Page 164 of Carnal Wagers

“Keep it. Extra weapons never hurt.”

With a shrug, she shoved it into her shoe just as gunfire clapped through the woods. Our heads shot up, and we scoped the area. There was no movement around here. It sounded further out to the north. Shots popped through the still air, and voices roared between them. Voices I recognized. Skipper and Shiner were still in this and getting closer.

“Package is here,” the living assassin cried through broken teeth. “Target—”

I elbowed him in the nose to shut him up.

“We need to go. They need us.” Alizé strapped the leg holster to her thigh, then stole the dead man’s gun. She jerked her chin to indicate the man beneath me. “What about him? Are you killing or leaving him?”

“I don’t do mercy. Certainly not to the man who shot you.”

She crouched beside us, lips pursed, twiddling a sharp throwing knife between her fingers. “Makes sense.”

Then she stabbed him in the shoulder. For a moment, as he wailed, she watched the blood soak through his clothes and pool around the blade before it trickled down the cutting edge. A volley of emotions twitched over her face: distress for him, disgust with herself, anger at him, then finally determination. It was a beautiful thing to watch her accept what she’d done and decide the next step.

“What happened to your guilt?” I asked.

“He almost took you from me.” She wrenched out the knife, then she struck again. And again. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted love? And he almost stole it.”

His bellowed yowls and weak attempts to get away just made her stabs that much deeper. His shoulders, his arms, his hands, his feet, his calves—they each met her knife. Nowhere vital, but no less brutal.

She tore up his muscles and destroyed any chance he might have to walk or hold a gun again. The sharp, coppery reek of his blood clung to the back of my throat as I beheld her rage in pure open-eyed admiration.

Finally, she pulled back. She stood, shoulders heaving, over his mangled, whimpering body and casually wiped off the blood from her weapon, then strapped it back in place in her leg holster.

“He’s all yours.”

After her stunning viciousness, she had left me little to work with. He was now nothing but a humpty-dumpty groaning mess who’d need a miracle worker to stitch him back together again, but watching her fury had been worth the leftovers.

“You’ve taken some of the fun out of it, sweetheart.”

“Look at it as teamwork. A husband-and-wife duo.”

It was more than I expected of a mob wife. “A partner in crime.”

“Exactly. You have my back. I have yours.”

I pushed the brass knuckles as far down my fingers as they went and glared down at the man below me who had dared to hurt her. Before he took his last breath, he shrieked through the pain of each broken bone my fists dealt as I made him viscerally understand that no one touched my wife.

“Go back to the hangar, síbhean.” I rose to my feet and threw the strap of the man’s sniper rifle over my shoulder. “I can’t be worrying about you while I’m fighting out there.”

“How do you know it’s any safer? How do you know one of them isn’t there waiting for us?”

I scratched at my cheek, loathing the possibility of that scenario. Another exchange of gunfire distantly snapped through the woods, and I cringed. I needed to get out there with my men.

“How did they even know you were here?” she continued. “In New Jersey of all places? Someone told them. Someone who is probably back at that hangar.”

Well, shit, there was no denying that logic.

“I’m coming, and that’s final.” She took off before I was able to voice another protest.

“Goddamn it, woman.”

Together, we jogged in the direction of the gunfight. Shots roared through the trees in a cacophony of ricochets the farther we went.

“Just so you know,” she said as we ran. “That, back there, wasn’t my version of romantic.”

Suddenly, a stray bullet pinged against a nearby tree. We ducked behind a couple of packed trees barely wide enough to cover both of us. Paulie and Shiner held tight about ten yards to our right, dodging shots, but Paulie favored one leg, and Shiner was shooting one-handed, the other arm loose at his side.