Page 115 of Forsaking All Others

To hunt.

The leaves were just turning and starting to fall, crunching between my shoes as I sprinted down the path the opposite way around the lake from Ben, pursuing the shooter. There was another person in the park who’d had a vantage point from the other side of us, but I couldn’t be sure the person was with the assailants or a third party. I didn’t have enough men to send anyone to that side of the park, and it burned in me to know they’d gotten away.

But the shooter wouldn’t.

My loafers didn’t have enough traction on the leaf-strewn cement, so I took a precious second to kick them off into the water before continuing barefoot.

Much better.

“Rounding the south end of the pond,” Ben panted. “I’m twenty paces behind him if that.”

“Keep on him,” I commanded, putting on another burst of speed, ignoring the flare of agony in my arm as I pumped them at my sides.

The pond flashed through the trees at my side as I followed the walkway and then, finally, it started to curve. I deviated off the path, sticking to the soft grass, feet silent as I pounded by, body veiled by shadows as I flicked in between the trees.

I heard the gasp of breath before I saw the figure under the streetlamps, surrounded in the yellow-orange glow of the sodium lights. I stopped moving from one moment to the next, pressed to the side of a tree, breath tight and controlled through my taxed lungs.

And I waited.

This was the difference between an opportunistic hunter and a true master.

Patience.

The percussion rhythm of feet grew louder, nearer.

I counted the treads, listening to the slightly lopsided pace until it was close enough.

The tree bark pressed into my hot wound, made it ache so badly my teeth clenched.

The hurt anchored me.

Three.

Two.

I spun out from behind the tree just as the shooter approached it. There wasn’t time to avoid collision, but he tried to pull up anyway.

I took him to the ground in a full-body tackle, his spine slapping the pavement, his head bouncing against it like a tennis ball. Breath exploded out of his lungs, and the sniper gun he’d carried across his back snapped ominously as something broke.

Or maybe it was one of his bones.

A man could hope.

I straddled him, pinning his arms with my knees, his legs with my feet locked under his thighs. My gun was the cold kiss of death to the soft underbelly of his chin.

“Hello,” I said pleasantly into his balaclava-covered face. “You will make a very pretty present for my wife.”

Then I reared back and pistol-whipped him across the temple so he passed out limply in the middle of the path.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Luca

There are very many ways to torture a man.

Every culture has one, like cuisine or religion.

A traditional technique to impart pain on a person.