I wonder if he knows just how much the stakes have changed—what I’m now willing to do for the woman waiting beneath me.
Then I catch a blur of motion off to the side.
One of the men I thought I killed raises his gun. Fires. I flinch away, but the bullet burrows itself into my shoulder.
Pain explodes instantly, hot and savage. A firebrand digging into my muscle. The power of the blast sends me stumbling backward, backward, backward…
I hit the railing of the fire escape with the backs of my knees…
And tumble over the side.
The last thing I hear is Natalia’s scream.
I wake up with one hell of a headache.
An arm-, leg-, and torso-ache, too, actually.
Hell, even my hair hurts.
But I start to sit up, because pain has never stopped me before and it sure as f**k won't stop me now. Nothin
