Page 23 of Mountain Man Grinch
I take one step toward them.
He presses the knife closer, and Arielle whimpers. It guts me. Cuts me open in a place that isn’t physical. I lift both hands slightly, palms out.
“Easy,” I say. “You’re panicking. Bad for you. Worse for her.”
“I’m not panicking?—”
He is. His eyes dart, his breath’s uneven. He’s scared because he can’t see a way out.
Good.
Because he doesn’t have one.
Arielle’s eyes lock with mine. Wide. Shining with fear she’s trying hard not to show. Her bottom lip trembles. She’s holding it together for me.
That’s all it takes.
The crack inside me splits open. Every rule I ever followed, every line I swore not to cross, every promise I made to myself—it all burns away.
I move.
Fast.
I grab the hearth poker—hot from the fire—and slam it down on the bastard’s wrist. He screams, drops the knife. Arielle twists free without missing a beat, scrambling backward toward the cot.
I shove him into the wall, forearm crushing his windpipe as he claws at my flesh.
“You hurt her,” I growl, “and that was your last mistake.”
He bangs at my arm, gagging. “You don’t … you don’t know?—”
“I know enough.” I tighten my grip. “Sol Rojo sent you. They’re going to regret being born.”
Snow gusts through the broken doorway behind us. The storm screams around us. The man wheezes, eyes bulging, his free hand clawing at my vest for leverage. I shift my stance for one breath—one—and in that sliver of space, he rips my sidearm from its holster and shoves it to his temple.
Instinct kicks in. I step back.
He jerks the gun upward, angled toward the open doorway, and pulls the trigger.
The blast detonates through the cabin. Blood mist catches the wind and scatters into the storm outside.
Coward didn’t kill himself because of me. He killed himself because Sol Rojo enforcers don’t get captured. Ever. Failure is adeath sentence either way. Better by their own hand than by the cartel’s.
My whole body shakes—not from fear, from rage. From relief. From the almost.
The almost that could’ve ruined my entire world.
“Davin…”
Her voice.
I turn.
She stands by the cot, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, eyes wet, chest rising and falling too fast.
She runs to me before I can move, arms flinging around my waist. “Are you okay?”
Gus barks once, his version ofAre you dead? No? Good.
