Rage and fear on his face, he swiped at Dylan once again.
Dylan stepped easily out of the way, then caught the bastard’s wrist, wrenched the knife from his grip, and in a single, smooth move, had one arm around the man’s throat, blade pressed against his carotid. “Stop fucking around and go home before someone gets hurt. You hear me?”
Gabriela couldn’t see the man’s face, but she could hear the fear in his voice.
“Sí. Sí.”
Then she saw it as if it were happening in slow motion—the man in the Caracas FC T-shirt lifting his head, his fingers curling around the handle of his knife, his body lunging upright as he drove the blade toward the back of Dylan’s knee.
Gabriela reacted on instinct, knocking him flat with a scissor kick to the chin.
Still holding a knife at the other guy’s throat, Dylan gaped at her, astonishment on his face. “What the…?”
That’s when the adrenaline hit.
He’d seen.
Shit.
How was she going to explain what she’d done?
Dylan gave the man he was restraining a hard shove. “I don’t want to see your face again.”
The man stumbled, looked at his injured buddies, and ran off, leaving them to bleed on the sidewalk and make their way home.
But now a crowd had begun to gather, people staring in silence.
Dylan took hold of Gabriela’s arm. “We need to get out of here—now.”
Stepping over the prostrate bodies of the men whose asses Dylan had just kicked, they headed down the street, people making way for them, giving them a wide berth.
They’d gone maybe two blocks when the National Police rushed by them, sirens blaring, probably headed toward the scene of the fight. On their tail was a pickup truck full of armedGuachimanes.
Gabriela walked faster. “How far away is our hotel? If witnesses share our description or tell the police which way we went…”
“It’s a mile and a half away. We take a right up here.”
Gabriela stopped, looked at the map app on his phone. “We’ll go faster this way.”
She led Dylan through an alley and then into a heavily wooded park, only too aware that they weren’t safe here either. Gangs, drug dealers, prostitutes—they kept to these shadows, guarding their territories, suspicious of strangers.
Four women stood beneath a tree smoking. A group of three young men stopped kicking a ball to watch as they passed. An old man swayed on his feet on the path ahead of them, half-empty bottle in hand.
“I’m not sure this shortcut was such a great idea,” Dylan said for her ears alone.
“Just walk like you belong here. Let all that operator testosterone show.”
“Operator testosterone?”
“See that bridge?”
“The one with the armed guys blocking it?”
“We need to get across it.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“Just follow my lead.”