I going to get him downstairs?

A shiny red wagon full of stuffed toys sits proudly by the toy box. I consider it for a second, then sigh. Nope. He’s too fucking big.

Not willing to take chances, I swipe him a few more times to keep him asleep, before tucking the cloth back into the silver box I found on the floor beside it.

I cut off the bottom part of the skirt, then straighten the top until I’m fully covered again. The bloody garotte lies a foot away. I snatch it up and loop it around my belt, then sheath my knife.

Pain wracks my body, but there isn’t any time. My face feels the worst, stiff and painful. I slide a finger across my cheek and dried blood flakes off in my hand. He put up a hell of a fight, but I expected nothing less from a man like him.

Bending, I pick up his feet and drag him inch by inch into the hallway. Sweat beads and falls to the floor. I drop his feet. He’s too heavy. Maybe I should just kill him here. A house this big has to have a basement.

“Need some help?” Zane stands at the end of the hallway like an avenging superhero. Gun out, dirt and blood covering his face and arms, but damn, he looks really, really good. His long legs eat up the distance between us.

Uncertain, I bite my lip and consider his offer. “Are you going to stop me from doing what I need to do?”

“Raider’s getting the car. He and Cruz are going with you,” he replies in a hard, non-negotiable voice. When I continue to stare at him, he raises his hands. “Would I be happy if you weren’t going to do this? Hell yes. Will I stop you? No. I heard everything he said earlier. He deserves to die. Arguing over the semantics is moot.” He moves forward, picks him straight off the floor, and throws him over his shoulder.