“This is Darius’s room,” Ryan said, arms extended, the gun in a two-handed grip. With Cord and Ethan watching Darius, I stepped forward, joined the front line, relished the hot rush of adrenaline that silvered my eyes. “So you’re trespassing. Who hired you?”
“Our employer. And speaking of whom, you’ve walked into something that’s none of your business. I suggest you take your girlfriend and walk right out again.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any point in simply offering you more money to make you walk away right now?”
The man laughed, the sound like rain over rusted metal. “Now, that’s a good one. I enjoyed that. But what kind of businessman would I be if I ditched one deal for another? Not a very loyal one, I’d say.”
“Loyalty doesn’t strike me as one of your better qualities.”
“Maybe not. But I’ve others.” The blade was already in the air before I registered the flick of his hand. Ryan pivoted to dodge the attack, but the dagger’s gleaming edge caught his upper arm, painting a stripe of red across his sleeve.
The fight was on.
“I’ll take him,” I said to Ryan, and let him move toward the little guy.
I launched forward and sliced sideways, but the man was sprier than he looked. He jumped out of the way, stuck out a foot to trip me as I moved forward. I anticipated, jumped, and landed closer to the elevator.
“You’re a pretty little thing,” he said.
“I’m not little,” I promised, swinging a half circle with the sword extended, hoping to throw him off balance if I couldn’t bring him down. He stumbled backward out of the way, barely missing the edge of a console table that would have put him on his ass.
My bad luck there.
He pulled another gleaming dagger from the interior of his jacket, switched it from hand to hand.
“Tell me why a girl with your looks, your fine ass, is playing with a sword?”
He meant to piss me off, and it worked. My eyes silvered, but I’d been in battle before, knew better than to let this dirtbag throw me off.
I ignored the pop of bullets behind me, a groan I thought came from Ethan, tried to slow panic and keep my focus.
I lowered my sword arm, put my other hand on my hip, and grinned at him. “I don’t need to play with a sword. I know how to use one.”
His smile was lascivious, and aimed at my chest. So he didn’t see me kick up the bottom of my katana, launch it into a spin. But he saw the blade catch light, glinting once, then twice, as it spun like a baton. His hand moved, the dagger piercing forward, but I was already gone.
I snapped the handle out of the air, edged to his right, the katana trailing me, and shifted my hands forward against his bulk. The blade caught, slicing him across the chest. He screamed out a curse, stumbled forward, hit the opposite wall with braced arms.
As I finished the rotation, he roared with anger, turned back with his dagger gleaming, his other arm pressed against the bleeding stripe across his chest. He lunged clumsily, but he still had plenty of strength. I whipped aside to dodge the dagger, but it caught the bottom edge of my jacket before digging into the wall, pinning me against it like a scientific specimen.
He’d lost his weapon, but he still had two ham-sized fists. I jerked free with a tear of leather, but the delay took precious seconds. His fist connected with my stomach, sending a wave of nausea through my belly even as the blow pushed the air from my lungs.
I hit the stone floor on my knees, the queasiness matched only by the fury that lashed through me.
I huffed quick breaths through clenched teeth, trying not to hurl, pushed myself to my feet again, and leveled him with the fiercest stare I could manage. “You. Punched. Me.” Every word took effort.
He smiled. “And I’ll do it again, bitch, if you don’t step aside.”
He’d punched me . . . and called me a bitch.
Blood roared through my ears, and everything else faded—the sounds of his labored breathing, the fight in the other room. My vision seemed to dim to the cone where he stood in front of me, grinning maniacally and scenting the air with my fury.
I imagined myself a sword-bearing dervish—I apparently got creative while fighting in a pain-induced frenzy—lifted my sword, and dove into battle.
I moved in with a slice from right to left, and he used the dagger to block it, then rotated his arm, using the momentum against me to push me back. But I didn’t stop. I came in again, sliced upward from the left. He dodged, then kicked out with his right leg, making contact with my knee. The impact made my body shudder, pain radiating like forks of lightning, but I stayed on my feet. He wasn’t the only one who could fight dirty.
I feinted to the left, reaching for my knee like he’d done serious damage. His ugly smile bloomed; he thought he’d won. But I kicked upward with my good leg, made direct contact with his crotch, and sent him moaning to the floor on his knees.
“Bitch,” he muttered again, spittle flying, but he wasn’t down, and he wasn’t done. He flipped his dagger and held it backward, the blade aligned with his forearm, then flipped it out with a motion that just nicked the edge of my thigh as I jumped backward to avoid it. I bumped that damned console table, sent a lamp to the floor with a crash of ceramic and glass.
He pulled his bulk to his feet again, lumbered forward, murder in his eyes.
“Bitch,” he said one more time, the word thick in his mouth, as if it was an incantation, a gleam in his eyes as if saying the word gave him power.
My power wasn’t his to take.
He swiped left, then right. I moved backward, putting space between us, his body between me and the rest of the building. I bumped up against the elevator wall, bluffed surprise, let my katana clank to the ground.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” he said.
He was right. I wasn’t.
He roared, lunged, his body set for a frontal attack, so focused that he didn’t see me kick up the katana and thrust it in front of me.
But he was already moving, and skin and flesh were hardly a barrier to honed steel. He was skewered, the handle of the katana protruding just below his breastbone.
Eyes wide with shock, he looked down, took in the handle sticking out of his gut, then stumbled backward, wrenching the handle—now slippery with blood—from my grip.
“You weren’t playing,” he murmured, before his eyes went dull. He fell backward, hitting the floor with a thud.
I took a shuddering breath, wiping sweat from my eyes. I’d killed before, and would again. But it didn’t get easier, no matter that the death saved lives, including my own.