Page 32 of Sinful Restraint

My ears were ringing from the gunshots, as my vision split between watching both men and the glaring reality of what was happening around me. My adrenaline and fear were on the guys at the moment, with Cruz and Mekhi being the soldiers who I hoped won this war because they were drastically outnumbered.

“Stay low!” Cruz yelled, tossing the gun he’d emptied to the side to use another one with more bullets as he and Mekhi continued to shoot. When I heard a familiar shout, I wanted to get up from my crouched position, but I didn’t want to distract Cruz and Mekhi.

Once the sound of gunshots stopped, I finally stood, relieved to see that Cruz and Mekhi were fine, and that Titan and Storm had indeed joined us.

“About fuckin’ time,” Cruz snarled, his voice a cross between relief and focus.

“Didn’t realize you were throwing a shoot-out party,” Storm teased. “Who’s crashing it?”

“Doesn’t fuckin’ matter,” Cruz growled. “They all die.”

“Damn,” Storm huffed. “I was really hoping I didn’t have to condone violence today.”

“He on his no-violence bullshit,” Titan explained. “Storm ain’t kill any of the muthafuckas we crossed paths with on the way in.”

“’Cause you had it,” Storm defended. “If you didn’t, I would have stepped in.”

Titan ignored him, telling us that, “There are more coming down the alley. Storm and I came through the side entrance when we heard everything pop off.”

“Some of them are coming from the second level too,” Mekhi added. “I took out three on the outdoor roof deck, but only after dem muthafuckas took out Phil.” His face flickered with sadness before he quickly masked it, his hardened look back in place.

“Fuck,” Cruz spat, tossing his hands up, his gun pointing to the ceiling as he did so. “Shit. Fuck.”

Mekhi briefly clasped one of Cruz’s shoulders, while Titan placed his hand on the other and Storm placed his on top of Titan’s.

I whimpered before I could help myself, rushing to hug Cruz’s waist.I had only just metPhil when I started coming with Cruz to the gym. But I knew Phil was close to Cruz and Mekhi and worked overnight security here and at the club.

Just as Titan had warned, the gym lights flickered and dimmed to almost darkness as a few more men stormed intothe room across the hall, armed, masked, and moving with the kind of precision that didn’t seem like amateurs based off all the action movies I had watched.

Titan stepped in front of me, pointing his gun over Cruz’s shoulders since he had him by a couple inches, both men making me a Cruz & Titan sandwich that I would have enjoyed had I not been praying none of our people died.

My throat was dry as I took in the scene for what it was. This wasn’t a fair fight. This was a planned execution.

“Just breathe,” Titan encouraged. “We got you.”

I could barely nod before it was on and poppin’ again, the next few seconds a blaze of gunfire. At one point, I was pretty sure my mind left my body as my psyche tried to comprehend how I had landed myself in this predicament.

“I’m out,” Cruz announced once they took out the group that had just entered, the others expressing the same sentiment. “We need to get the fuck outta here.”

Mekhi was the first to strike the next set of about nine intruders from what I could make out as we made our way to the exit, slamming his boot into an attacker’s kneecap with a sickening crunch, before burying a knife deep in his throat.

Storm disarmed another before driving his elbow into the guy’s temple, the force snapping his head back, causing him to hit the ground hard.

Titan fought like a demon with a vengeance, using brute force and rage to plow through two men at once, grunting as he cracked one’s skull against the weight rack, even finding a moment to dab fists with Cruz as he did so like this was just another day … another fight.

And then there was Cruz, a devil unleashed as he moved with ruthless efficiency, ducking a swing while countering with a brutal uppercut that sent a man sprawling onto the floor in a bed of limbs.

When another man charged at him, in one fluid motion, Cruz caught the guy’s wrist, twisted it until the bone snapped, and drove a knife into his side.

I was terrified, but couldn’t look away, mesmerized by how they moved so powerfully together. Yet some of the masked men just wouldn’t die, one of them managing to slip through past Cruz and Titan and lunge for me.

I barely had time to react before he was on me, his hand closing around my throat, shoving me into the wall. I panicked, clawing at his grip, the little training I had nothing against a man twice my size.

Cruz turned, and the moment he saw me, something inside of him snapped. The man who snatched me didn’t even get the chance to flinch before Cruz had grabbed him by the back of the head and slammed his face into the hard floor twice, the sound of bone crunching before blood pooled at my feet.

The others had won their fights, and Mekhi announced that we needed to get out of there, and that he’d explain to the cops that the alarm went out and clear the security feed. However, even with all the chatter around him, Cruz kept going, his fists slamming into the already lifeless body beneath him. Only when Titan bellowed his name did he get in a few more punches, then stop abruptly and slowly lift his head to me.

Holy shit.His eyes were savage and untamed when they locked onto mine, his chest heaving and his hands trembling.

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