Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Declan
My hands shook so badly I could barely grip the carving knife. It was much heavier than the throwing knives I practiced with, but not as heavy as the ax I used for splitting wood.
“Don't,” I warned again, raising the knife.
I was much better at talking a man down from his fury than fighting him.
I'd had plenty of practice with Kayden and Dad.
But I hadn't wanted to kill either of them.
I'd never killed a man before, and I didn't want to kill one now.
But I fucking well would if they didn't piss off and leave Bella alone.
Maybe I could buy some time. Stall. Hope Mitch or Kayden returned to take over.
That was the sensible option. The safe option.
But Bella stood frozen behind me. Terrified. Cornered. Trusting me.
If this turned ugly, I wasn't walking away from it.
The bastard thrust his hand into his jacket and pulled out his gun.
Fuck. He's fast.
I threw the knife, aiming for his chest. The blade spun wild, my release all wrong, and I braced for it to clatter into the wall again.
Instead, it slammed through the asshole's hand, pinning it to the beam. A scream tore from his throat.
Bella screamed, too.
Blood splattered across the oak beam and timber counter as the gun clattered to the floor.
Holy shit. I hit him. I actually fucking hit him.
The other man stopped pawing at his burned face and stood, glaring with fury. He charged at us, boots pounding across the timber floor. Murder in his eyes.
“Declan, run!” Bella yelled.
My hands shook worse now, adrenaline making everything feel sharp and unreal. I grabbed a smaller knife from the counter. This one was better balanced, closer to what I practiced with. Aiming for his leg, I threw.
The blade entered his shoulder, two inches from his collarbone.
He crashed into the counter, clawing at the edge as he writhed in agony.
Bella grabbed the hot tray again and smashed it into his face. Brave, reckless, bloody magnificent.
He released an agonized groan, slid sideways, and collapsed onto the floor.
“You bastard!” the first man shrieked as he pulled the knife from his hand. Blood poured from the wound, but his eyes were lethal with rage.
I grabbed another knife from the rack. A smaller one this time. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. I aimed for his chest again, determined not to miss this time.
He raised the bloody knife, his face twisted with pain and fury.
“Don't do it, buddy!” I yelled.
“Declan, throw it!” Bella's voice cracked with desperation.
With the knife fisted in his hand, he charged at Bella.
She backed against the counter, hands scrambling for a pan, a utensil, anything. “Get him!”
I threw the knife, aiming for his chest. The blade went low and to the right, burying deep in his thigh, right above the knee.
Howling, he went down hard, hands scrabbling at the blade. Blood poured between his fingers and splattered onto the kitchen floor.
Two men down. Both bleeding. Both hits had been pure luck, but I'd take it.
Their murderous glares confirmed this was far from over.
“Oh my God!” Bella's breath came in short gasps. Her face was pale, but her jaw was set. She looked at me, fear and determination warring in her eyes. “Run!”
I grabbed her hand and shoved her in front of me. “Go!” I shielded her back as we raced out of the kitchen.
“Bitch!” a voice bellowed behind us as we sprinted down the hallway. “I'm gonna kill you!”
“They're not my brothers,” Bella yelled over her shoulder.
“I figured that. Who are they?”
“Assassins,” she said.
“What?”
“Sorry,” she blurted.
We bolted through the back door, across the verandah, down the back steps, and into the bright afternoon sun.
Squinting against the blazing light, we sprinted toward the field of vehicles.
I searched the scattered equipment for a getaway vehicle.
We had dozens of farm vehicles, but Mitch and the others had taken the fastest ones yesterday: the chopper and the motorbikes.
I grabbed Bella's hand. “This way.”
My heart hammered as we ran from the homestead. My horse was hitched to the rail, but he'd be too slow carrying both of us.
Four Ford trucks were parked against the stock fence with the hoods up for Kayden's mechanical repairs.
Every one of them was covered in red dust. A tractor had a tire removed, waiting for a puncture to be fixed.
A quad bike was on its side and had been like that for so long that a weed was growing up through the engine block.
“What do we do?” The fear in Bella's stunning blue eyes tore my heart out.
My mind raced. We couldn't go back inside. We couldn't run to my place. There was nothing but short grass between here and my front verandah, and we'd be easy targets running that way.
“There,” I said, pointing at another quad bike parked where Mitch and Charlie had left it yesterday.
Squeezing our palms together, we sprinted across the trampled red dirt, and the entire time, I expected a bullet to punch into my spine.
Since meeting Bella, I'd always suspected she was hiding more than nerves. But assassins? What the hell?
My brain was all over the place as I tried to formulate a plan.
I reached the quad bike, vaulted onto the seat, and jabbed the start button as Bella jumped on behind me. She locked her arms around my waist, and I felt every inch of her trembling body against my spine.
“Go!” Bella shrieked in my ear. “Declan, go!”
I gunned the engine, tires spitting gravel and dust in our wake.
As we tore away, both men staggered out of the house.
In my side mirror, the asshole with the knife wound in his thigh limped across the verandah and raised his gun.
“Get down,” I yelled.
Her head thumped into my back.
I yanked the handlebars to the left. A gunshot cracked, and a patch of dirt exploded into the air one foot away. “Fuck!”
Bella squeezed me tighter.
I turned the bike again, zigzagging like a drunken maniac as I tried to outrun speeding bullets.
The bike bounced across the red dirt, jolting over ruts I would normally take at half the speed. I glanced over my shoulder.
The assholes were gone.
What the hell?
We were hemmed in by the main paddock fenceline. Beyond it, three hundred head of cattle grazed across a hundred acres of grass. We'd been fattening them up for the next round of export sales to Japan, and each one weighed close to a thousand kilos—all muscle and expensive beef.
And they were my best chance of hiding from those assholes.
I needed to get to the gate before those two showed up again. And they would. There was no way they were letting us go now.
“Bella, when I get to the gate, jump off, undo the latch, and shove it inward,” I yelled over my shoulder.
“Okay,” she shouted as she peered over my shoulder to look ahead.
I skidded the quad to a stop, just about ramming the gate. Bella jumped off, and after opening the gate, she turned to me. Her eyes flew wide as she stared toward the left side of the homestead. “Shit, they're coming!”
I glanced over my shoulder. The black car screamed around the corner of the homestead, engine growling, skidding sideways, spitting rocks from the rear.
“Get on,” I yelled, nudging the quad toward Bella.
“What about the gate?”
“Just get on!”
She sprinted to me and jumped on the back.
“Hang on,” I yelled and opened the throttle as wide as it would go.
I aimed straight for the herd, leaning on the horn.
The blaring noise cut through the afternoon heat, and the cattle lifted their heads, ears flicking.
I kept the horn going, yelling at the top of my lungs.
The herd shifted, parting reluctantly as we plowed through the middle of them.
Massive bodies surrounded us on all sides.
Brown hides, round rumps, the smell of grass and manure thick in the air.
Behind me, Bella twisted to look over her shoulder. “Shit. Faster!” Her voice cracked against my ear, and her arms tightened around me until I could barely breathe.
In the mirror, the car plowed through the gate, sending planks of wood flying over the hood and roof.
My fingers white-knuckled the handlebars. Every muscle in my body locked tight.
The cattle blurred past in streaks of red and brown.
Behind us, the car’s engine growled like a deranged beast.
The sound carried across the muggy air like a death sentence, and Bella made a small, broken sound against my shoulder that made my chest hurt.
My brain spun through questions I had no answers to. Where do we go? Will they catch us? Are we going to die?
We needed distance. We needed obstacles. We needed anything that would slow them down more than it slowed us.
“Hold on,” I shouted over the engine noise.
Bella buried her face against my shoulder, and her grip got even tighter.
I veered left, leaning on the horn, yelling, darting around the damn cows that wouldn't move.
The bike bounced hard enough to jar my spine, but I didn't slow down. Couldn't slow down. Behind us, the car's engine grew louder.
They were gaining on us.
Of course, they were. They were killers. They probably chased down victims every bloody day. I was just an accountant. My quad bike skills were okay on a good day, but this was not a good day.
“I'm sorry,” Bella yelled over my shoulder.
“It's not your fault,” I shouted back.
“Yes, it is.”
What the hell? Bella was too sweet. Too fragile. If she’d done something to piss these assholes off, they’d damn well deserved it. I'd seen her fear in the kitchen. She was terrified. She'd seen things that made her blood run cold.
And that's why I had to protect her.
“Stop.” She tapped my shoulder.
“What?” I yelled.
“They only want me.”
“Like hell, Bella. Just hang on.” I darted left, heading toward a bull with horns bigger than my arm.
The massive beast stood his ground, chewing cud like he owned the place.
Playing chicken with a one-ton bull on a quad bike was a bloody stupid idea.
I had one shot at this. I hoped like hell it worked.
I darted around the bull, dodging between other smaller bulls, then turned the bike. Aiming right for the big bull's fat ass, I drove straight at him. The bull didn't turn around. He owned the paddock, and nothing ever attacked him from behind. At least, that's what I was counting on.
“Brace yourself,” I yelled to Bella as I increased my speed, aiming right at the bull.
“Oh, shit!” Bella yelled in my ear.
“Get down.”
Two feet from the bull, I pressed the horn and screamed at the top of my lungs. The quad bike’s front tire clipped the bull's hind legs—not hard enough to hurt the massive bastard, but enough to startle him. The bull bellowed and took off, charging straight toward the black car.
A dozen pissed-off cattle, all muscle and horns, thundered after the bull like he was leading them to war.
I spun the quad bike hard left, nearly tipping us over, righted us at the last second, then gunned the engine in the opposite direction.
“You okay?” I yelled.
“Yes. Are you?” Bella shifted on the seat, gripping me tighter.
Behind us, the car's horn blared, long and damn desperate.
“I'm good. Now hold on. We've gotta get the hell outta here.” I zigged and zagged between the rest of the herd, and when we punched through the last of them, the scrubland stretched endlessly ahead.
No buildings, no cover, nowhere to hide.
Just red dirt and spinifex and the occasional ghost gum, doing nothing to help us.
I peered in my mirror, scanning the herd for the black car. “Can you see them?”
Bella twisted behind me. “No. Oh wait. Yes. Oh God. They're still coming.”
“Shit.” I turned the handlebars, heading for rougher ground where the scrub grew thicker, and the rocks jutted up like broken teeth. That car of theirs would have no hope on that terrain.
We just had to get there before they did.
The quad bike flew over the uneven ground, suspension screaming as we hit ruts and rocks.
Dust billowed behind us in a red cloud. The heat pressed down like a physical weight, sweat soaking through my shirt and stinging my eyes.
Bella's grip on my waist was so tight her knuckles dug into my ribs.
The engine screamed, pushed to its limits, and I prayed the damn thing wouldn't blow up.
The black car appeared in the rearview, the silver front grille looking as menacing as a feral pig.
“Declan!” Bella's shriek was barely audible over the engine. “They're getting closer!”
“I know. I know.”
The passenger leaned out of the car window. Shit, he's got a gun.
“Get down!” I yelled as I yanked the handlebars hard left, throwing us into a sharp turn that nearly tipped the bike. Bella's scream cut off as she flattened herself against my back.
A bullet cracked through the air, barely missing us.
My heart tried to launch through my throat. This was insane. Fucking insane.
Another crack. Closer this time.
Bella made a sound against my shoulder that might've been a prayer or a curse.
Whatever Bella had done, whoever these men were, whatever nightmare she was running from, I didn't care. She was terrified, and it was up to me to save her.
I raced the quad bike across the endless red earth.
Two assassins were trying to kill us.
I pushed the quad bike harder, faster. The engine shrieked. The scrubland blurred. And somewhere behind all the terror and adrenaline, a single thought crystallized with absolute clarity: I had no idea what the hell I was doing.