Master of the Game (Rush Series Book 3) (27 page)

There’d been something about the
center of gravity, but no matter how hard she tried to remember, it just
wouldn’t come to her. Her chest began to rise and fall rapidly and she felt
herself begin to hyperventilate. She needed to remember what he’d said. How was
she going to survive if she couldn’t remember his simple commands?

Her thoughts seemed to swarm in
her mind. She was going to die tonight… she and her mother, because she
couldn’t remember the simple act of self-defense. She stopped in her tracks and
took another deep breath. She needed to calm down. She closed her eyes and made
herself focus. She needed to take this one step at a time. Feeling more
centered, she once again began to move forward. She stumbled several times over
the uneven ground.

She moved to a small seating
area consisting of a half-dozen metal benches all cemented into the ground.
With another look around, she sat down stiffly, not sure what she was supposed
to do. She pulled her cellphone out of her pocket to see if she’d missed a call
from Miguel. But the only missed call had been from Alex. She sighed deeply.
The waiting was torture.

She sat for what felt like
hours, but in reality had only been twenty-five minutes, according to her
phone. There was the smell of rain in the air and the humidity had her hair sticking
to her neck. The wind was pushing clouds across the sky - she only knew this
when the clouds floated in front of the moon, which blocked what little bit of
light she had. When this happened, she’d pull her cellphone out for the comfort
of light. Finally, in the distance, she saw shapes begin to take form. She rose
on unsteady legs and slipped her phone back in her pocket after ensuring it was
still on.

Gradually, she saw three
distinct forms take shape. There appeared to be three people, two of them walking
behind one. As they drew closer, Devon could finally make out the two in the
back - Miguel, and his son, Jorge. The person in front of them was smaller in
stature than the two men and she assumed it must be her mother. Anger boiled
inside Devon. They’d placed a cloth-sack over her mother’s head and her elbow
was tightly clasped by Miguel. She began to rush toward the group when Miguel
lifted his hand. “Stop, that’s close enough,” he said when she’d gotten within
ten feet of them. Devon shifted foot to foot, desperately wanting to touch her
mother, hug her,
beg
for her forgiveness. Miguel gave
her a resigned shake of his head. “I’m glad you were able to follow my
instructions.”

“Instructions?” she asked
inanely.

“To
come alone.
But don’t worry. We’ll be inviting your boyfriend to the
party as well.
Just on my terms… not his.”

“Mom?
Are
you okay?” she asked, ignoring Miguel’s words.

Instead of her mother
answering, Miguel spoke for her. “Like you, your mother has a problem with doing
what’s she’s told, so I’ve had to resort to taping her mouth shut. But I
promise you, your mother is fine… for now.”

“Take the sack off her head,”
she demanded.

Miguel laughed. “You are under
the mistaken belief that you get to make demands. No, my dear, you do not.”

“What do you want?” she asked,
exasperation pouring off her.

“Your boyfriend has something
of mine and I want it returned,” he said simply.

“What?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll know. Why
don’t you call him and invite him to come here… alone,” Miguel said jovially,
almost as if it were indeed a party.

Devon swallowed. Did she dare
call him? He could already be on his way and walking right into the trap Miguel
had set for him. That Miguel would kill him, she had no doubt. Was it fair to
Alex to drag him into the middle of her family drama? Miguel had already killed
her father, had made her mother’s life a living hell, and had stood by while
Lex
killed Roman. God help her, she didn’t know what to do.

She stared at Miguel for a long
moment, shifted her gaze briefly to Jorge, who stood idly by looking like the
toad he was. Lastly, she glanced at her sack-cloth covered mother. While during
the walk to this place and to this moment, she’d been terrified, now she felt
an unusual calm fall over her. Reaching into her pocket, she once more pulled
her cellphone out.

Miguel motioned to her with his
gun to get her attention. She watched as he placed the gun against her mother’s
temple. “Be careful with your words,
pequena
hija
,
little
daughter
.”

She swallowed the huge lump in
her throat, knowing that what she was about to do would have devastating
consequences for them all. At least now it would end… here, with them. She
refused to be used as a pawn for this man any longer. Sliding her finger over
her phone’s face, she returned the last call to her phone. She kept her eyes on
her mother’s form as the phone rang once, than twice, before Alex answered,
sounding breathless,

“Masters.”

Pulling the phone away from her
face slightly, she said loud enough for her mother to hear, “Mom, I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.” Then into the phone she said, “Alex, please don’t come
here. Stay away, I’m begging you. It’s a trap…”

She screamed and dropped the
phone as if it’d burned her when the gun pressed against her mother’s temple
suddenly exploded, the dark stain of blood seeping out of the sackcloth
covering her head. Devon fell to her knees just as her mother’s lifeless body
hit the ground a few feet from her. Leaning forward, she began to vomit up
everything on her stomach. Distantly, she heard Alex’s voice squawking from her
discarded cellphone.

“You
stupid bitch!”
Miguel shouted. “You’re next. How dare you defy
me!
” Miguel stepped over her mother’s body and stormed to
where she still knelt, her face pale as shock took over. He grabbed a handful
of her hair and forced her head up. He took the barrel of the gun and forced it
between her quivering lips. She blinked up at him uncomprehendingly, her mind
blessedly zoned out. “You could have been useful in so many ways… what a
waste,” he snarled as he pulled the hammer back on the gun.

“I’m here,” a voice snapped
from behind her. It was the voice which sent
a fission
of fear through her, more so than having a weapon shoved in her mouth. She
jerked against the gun and the intense pain in her chest at the loss of her
mother burned even harsher. In her mind, she screamed…
Noooo
!

Alex had just arrived at the
entrance of the Grande Luna Ruins when he received the call from Devon. He’d
been suspicious at first when he’d initially seen the call coming from her
phone and debated at answering, leery of the trap Miguel was setting. But he
hadn’t been able to dismiss it… just in case. When he’d heard her words
followed by the unmistakable report of a weapon – both via the phone in his
hand, as well as, in the near distance - his heart had stopped. He’d set off at
a dead run.

The scene he’d stumbled upon
had made his blood run cold. Miguel and another man stood side by side and
a body – whom he figured must be Devon’s mother – lie
motionless on the ground behind the men. But the sight of a gun-barrel shoved
in Devon’s mouth had almost been his undoing. He’d nearly made the rookie
mistake of rushing in like a bull into a china shop. It’s what he wanted to do,
what every nuance in his body demanded him to do, but years of training, held
him back.

Standing in his preferred
shooting stance, Alex had his own weapon, raised at shoulder level, gripped
firmly within his two hands, and trained on Miguel Munoz. “Remove the weapon
from her mouth,” he said in clipped tones.

Miguel gave him a slow grin.
“No, I’m not, how you say - an idiot?” With a small shake of his head and a wry
twist of his lips, he continued, “I thought
Lex
had
gotten rid of you at our last meeting. You’re like the proverbial cat,
ehh
?” he gave a sharp, biting laugh.

Alex’s eyes never left his, but
in his periphery, he saw the second man’s hand begin to slide down and around
to where he apparently had a weapon stashed. “If you want to live to see
another day, you might tell your flunky to get his hands up,” Alex said
matter-of-factly, “or, we’ll see if you, too, have as many lives as a cat.”

Also in his periphery, he took
in Devon - on her knees and motionless. “Devon, you
doin
’
okay?” But she didn’t respond nor acknowledge his question in any way. “Devon,”
he said a little louder. Again, she didn’t respond.

Blood roared in Devon’s ears
blocking out everything. Somewhere deep within her consciousness, she knew she
should be doing something, but her mind seemed to be seeped in molasses or tar,
her thoughts sluggish, and her ability to comprehend the situation going on
around her – muted. She longed to lie down, curl her body around itself, and
close her eyes, but it took too much energy to move even an inch. Her body was
cold and clammy and her jaw muscles ached. She blinked up at Miguel unseeingly
and unknowingly, unaware of the gun still pressed between her lips, also now
unaware of neither the body mere feet in front of her, nor the man vibrating
with frustration at the current circumstances, behind her.

With his grip still in Devon’s
hair and his eyes trained on Alex, Miguel said, “Jorge, how about helping your
step-sister to her feet.”

Once Miguel had removed the gun
from her mouth, Alex watched as Jorge moved to Devon and jerked her roughly to
her feet. With one quick motion, Miguel spun her around, wrapped his arm around
her neck, and pressed the gun against her temple. It was a replay of the scene
Alex had witnessed just days before with the exception that now it was Miguel
holding the gun. He stared into Devon’s eyes, which were void of any emotion –
there was no fear, no anger, no recognition, just nothing.

Shifting his eyes back to
Alex’s, Miguel said, “Now… this is what’s going to happen. You are going to
contact whomever has my property and get it back for me, or else the next time
you see this face,” he said as he ran the barrel of the gun along Devon’s
jaw-line,” it’ll be splattered all over these grounds.”

“To what property would you be referring?”
Alex asked levelly, while on the inside his body quaked at the precariousness
of the situation.

“Come, my friend, don’t be coy,
I want my payloads. I will kill her. It will mean nothing to me… less than
nothing. Then I’ll kill you… for certain this time.”

Now it was Alex’s lips which
twisted wryly. “That’s a lot to do with one weapon.”

“Fortunately for me, that won’t
be a problem,” Miguel said.

As the words left his mouth,
Jorge’s right arm sprung up with a small caliber handgun clutched tightly in
his hand. Before he had time to aim, however, Alex shifted his arm and let off
two shots. Before surprise even had time to register on Jorge’s face. Alex’s
gaze and weapon flicked back to Miguel. With a cry of outrage, Miguel swung his
weapon up and shot wildly. One shot went wide and missed Alex altogether, the
second shot hit Alex squarely in the chest, breaking his sternum. He was thrown
backwards and struggled to breathe.

The first sound of a gun firing
had snapped Devon’s head
up,
and her out of her fugue
state. She blinked rapidly and tried to make sense of the events transpiring
around her. She whimpered as she turned her head frantically and struggled
against the arm banded against her throat. Her head whipped up just in time to
hear the report of a gun close to her and see Alex slammed backwards in a
horrific replay of before. She opened her mouth to scream but was roughly
shoved to the ground.

She scrambled up onto all fours.
And as she struggled to turn around to confront the danger she knew to be
behind her, she fell over the bloody body of Jorge Munoz. She gasped and
skittered away from the gruesome discovery. As she moved, her hand encountered
a hard object. She glanced down and saw it was a small silver gun.

Grabbing it quickly, before she
had time to think about it, she flipped over onto her back and raised the gun,
clutching it with both hands. Slipping a finger into the trigger-guard, she
pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. The clicking sound drew the attention
of Miguel. He turned his head away from Alex’s body and re-focused his
attention on her. She quickly slid the retractable action on the gun and fired
just as Miguel pointed his own weapon at her and fired.

Devon was slammed back onto the
ground by the force of the shot. She almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of
them firing upon each other – like they were cowboys at the O.K. Corral or
something – but there was nothing remotely funny about this situation… or the
pain radiating from her shoulder. She gasped at the burning pain. Her head
lolled to the side as she watched Miguel limp awkwardly off into the distance.
She wondered if she’d actually shot him, or if he’d just twisted his ankle.

A picture of Alex being slammed
backward had her struggling into a sitting position, pain radiating throughout
her body. She ignored the bodies of her mother and Jorge and slowly rose
shakily to her feet. She tried to block the memories of the last few moments
from her mind, but like a reel from a movie, they kept looping over and over in
her mind: her mother, Alex, Roman; her mother, Alex, Roman… all meeting such
horrific endings. She only prayed, as she dragged herself to Alex’s motionless
body that somehow he’d survived just as he had the last time. When she finally
reached him, she crumbled down to her knees and whimpered at the pain which
jarred through her shoulder at the movement. Blood ran in a steady stream down
her body from the wound.