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“Backup is on the way!” Ian tells me, the line muffled as he, no doubt, dons his gear to head our way. “Keep her safe, Enzo. Her life may well depend on you.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” I tell Ian, holding Evangeline’s gaze. “Get here as fast as you can. I’ll hold things down alone until then.”
With a grunted affirmative, the line goes dead.
“Princess, I need you to know that no matter what happens in the next few minutes, I will keep you safe,” I tell Evangeline, crossing to her. She blinks at me with those entrancing green eyes.
“I know,” she breathes. “But…what’s going on?”
“Ben betrayed us,” I inform her, not wanting to scare her but needing her to understand the stakes here. “I need you to go and hide?—”
The sharp noise of glass being smashed cuts me off. I shove Evangeline behind me, grabbing my gun from my belt and aiming it at the window that’s just been caved in.
Three silhouettes move beyond it, but there’s no clear line of sight to shoot.
Shit. We have far less time than I thought.
“RUN!” I yell at Evangeline. A shot fires our way, missing by a mile but earning a scared shriek from my girl nonetheless. Still, she listens to me, rushing upstairs as fast as she can just as the three figures I saw enter the house.
Dressed in black and armed nearly as well as I am, I know instantly that these are the guys Ben was consorting with.
“Ben!” one of them shouts out, and I take a step forward, tutting my tongue off my teeth.
“I’m afraid Ben is indisposed right now,” I bark back, a feral grin forming on my face, adrenaline rushing through me. These assholes mean to hurt my girl. I’ll enjoy ensuring they fail. “You can deal with me, instead.”
“Who the fuck—” the second man begins to ask, but I shut him up by squeezing the trigger. He moves at the last second, but the bullet still hits his shoulder, sending him to the ground with a shout.
Chaos breaks out.
“FIND THE GIRL!” the first man, who must be their leader, orders. The third nods back and tries to run past me to search the house.
Fuck that. I rush sideways, tackling him before he can get a shot at me. I bring the butt of my gun down on his nose, breaking it with a satisfying crunch.
I hear the footsteps of the other man behind me and throw myself to the side just in time to feel the bullet whiz through the air beside me. Instead of hitting me, it hits the man I just tackled, injuring him further.
These guys may be armed and angry, but they’re nothing compared to the protective instinctive need running through me. I will not let Evangeline be harmed. I’ll die before I allow that.
“Hand her over and nobody has to get hurt,” the leader growls at me, and I laugh in his face.
“The only ones hurt here are you,” I remind him with a deadly grin. “And I’ll cut your fucking hands off before I let you lay a finger on her.”
Rage explodes over the guy’s face, and he raises his gun again. I launch myself at him, grabbing his wrist and twisting. The move forces his grip to loosen, and the weapon falls to the ground. I kick it away before either he or his buddy can reach for it, and the gun skids under the couch.
The man uses my second of distraction against me, kicking at my knee and making me lose balance. I roll as I fall, ensuring I crush the guy beneath me as we land on the ground.
Vaguely, I hear voices shouting outside, then a thud that sounds like someone’s hammering on the door. I realize that none of the alarms or security alerts have gone off. There should have been a myriad of alarms and buzzing, beeping security system warnings the second that window was smashed, but aside from the sounds of our fight and now the voices outside, there’s been no other noise.
Fucking Ben! That piece of shit must have disabled it all in preparation.
I can’t fucking wait to see the look on his face when he wakes up and realize he’s fucked.
The guy I’m wrestling lands a lucky punch to my mouth, and my lip splits. The taste of blood only fuels me further. I’d bleed for Evangeline over and over as long as not a single drop of hers was sacrificed. I know my teeth are bloody when I sneer down at the man. My fist comes down on his temple, and his head hits the floor with a thump just as a swarm of bodies surrounds us.
It takes me a second to register that the newcomers are allies, not more enemies. Breaths coming in heaving gasps, I push to my feet, flexing my hands at my sides. I crack my neck, steadying myself and trying to shrug the rage off to focus.
“Enzo!” a familiar voice calls out. I turn to find Ian approaching me. Around us, our colleagues are overwhelming the men I fought with, cuffing them and dragging them out of the house where I now register the hum of engines, vehicles waiting.
“Ben’s in the gym,” I inform my boss, already dismissing him as I turn away.
