Page 63 of Crossfire

I fucking hated this. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to stop, to let her go, but I couldn’t. The lives at stake forced me to continue, even as my stomach churned with disgust as she jerked her head back, tried rolling to her side, and tried kicking me again.

Suddenly, she stilled. It had only been fifteen to twenty seconds, so there was no way she’d lost consciousness yet. Right?

Before I could process what was happening, her hands flew up, and her thumbs pressed into the corners of my eyes.

I groaned, the pain exploding behind my vision as I tossed my head back, releasing her grip. But she grabbed my eyes again, her fingers digging into the sides of my mask, holding her hands securely in place as I thrashed my head back and forth, trying to shake her off. It felt like my eyeballs were being gouged out, the agony blinding me.

Twisting my body, I finally freed my head from her grasp, but the change in angle left me vulnerable. My target landed a massive blow with her knee to my ribs, the air rushing out of my lungs.

More importantly, the impact loosened my grip on her neck slightly.

Before I had a chance to recover, she punched me in my kidney, creating an explosion of pain so intense that I momentarily lost the rest of my grip on her neck.

That was all it took.

She jumped on my back and clamped her elbow around my throat, crushing my windpipe with terrifying precision.Desperate for air, I clawed at her forearm, my fingers sliding over skin that was unexpectedly soft despite its lethal intent. She’d locked her grip like a vise, one hand secured beneath her other arm.

For a split second, the contrast between her deadly skill and the unmistakably feminine curves of her body registered in my oxygen-starved brain.

Instinct took over. I surged backward, driving us both into the wall. The impact reverberated through her body and into mine, a sickening thud followed by a guttural groan that I felt more than heard. Her grip loosened just enough. I yanked her arms away from my throat, twisted around, and stumbled backward, gasping for the air I’d been deprived.

I’d have assumed she’d need to catch her breath, too, or recover from what had to be blinding pain, but nope. The woman surprised me. Again.

She bolted through the bedroom door, darted down the hallway, disappeared into the kitchen, and grasped the back door’s handle. I grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her backward so hard, she slammed to the ground, where I moved in front of her, blocking her escape.

In the blackness of the kitchen, we were like two shadows moving and stumbling in this dangerous dance, making it nearly impossible to anticipate this woman’s next moves.

Case in point, she sprang to her feet with surprising agility, her hands a blur as she yanked two knives from the block set on the counter—a large butcher knife gripped tightly in her right hand, a smaller steak knife in her left. She held them out in front of her, a silent challenge, a warning that she wasn’t going down without a fight.

I braced myself for the chase, expecting her to back away, to retreat to the safety of her bedroom, to lock the door and call for help. After all, even though she’d gotten in some good hits, shehad to know she was outmatched here. I was a trained expert, a killer with years of experience.

But to my surprise, she did the exact opposite—advancing closer to me.

This woman has shifted from defense to offense.

I couldn’t help but feel a grudging respect for her courage, even as I prepared myself for the battle to come. This was going to be one hell of a fight, and I had a feeling it was going to get a whole lot messier before it was over.

With lightning speed, I kicked blade number one from her grasp and prepared to extract blade number two—the smaller blade. The woman was fast, though, and when I reached for her arm, she tried to fucking stab me.

In the heart.

Luckily, I dodged it in time, but it violently forced me to step back to save my own ass.

I snatched the fallen butcher knife from the floor and readied myself for a knife fight, but the woman bolted for the front door this time.

Once again, I had to chase after her.

Which was officially irritating as shit. In fact, this assassination was grinding on my last nerve.

I hated chases. They were such a waste of time and energy, but luckily, the path to the front door was short. She hadn’t even unlocked the dead bolt before I grabbed her and pinned her up against the wall with my forearm to her chest, my butcher knife’s tip pressed against her neck.

At that exact same time—which immediately slowed—she returned the favor by bringing her blade tomyneck. I prepared to drag it across her throat in an urgent race of life and death, but just before I did, a flash of headlights from a car passing by swept through the front room window.

And landed on her face.

What.

The.