Broken Road by Char Marie Adles Page A

just do nothing. When you were the adoptive daughter of Royal Crown, the Grand Don and king pin of the Russian and Italian Mobs, you had better know what to do. Even if you were only with them for two years.
       She spun around grabbing the knife in her burned hand and landed a solid kick to the beefy man’s midsection.
       With a surprised grunt he let go of her, the knife completely and doubled over.
       Devil was quick on her feet and pounced on the man’s back, grabbed a fist full of long blond hair and pointed the tip of the knife over the jugular in the man’s neck. He almost stopped breathing all together in that moment with shock.
       “What are you doing in this house,” she asked with a growl.
       “I could ask you the same question, little lady. Who do you work for? What do you want with this place?” he growled back.
       Before Devil could reply the door slammed open and Mr. Canter stocked in looking dangerous and demanded, “What the devil is going on in here?” That however was before his eyes landed on the two of them.
       “Bingo,” Devil murmured, “and the man gets a cookie.” But she never loosened her grip on the man.
       “Boss?” questioned the man beneath her hoarsely.
       Winthrop went over to his ranch hand Judd and plucked Devil off of the man’s broad back.
       “What in that hell is going on and what are you doing,” he asked her in disbelief.
       He was holding her by the back of the neck like a mother of a kitten would do and she felt hopeless and she didn’t like it. The fire flared in her eyes and the look of outrage followed soon after.
       “Me? What was I doing? I was saving my own ass! This man was trying to kill me!” she seethed pointing in the man’s direction.
       Winthrop looked down at the little hellion as if she were going to spit fire. Judd had tried to kill her?
       He looked to the man in question. Judd himself was looking at her as if he couldn’t believe it.
       Then Devil turned around ready to fight the man who had held the knife to her throat and felt her jaw drop yet again.
       “Grange Judd Marshal!” she blurted out like an idiot.
       The man under all that blond hair froze, eyeing her carefully. After a moment his jaw hit the floor too.
       “Devil!”
       Devil suddenly found herself spun around than quickly sat back down.
       “What are you doing here!”
       She smiled a little. “I’m here for a while. What about you?”
       “I’m-”
       “Holy shit!” Winthrop yelled suddenly making the other two jump. He pushed Judd aside and reached for Devil’s burned hand.
       Blood was quickly oozing from her hand where she was holding a wicked looking knife by the blade and onto the room’s burgundy carpets.
       As Mr. Canter came rushing towards her she finally noticed the blood and the knife. Slowly she uncurled her hand and the blade dropped to the floor. She watched as even more blood welled up from the deep cut that ran from her palm and up over three of her fingers.
       It was surprising how much blood could come from a hand. She felt like giggling. She felt odd and rather tipsy.
       “We need to get her a hospital and quick,” Winthrop yelled at Judd. He ripped off his shirt and wrapped her hand.
       “No hospitals!” Devil protested weaving like a drunken sailor. “No hospitals…”
       As she slipped into a dead faint Winthrop picked her up in his arms and rushed for the nearest truck.
       “What’s going on? What wrong with Lady Bird there?” Red asked, jugging up beside his boss.
       “Go and watch Lilla,” he ordered the redheaded man.
       “What?” Read asked stopping.
       “The baby! Go and watch the baby!”
       Judd took out his keys and they all piled in his old truck.
         He rocked her back and forth murmuring soft comforting words for her to hear and to keep him from wanting to yell at his man to go faster. Every minute that passed it