breath, struggled harder. Met…nothing.
Oh, God. This was it. After all this time, after finally being so close to what she’d always wanted…
“Get your fucking hands off her.” Pete’s arm arced out, and the cast-iron frying pan in his hand cracked against the side of Sawil’s head.
Sawil was thrown to the side and bounced off the kitchen wall.
Pete was on his knees in a flash, not a dream but reality, pulling her to him. “Talk to me, baby.”
Her throat burned, but she held on tight, remembering the way he’d looked in the dining room. Blood continued to run down the side of his face. “Pete—”
Sawil shot off the floor with a growl and plowed into Pete. Kat screamed as he was torn from her arms. The two sailed across the kitchen. Pete’s head and back hit the cabinets with a deafening whack.
They wrestled across the floor, grunting and struggling. Kat scrambled for her gun and grasped it with two hands, but there was no shot. Their bodies slammed into another cabinet, and a pile of dishes above rocked and tipped and came crashing down around them.
Kat pushed to her feet. Sawil got the upper hand, rolled on top of Pete. He closed his hands around Pete’s neck. “Should have. Killed you. Long ago.”
“Why didn’t you?” Pete spat as he fought back, nailing Sawil with a right hook that made the man reel, stop and shake his head, but still he didn’t let go. Pete managed to push into a sitting position, his back Kat’s way, blocking her shot.
“Because I knew you’d lead me right to her.” Sawil tightened his grip. “You have her to thank for everything I am today. When you’re gone, she’s mine. And I will enjoy every moment of it.”
Something snapped in Pete then. He cracked his skull against Sawil’s. Hard. Dazed, Sawil loosened his grasp on Pete’s neck as his head snapped back. Pete laid two right hooks into Sawil’s face that echoed through the room, then scrambled out from underneath him.
Sawil stumbled, righted himself, shook his head and stood. Kat trained the gun on Sawil as Pete pushed himself up, swayed and caught himself. Both men were breathing heavily and looked like they could go down in a light breeze. Confusion colored Sawil’s eyes. He stumbled back two steps and fell against the counter behind him.
Kat’s pulse pounded. Sweat slicked her skin. The silence that fell over the room was more deafening than Sawil’s enraged shouts had been. Could she kill him? Would she? She had the shot. She could end this right now.
She hesitated. Torn.
Sawil’s eyes glazed over, and he swayed. And hope leapt in Kat’s throat. He was going down on his own.
Then at the last second his hand snaked out. He grasped a knife from the knife block on the counter behind him and lunged.
Years of practice condensed into one split second. Kat pulled the trigger once, twice with hands steadier than she’d ever imagined.
The gunshots echoed through the massive kitchen and hit Sawil square in the chest. He fell inches from Pete’s bare feet.
Dimly she heard a frantic voice at the kitchen doorway. In a blur, a rush of people swarmed the room, from where, Kat didn’t know. All she saw was Sawil’s lifeless body on the tile floor, facedown in a growing pool of blood.
She’d done that. She’d been able to take a life, after all. The life of someone who had once been her friend. And she knew the moment would haunt her for the rest of her days.
She dropped the gun and took a shaky step back.
Pete caught her with both arms before she fell. “I’ve got you,” he said into her hair. “Hold on to me. Just hold me, Kit-Kat.”
Her whole body started to shake, but she grabbed on with what little strength she had left. “Don’t let go,” she whispered.
“I won’t, baby. God, I won’t.”
Pete looked up from where he was seated at Maria’s dining room table. His head was still a little fuzzy from the drug Ramirez—or Minyawi, or whatever the fuck the guy’s real name was—had stuck him with. But at least it cut the sting of the alcohol the med tech was rubbing on his temple.
Thankfully, the wound wasn’t deep enough for stitches. He flinched when the tech slapped on a butterfly bandage, then pissed him off royally as she flashed a light in his eye to check for a concussion.
“Cut that out.” He pushed the light away and went back to watching Kat.
She