“Hang in there for me, Amara,” he gripped the side of her face with his free hand, smearing blood onto her skin, his voice coming out rough to his own ears. “We’re almost out, okay? I know this is stressful but you fucking hang in here with me.”
“Y…yes,” she stuttered, wiping her fingers on his shirt that she was wearing, exhaling out deeply. “Just get us out of here, Dante. We’ll be fine.”
They had to be.
He couldn’t lose their baby, not just minutes after knowing about him or her. But he knew he needed to get them out soon before they were in danger. If he opened the door, it would alert the men and while he could take a lot of them out with the knife, there was still a risk of someone getting to Amara. If he took the gun and quickly shot out a few and coupled it with the knife, it minimized the risk.
“Give me the gun, and shield your body with mine,” he instructed her. “If they somehow get me, get out of here. No matter what, Amara. Get yourself out.”
He saw the first tear fall, saw that she wanted to tell him no, but she understood. If she got out, she could get their child to safety and contact Tristan. She nodded through her tears.
He pressed his forehead to hers for a second, saying the words he’d told her countless times over the years. “You’re the beat to my heart, Amara.”
“And you’re mine,” she replied, her voice barely audible, her words tattooed on his skin.
Urgency infusing his bloodstream, Dante pulled away, embracing the adrenaline, and opened the door a fraction, enough to slip out. He snuck up behind the guy closest to him, cut his jugular open, and muffled his mouth, laying him down.
One guy looked over and Dante aimed, shooting him between the eyes, immediately taking a shot at another guy’s head, another’s knee, and another’s spleen. Two of the men ducked behind cars once the shots rang out.
Dante hid behind a pillar, leaving Amara with the gun again, indicating her to stay in place behind the pillar. She nodded and he slinked out, staying low, walking around the edges of the big garage to where he’d seen the men duck behind a blue Ford. Keeping his body alert but loose, he padded over the side, the knife gripped in his hand like an extension of his limb and came behind the car just to see one guy. A bullet zapped through his side, barely a graze but burning like a fucker, but Dante barely let it stop him, slashing the guy open, feeling the blood on his torso.
He straightened to find the last guy, only to feel him at his back.
He turned, throwing the knife at him as the guy fired. Falling to the floor and rolling to evade, the wound on his side burning, he heard another shot ring out and his stomach tightened.
Straightening, he saw the last guy on the floor, a knife in his chest and a bullet in his head, and looked up to see Amara standing behind him, shaking like a leaf with the gun in her hand.
She had just shot the guy to save his ass. She had protected him. His terrified Amara.
Fuck.
He strode to her just as her knees gave out, her cheeks wet with tears. Taking the gun from her juddering hands, he picked her up and put her over his shoulder in a fireman carry, uncaring of all the blood except the one between her legs, and walked to the Ford.
Opening the door, he put her in the passenger seat, watching as the adrenaline and stress sent her body into shock, and sprinted around, hotwiring the car. Reversing out, going over one of the bodies, he turned to look at Amara, to see her staring blankly out the windshield.
“Amara,” he called her, watching as her eyes came to him.
“How’re you holding up baby?” he asked her, keeping his voice soft and his eyes on the road, déjà-vu hitting him as he took the same route to the hospital that he’d taken fifteen years ago.
“You have so much blood on you,” she remarked, her voice slightly strained.
“I look hot in blood, don’t I?” he joked, slightly relieved as she cracked a smile. “Although if it comes to liquid, I prefer the chocolate syrup you covered me in that one time and then went 69.”
The distraction was working, her mind like clay in his hands, gullible to his suggestions, molding in the direction he wanted it to go.
“We had fun that night,” she remembered, her eyes softening on him.
Oh yeah, that had been an incredible night. “We can try it again later.”
She stayed silent for a long second as they sped by. “We’re losing the baby, Dante.”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel as he pushed the car to the limit, his chest caving in at her words. “Don’t say that, Amara.”
“I’m bleeding too much,” her tone resigned, defeated, and it cut him.
“Yeah, and you will be fine,” he grit out. “Don’t you dare give up. Not now. Not after all this.”
“I’m so tired, Dante,” she whispered, and something in her voice made his gut clench.