Ruthless Spring

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: WINTER

Ishoot.

The kick of the gun jolts my arms slightly, but I don’t let it dissuade me as I go to squeeze the trigger again.

Before I can get the shot off, pain radiates through my face. My head snaps to the side as the gun flies out of my hand.

My gaze goes wonky, and the room is dizzy as black spots appear in my vision. I don’t even see the second back hand, but I feel it as I fall backwards. I hit my head against the corner of the desk and if I didn’t already have a concussion, I’m sure I have one now.

A hand is wrapped in my curls and my head is jerked back, straining my neck. My gaze starts to clear and a snarling face appears in my vision. I don’t recognize the man, but it doesn't take a genius to piece together who he is. Or at least what gang he belongs to.

He has tan skin, dark eyes, short black hair, and there’s a teardrop tattoo just below his eye.

"Perra,” he bites out, confirming that he’s cartel. “I’ve been looking for you and just my luck, it didn’t take long to find you,” he says before a slick wetness is sliding down my cheek.

Bile rises in my throat as he spits on me again, before he yanks my head before slamming it against the side of the desk.

I sway to the side but he pulls my hair back taut, making me sit up straight.

“If I had time, I’d put your body to good use, but I’m not an idiot,” he says as he presses his gun to my temple. My breath gets stuck in my chest. The cold metal suddenly feels hot and I can’t do anything but look death in its face, accepting my fate. “People who take their time-”

“Get shot in the head,” I don’t recognize the cool voice, but I do recognize the gunshot as it rings out in the room.

And for what feels like the hundredth time in the past months, I’m covered in blood that isn’t mine. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly as the warm liquid drips all over my skin.

I can feel it sliding from my brow down towards my eyes and I swipe at it, flinching when another shot rings through the room.

Sharp words in a language I don’t recognize move through the room, and I keep my eyes closed as recognition flares through me.

I inhale a deep breath, opening my eyes.

My gaze collides with a cold brown one.

“Amarie,” her name leaves my lips in surprise as I survey the gun in her hand. It’s the one that Enzo left with me, but how could she have gotten it without anyone noticing her in the room?

I certainly hadn’t seen her.

And I hadn’t even recognized her voice when she’d been speaking in English.

But the other language… French? She’d spoken it in a clipped, short, cold tone that chilled me to the bone.

And the look on her face now, it almost appears as if she doesn’t even know who I am.

The second man who I hadn’t gotten a good look at is lying down on his back, blood dripping out of his shoulder. The way his body is turned, it looks as if he’d tried to turn to shoot Amarie, but she’d gotten to him first.

She steps closer to him, her heels clicking against the tile floor. The blood from the floor coats her red bottom shoes, the two reds distinctly different.

She still has the gun in her hand and she points it at the man's head as she starts back speaking to him in French. She waves her free hand, jerking a finger at him.

He says something to her in Spanish and she tilts her head as she looks at him.

When she responds fluently in Spanish, my mouth drops open.

How many fucking languages does she know?

And why am I even finding that important at this moment? I need to focus on how she just shot one man in the head and the other in the shoulder in quick succession without being detected in the room. And why she’s completely unfazed by it.

I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that she’s dangerous, but this... this is definitely not what I expected.