Page 69 of Wild Heart
I was an eclipse with an instinct for violence.
Every move I made now was bred from the ferocious need to protect him. I acted on auto-pilot, rolling against the floor and stuffing him beneath the desk. I pried the gun from his stricken hands and rose to my feet, firing off a shot in Delgado’s direction.
Narrow eyes glistened with anger, a snarl curling against that smug lip. He shivered like the gun I had trained on his chest was something he could actually feel, and I fucking liked the way he cowered a little, his gaze darting through the room like he was expecting someone to drop in and save him.
“If I see so much as your finger twitch, I will send a bullet straight into your fucking throat.”
“Cabrera!” Delgado barked.
Luis solidified at the sound of his name, peeling himself off the wall he’d tried to blend against. He took a single, jerky step forward and ran his hands down the front of his shirt.
“Go get your son.”
“Take a single fucking step in his direction, Luis.I dare you.”
His legs threatened to collapse beneath him, eyes damp as they moved from me to Delgado. The tendons in his neck stood out against the paleness of his skin, and he expelled a harsh breath before he shocked us both by rushing forward.
Delgado blinked in surprise, and then he chuckled, moving his gun from me to Luis. We fired at the same time. Luis dropped to the ground like dead weight, eyes frozen in shock. Blood gushed from a hole just below his sternum, staining his shirt a crimson red. A gasp blew past his lips, and a couple of quivering hands slapped down across the wound, pressing with a futile strength.
Delgado threw a pompous grin my way, running his tongue over his teeth. The bullet I’d sent in his direction burned through the thick muscle in his upper arm. His blood saturated his sleeve, pooling into the fabric at his wrist and then falling to the floor in fat drops. He pulsed with adrenaline that kept him on his feet, gun high and trigger finger charged.
“You missed, Koslov.”
“I can stand here all fucking night, but how much time do you have before there’s more blood on the ground than there is in your body?”
It was a flesh wound, but it was enough.
“Maaarcooos,” he sang, and Ialmostfucking did it. It was an internal war I was close to losing, but as badly as I wanted to shoot this piece of shit straight through the windpipe, I couldn't risk it.
The split second a bullet left the chamber of my gun, one would leave his too. I wasn’t afraid of death. I’d touched the outer edges of Hell a few fucking times, but my life wasn’t just mine anymore.
It was his.
Solnyshko.
If my heart quit, his would never beat the same.
“Marcos, honey,” Delgado called. “You better come say goodbye to your father.”
“Don’t!” Luis ground out. “Stay where you are,mijo.”
The hairs across the back of my neck rose, and I felt him start to move. It was intuitive, his presence tied to mine so thoroughly, I knew the very moment he emerged from that desk because my heart sank into a cavernous pit.
Delgado’s hungry eyes locked on something over my shoulder, and for just a second, my brain went offline. I moved toward my boy,my fucking heartbeat.My guard dropped, and the smell of gunpowder filled the room. Marcos’ mouth dropped open, and an ugly, guttural noise ripped out of him.
“Papa!”
The pain was like a warm knife, slicing through my flesh before tearing free. My gun hit the floor with a muted thud, blood spraying across the room before it filled the palm of my hand. The rest of me fought against the cutting sensation, lungs seizing and muscles trembling. Pins and needles moved through my wrist and up into my arm, and then shock set in, nullifying the pain long enough that the haze in my eyes began to clear.
Delgado moved forward, low and focused. With a weak hand, he swiped my gun off the floor and stood to his full height, grin stretched wide.
He looked like a fucking cartoon.
“Marcos, hon, why don’t you come pick your boyfriend’s finger up off the ground.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Half of my goddamn finger was lying haphazardly in a small pool of blood, but it felt like it was still attached to my hand, pulsing with low throbs of pain.
