Page 137 of Dirty Hit
“The kind you’re built for,” I say.
I reach behind me, under my hoodie, and pull the hunting knife from the sheath at the small of my back.
It’s not subtle—eight-inch blade, wickedly curved, handle worn to my grip. The metal catches what little light there is and throws it back, a thin silver glint in the darkness. I hold it up, letting him see it clearly, hiding nothing.
His eyes widen, and he goes very, very still.
“Dom,” he says slowly. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Remember what I told you,” I say, voice sliding into that calm place it goes when I’m working. “I will never put you where my work goes. I will never hurt you like I hurt them. You know that, right?”
He swallows. “I… yes,” he says, but it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “Intellectually, I know that. Emotionally, my fight-or-flight is screaming.”
“Good,” I say.
He stares at me. “Good,” he repeats weakly. “That’s not a comforting word in this context.”
I offer him a slow, lazy smile, the way I smile when I’m about to do something terrible to someone who deserves it. It feels different with him, though. There’s a curl of heat under it that has nothing to do with blood and everything to do with the way his chest is rising faster now, the way his pupils are swallowing the green.
“Run,” I say.
He blinks. “What?”
My fingers tighten on the knife handle. “Run, baby,” I repeat, letting the killer-calm slide over my features, wiping everything soft away. “You’ve got a thirty-second head start. Make it count.”
For a heartbeat, he just stands there, staring at me like he’s waiting for the punchline.
“This isn’t funny,” he says.
“I’m not joking,” I say, and this time I let him see it—the part of me that chases. The part that doesn’t stop until the thing in front of me is on the ground. The part that has nothing to do with football, and everything to do with alleys and bodies. It’s all there in my eyes, and I know he sees it now, because his breath catches.
“Dom,” he says, voice small. “Dominic.”
“Twenty-five seconds,” I say calmly.
His gaze snaps to the trees, then back to me. His brain is working overtime; I can see it flashing through possible outcomes. He knows me well enough to understand two things at once: one, I would never kill him, and two, I am completely capable of tackling him to the ground and doing something insane without warning.
“You’re serious,” he whispers.
“Twenty,” I say.
He sprints off, and it’s like someone cut a string. One second, he’s rooted to the spot, the next he’s gone, tearing across the clearing and into the trees. He doesn’t look back, he just runs. Picking the narrowest gaps between trunks, trusting his smaller frame to slip through, where mine will have to push.
I grin, feeling something spark in my chest that hasn’t flared this cleanly in a long time—Chase.
I give him the full thirty seconds. It’s harder than it sounds, when every cell in my body is screaming to go after him now—to hunt, and feel that quiet satisfaction when I drag him down. I count it out in my head, listening to the rustle of underbrush, thecrack of twigs under his feet. He’s not quiet; he’s never had to be. But he’s fast.
At thirty, I move.
The forest swallows me easily. This isn’t my first time threading through trees at night with a blade in my hand and someone ahead of me. The difference is that tonight, the person ahead of me is someone I love, and I’m not following the scent of blood. I’m following the sound of his breathing.
He’s quicker than I gave him credit for. Even with the head start, he’s taken advantage of his size, ducking and weaving between trunks I have to shoulder past. Branches snag at my hoodie. Earth shifts under my boots. The moonlight filters through the canopy in strips, enough to keep me from slamming into a tree—not enough to make it easy.
I listen, more than I look.
His footfalls are light, but not silent. Every now and then, I hear a soft curse, his breath coming in sharp bursts, harsh in the stillness. My own heartbeat picks up, not just from the exertion, but from the thrill. This is the part I’ve always loved; the moment between the decision and the impact. The chase.
Somewhere ahead, there’s a crash, louder than the others. He must’ve hit a patch of loose rock or a fallen branch. I adjust course, moving toward the sound. A branch whips across my cheek, stinging, but I barely feel it.
