Reunion in Death (In Death #14)(111)

Eve straightened and stripped off the ruined jacket. Julianna did the same with her own.

"I'm taking you down," Eve said. "That's what I do. Come on, let's dance."

"You'll want to hold the troops back, Ian." Roarke reached down to retrieve Eve's discarded clutch piece as fists and feet flew. "Someone could get hurt."

"Man. Some girl fight."

Roarke merely lifted a brow, though his attention stayed riveted to his wife. "And that someone will surely be you if you say that loud enough for the lieutenant to hear. She needs to do this," he stated, and felt the blow in his own chest as Julianna kicked Eve.

She didn't feel it. Her body registered by falling back, pivoting, spinning, feinting. But her mind refused the pain. She felt the dark joy, heard the satisfying crunch of bone when she spun and rammed a fist back into Julianna's face.

"I broke your f**king nose. What're you gonna do about it?"

Blood poured down Julianna's face, ruining beauty. Her breath was heaving, as Eve's was, but she was far from done. She screamed, came at Eve at a run.

The force of the attack had them both flying through the terrace doors. Glass shattered, wood snapped. Roarke reached the ruined doorway in time to see Eve and Julianna spill over the railing in a tangle of limbs and fury.

"Christ Jesus." His heart in his throat, he raced to the rail, saw them fall, still wrapped like lovers, onto the glide two stories down.

"That's gotta hurt," McNab said beside him. "One of us has to stop this, and I'd rather it wasn't me."

But Roarke was already vaulting over the rail, and leaping.

"Lunatics." McNab hitched his weapon back in its holster and prepared to follow suit. "We're all a bunch of lunatics." ,

The glide vibrated under the blows of bodies. Civilians who'd been unlucky enough to be on board scrambled down and off like rats off a doomed ship.

The thin silk tank Julianna wore under the uniform jacket was torn, bloody. Lights gleamed over her partially exposed breast as she jump-kicked Eve in the shoulder, followed up with a roundhouse.

Eve ducked the punch, went in low and heard the explosive whoosh of air as she plowed a blow into Julianna's belly.

"Prison fit ain't street fit, bitch." To prove it, Eve rammed her elbow up under Julianna's jaw, snapping her head back. "But let's see how much workout time they give you when you're back in a cage."

"I'm not going back!" She was fighting blindly now, and only more viciously. She got a swipe under Eve's guard and raked her nails down her cheek.

She saw the men storming down the glide over Eve's shoulder. Heard the shouts and rushing feet from behind. In that moment, her body alive with a pain she'd never experienced, she cursed herself for falling into a trap, cursed Eve for outmaneuvering her.

But the war wasn't over. Couldn't be over. Retreat, her mind ordered. And following it she jumped from the glide, springing hard to clear the three feet to the open-air restaurant.

Those who dined were already goggling. Several screamed when the bloody woman, her face blackened with soot, her eyes wild, her teeth bared, landed among the charming glass-topped tables and glowing candles.

Two women and one man fainted when the second woman, equally torn, flew down, feet first, and slammed into the dessert cart.

There were splashes and shouts as a few diners fell into the pool.

Cornered by the cops who burst through the restaurant's doors and the others that ranged on the now-disabled glide, Julianna focused on the only one who mattered. She grabbed a bottle of superior merlot, smashed it against a table. Wine splattered like blood as she turned the jagged edge toward Eve.

"I'm going to kill you." She said it calmly, though tears tracked through the filth on her face.

"Hold your fire," Eve ordered as one of the cops took aim. "Hold your goddamn fire. This is my op. This is my collar." She sensed rather than saw Roarke land behind her. "Mine." She all but growled it.

"Then finish it." He spoke quietly, for her alone. "You've given her enough of your time."

"Let's see if you've got the guts, Julianna, to try to slit my throat with that. You'll have to come in fast. It's going to be messy. Not neat, not delicate like poisoning some poor slob."

She circled as she spoke, gauging her ground, planning her moves. "What's the matter, Julianna? Afraid to try the direct kill?"

On a scream of rage, of insult, of loathing, Julianna charged. Eve felt the rush of facing death stream cool into her body. She sprang off her toes, one leg pistoning out, then the other. The two rapid kicks, both dead in the face, had Julianna flying back, landing without grace on one of the glass-topped tables.

She smashed through it, landed hard in an ugly shower of glass. "Basic rule of combat," Eve said as she reached down, dragged Julianna up by her curls. "Legs are generally longer than arms."

She leaned in, whispered in Julianna's ear. "You shouldn't have gone after what's mine. Big mistake."

Though in a daze Julianna managed to bare her teeth. "I'll be back, and I'll kill both of you."

"I don't think so, Julianna. I think you're done. Now I'm going to give you your civil right to remain silent." So saying Eve punched her full in the face and knocked her cold.