Page 5 of Lethal Bliss

“On the count of three.” He raises his free hand with three of his fingers up.

The ring finger goes down.

One.

The middle finger follows suit.

Two.

The index finger folds.

Three.

He reaches around the corner and begins to fire.

I set off on a run, bent low. There’s only a short distance from this side of the house to the driveway, and I cover it in a matter of seconds. When I get to the car, I hunker down by the side and pull the door open.

My finger shakes as I reach for the start button and push it. Next, I clamber quickly over the driver’s seat and the gearbox into the front passenger seat and bend low.

In a moment, the man starts racing down the frontage to the driveway. He continues to shoot at the open doorway and the other end of the building as he runs. One or two yards away, he stops shooting and leaps into the car.

He slides in behind the wheel while keeping low and pulls the door shut.

It is then that all hell lets loose.

Bullets come flying at us from both the doorway and the other end of the building. The bad men shatterthe windshield in a matter of seconds.

A few inches above the dashboard and my pretty head would be in the way of those bullets. The thought wrenches a whimperfrom my lips, and I squeeze myself even lower, between my seat and the glove box.

The man shifts the gearstick into reverse and floors the gas pedal. The car goes careening backwards off the driveway and into the street. He hits the brake then, and the car halts with a shuddering screech.

There’s a lull in the gunfire, and I’m sorely tempted to raise my head and check. However, quick footsteps hitting the driveway stifle my curiosity, so I stay put and instead shut my eyes.

I feel the car jerk forward and swerve right as we race down the street.

CHAPTER 3

Enzo

It’s only after we clear the motel and the house next to it that I raise my head enough to get a good view of the street. In the rearview mirror, I see two of our assailants pursuing on foot. They’ll never catch up.

I make sure of that when I pull up next to their car and deflate one of their tires with my last bullet. After that, we’re home free. I urge the car forward again and send us hurtling past the intersection.

“Are we going to a hospital?” Flora asks. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

The wind is in our faces, so she has to raise her voice to talk. With most of the windshield gone, there’s nothing to keep it out.

“Why?” I ask.

“You were shot,” she replies.

Then I recall the impact of the bullets as they slammed into me. The adrenaline in my system had made them seem inconsequential. Even now, there’s no serious degree of pain yet.

I keep a hand on the steering wheel while I feel around the stiff bulletproofed vest under my shirt for the impact of the bullets with my other hand. There are two depressions, higharound my chest area. A little higher and they’d have gotten me in the neck.

That’d have been me lying there behind the motel, bleeding to death.The thought is chilling.

“Are you okay?” Flora asks. “Do you need me to help you apply pressure to the wound?”