Ryker waved his gun. “Dario, what do you want? What’s really going on here?”
“This is my territory now,” Dario spat, waving his gun from side to side.
“Oh really? When did that happen?” Ryker’s voice sounded deceivingly nonchalant, but from the short time I’d spent with Ryker, I knew he was waiting for the right instant to strike.
When I had the heavy metal grip of the gun in my hand, I released it from Ryker’s ankle holster. For a split second, I considered injuring Ryker, but then I’d be left with Dario and his murderous crew. Something told me they were infinitely worse than Ryker.
“I’m staking a claim on this territory. It should have been mine from the beginning anyway,” Dario said, his dark eyebrows slashing downward, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. “Rever’s gone, and everyone realizes Ignacio won’t be around for long. I’m next in line, not you.”
“Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself?”
Dario pulled the grungy handkerchief from his mouth, exposing the lower half of his face. A sinister scar ran the length of his jaw line. “All the more reason to strike while Ignacio is down,” Dario taunted.
In one fluid movement, Ryker raised his gun and pulled the trigger. A small burst of air raced over my skin. Almost instantly, Dario’s body fell to the ground right next to me—his dead, lifeless eyes staring back at me, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.
Ryker charged forward, kicking one man in the knee, and a sickening crack vibrated through my ears as the man tumbled to the ground wailing in agony. Without pausing, Ryker swung his gun to the right, sending a volley of shots into the chest of another man. By the time he turned, the remaining gunman had a gun pressed to Ryker’s temple.
“No,” I screamed, surging to my feet. My entire body trembled, and the gun nearly slipped from my clammy hands. I managed to hold it in front of me—my legs spread wide, two hands cupping the grip, and one finger hovering over the trigger.
The gunman’s eyes blazed like the fires of hell as he studied me. He wasn’t a tall or heavy man, maybe five foot six and a hundred and sixty pounds, but evil rolled off of him in dark, ominous waves, scorching my skin with their intensity.
Time froze in a dreamlike haze as sweat trickled down the side of my face and dripped from my chin. My heart galloped erratically in my chest. It was now or never. If I didn’t shoot first, the gunman would kill Ryker, and I’d be next. I sucked in a deep breath, and an unnatural calm settled through my body, infecting my mind with lethal focus.
I can do this.
I can do this.
I can do this.
My gun safety class freeze-framed in my mind. I pulled the gun slide back until I heard a bullet click inside the chamber. I aimed my gun at his chest. I inhaled and squeezed the trigger. The shot exploded from my gun, and I stumbled backward, tripping over a rock and tumbling to the ground. The bone-rattling impact caused the gun to fall out of my hand and skitter across the dirt.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the clear blue sky with a dusting of white, fluffy clouds. My muscles aching with lactic acid and the toxic remnants of my adrenaline surge, I strained my neck to the side as vomit rushed from my mouth in a sickening swell.
“Hattie?” Ryker crouched down next to me, an assault weapon dangling from his shoulder.
“Is he dead?” I whispered, as tiny, unrestrained tremors tore through my muscles one after another. The world around me moved in waves…in and out and back again.
“He will be in a few minutes.”
I nodded instead of answering.
“I don’t know if they were alone. We need to move.”
“I don’t feel good,” I moaned, rolling to my side.
He brushed the hair off my forehead, studying my face. “I know.” He held out his hand. “Ready?” No, I was too lightheaded to move, but staying put wasn’t a viable option. Besides, I’d walk for days to get away from the mass murder scene in front of me.
I placed my hand in his. I didn’t have a choice. Ryker was a known quantity. I knew what he wanted, or at least I thought I did. On the other hand, the other men who might or might not be lying in wait in the shadows of the trees…I didn’t have a clue how they fit into the puzzle.
“Don’t look,” he warned, forcibly redirecting my face when my eyes darted toward the man I’d shot. He acted a second too late. The gunman was sprawled out on the ground on his back, a perfectly circular pool of blood staining his shirt, slowly spilling onto the ground mixing with dirt. The tree behind him was splattered with blood, and his eyes were fixed open, glassy with the emptiness of death.
“Walk with me,” he murmured as he threaded his fingers through mine.
He led me out of the jungle and toward the dirt road where I abandoned the car I’d stolen from the bed and breakfast. With each stride, ice settled inside my bones, and I squeezed Ryker’s hand tighter and tighter, strangling the circulation in his hand, but he didn’t complain.
A tiny moan of despair escaped from my lips, and I shoved my fist into my mouth, digging my teeth into my flesh, trying to stop the fear from leaking out of me and draining all my strength. My reality kept turning and twisting until my old life faded from memory like a discolored, worn out photo.
Two hours ago, I hated Ryker, and I would have done anything to escape him. Now, I had tethered myself to him, never wanting to let go. He’d have to pry my cold, dead hand out of his clasp, because I refused to let him leave me anytime in the foreseeable future. He was my new obsession, my one remaining link to sanity in the insane world that had become my reality, and maybe that’s what he wanted all along. I didn’t care.
Chapter Seventeen
“Shit,” Ryker muttered when we reached the car. He kicked the rear passenger door. “They slashed the tires.”
“We could still try to drive it,” I insisted, wanting to get away from the scene of my crime as quickly as possible. I’d take solitary confinement in the relatively safe confines of the villa any day over being hunted by a mercenary band of defunct cartel members.
“Maybe on paved roads, but not on the dirt roads in the jungle.” Lines bracketed his normally sensual mouth.
“We’re walking?”
“Just back to the bed and breakfast if we’re lucky.” Ryker moved fast, practically dragging me down the dirt road by our entwined hands, but I didn’t hesitate.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ryker didn’t answer. He just shook his head.
My stomach clenched. “Tell me,” I demanded. His silence scared me more than the truth. Mentally, I needed to prepare myself for the worst.
“They probably slashed the car tires at the bed and breakfast too.”
“So what? We’ll be stuck at the bed and breakfast until someone comes to get us.” I didn’t know who that someone would be…maybe Ignacio or one of the men under his command.
“No. We can’t stay there for more than a few minutes. We need to keep moving.”
A shudder flitted down my spine. “Can’t we call someone?”
“I don’t have a phone.”