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“My favorite way to live life, babe. It’s not guaranteed, clearly, so let’s take the fucking risks…and fuck who we want,” she replied.

I scrunched my nose up and peered at her over my shoulder.

“We are literally captives of a psychopath, and your possible-last-moment-alive speech is about fucking who you want?”

“Yes, Ryan,” she sassed. “Were you almost forced to have a same-dick-forever marriage you didn’t want? And then forced to run away and then get captured again with the threat of selling you back to said Russian crime boss? No? Then you don’t get a vote on my last-moment-alive speech.”

“Hold up,” I whisper-yelled, “you didn’t mention he was a Russian crime boss or that Mario was selling you back to him.” My fingers pinched the bridge of my nose.

“I was a bit too busy for a proper story time, Ryan,” she answered, as if I was the one being unreasonable.

We were seconds away from potentially dying, but still having this conversation. It was so us. I couldn’t help the sad smile it brought to my face because I didn’t know if I would have another talk like this with Nikki.

“Fuck who we want,” I responded.

The smile on Nikki’s face mirrored mine. We ignored the fact that as soon as I opened the door, Nikki would run down the hallway to the exit, and I…wouldn’t.

Shouts pulled my attention back to the cracked door.

“Time’s up,” I called over my shoulder, yanking the door open. We rushed into the hallway. I shoved Nikki toward the fire exit as voices got louder.

“Run, Nikki.”

I turned to distract the men rounding the corner when a shot rang out, hitting its mark, dead center.

“Babe, that was great and all, but don’t ever do that again when I’m standing in front of you. Now go!” I yelled over my thankfully noninjured shoulder.

Not waiting to hear Nikki’s response, I ran forward to hold off the remaining guy. He was a big fucker but slow, so I would have to use my speed to make sure I gave Nikki enough time to get to the end of the hallway. He drew his firearm but cursed and tucked it away. Guess his orders were to make sure we were alive. That moment cost him, and I landed a right hook to his temple.

“Fucking bitch,” he yelled out, slamming into the wall.

A blaring alarm sounded in the hallway, and I sighed in relief. Nikki had made it to the fire exit door. Scarlet had placed alarms on all the external doors in this portion of Lotería.

Fuck. Time to get captured again.

I stood still, letting his meaty fist slam into my gut, flexing at the last minute to lessen the blow.

It still made me double over, and I tried to move to avoid the knee aimed at my head, but I was too slow. Everything went black as flashes of Gunner ran across my mind.

Gunner

Dex was right.

I was capable and qualified for this type of situation. So I shoved every emotion in a box and locked that shit up tight. A level head was needed for this because I was throwing all my plans out the fucking window now. But just because I was going off-plan didn’t mean I could run into this situation half-cocked. Mario had the upper hand; I was going to need to do whatever I could to even the odds. The shit that happened after would be a future me problem because God knew there would be fucking problems.

Dex silently followed as I stormed off toward the SUV. A motorcycle provided shit coverage in a firefight, and it would be hard to ride with the small arsenal I was bringing. Slamming the door, I slowly let what I was about to do sink in. Dex’s rough hand covered mine over the keys in the ignition.

“You sure this is what you want to do? I’m all in, brother, but I need to know if this is what you want. I’m sure Pres would be willing to…”

I cut him off before he could finish. “That would be a bloodbath, Dex, and Ryan is mine. I’m not fucking throwing away the one thing I want for once. I’ve given up everything. I’m not giving her up too,” I answered.

A proud smile bloomed on his face as he removed his hand. For years we hadn’t seen eye to eye on the idea of justice. But now, it all clicked into place. Bloody hands sometimes got the job done better than clean ones.

“I’ll paint the walls with anyone who gets between Ryan and me and bring her their heads,” I promised.

“You know, for normal chicks, I’d say not the best gift idea. But for Ryan…no better way to that woman’s heart than bringing her severed body parts,” Dex replied cheekily.

Ringing sounded through the car as I silently pleaded for Scar to pick up. I didn’t know anything about the woman, but from the little bit of her work I’d seen, she knew what the fuck she was doing.