But the animal part of her refused to die without a struggle. Grimly, she clawed again at the arm around her neck and kicked as hard as she could at his shins, but all she encountered was something stiff and unyielding. The man was wearing boots that went to his knees.

Her tormentor growled low in his throat and squeezed. Tight, tighter.

Oh God, she was going to die. Right here, right now. All the things she had left to do with her life, all the paintings she wanted to create, the music she wanted to listen to, the walks she wanted to take—it was too late.

“Throw it,” her tormentor rasped.

The dark-haired man kept his gaze fixed on Leather Coat, unblinking in the rain that threw a scrim over the scene in the alleyway.

Her vision was failing, spots revolving in front of her eyes. There was a dull blackness at the edges of her vision. “Throw it,” her tormentor said again.

Throw what? What was he talking about?

A clatter on the ground. Her tormentor hadn’t been talking to her. He had addressed the dark-haired man, who had thrown the gun he’d wrested from his would-be assassin onto the oily, pebble-strewn ground. He slowly stood up.

“Let up on her,” the man said quietly. He had a deep, calm voice with a hint of accent. “You’re choking her to death.”

“Your other weapons first.”

The dark-haired man reached inside his parka and pulled a gun out. He held it carefully by the muzzle. “Safety’s on, as you can see. Now let her breathe.”

Amazingly, that quiet voice held enough command to make the arm around her throat loosen. Her feet scrabbled, touched the ground for the first time in what felt like hours. Grace took in a big wheezing breath, hoping it wouldn’t be her last. Though the chokehold had loosened, the gun was still rock-solid against her head. She was still so close to the man who held her that she could feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke.

“The rest of your weapons,” he said to the dark-haired man.

The gun came away from her head, the cold barrel sliding horribly down her neck, trailing down over her arm to stop at her elbow. “Or I blow a hole in her elbow. Then shoulder. Blow her arm right off. First one, then the other. Then I kneecap her. She’ll die piece by piece.”

Grace was shaking so hard her teeth rattled. The man’s low tone was matter-of-fact, not menacing, which made it even more horrible. He could have been ordering a drink in a bar, not threatening to kill her by slow degrees.

Fear set up a keening whine in her head. She looked around wildly, wondering if this would be her last sight on this earth.

A filthy alleyway in the rain, cloudy light at one end, dank darkness at the other. One of her few friends, Harold, lying behind her on the floor, wounded, if he hadn’t already died from the blow. And four men, all violent, all dangerous, all armed. They wanted something from the dark-haired man and, crazily, were using her to get it.

Though she felt danger to her coming from the four attackers, she didn’t feel that at all coming from the man who’d been attacked. The menace he radiated was tightly focused on the man holding her.

“Go on,” Leather Coat growled. The gun tapped horribly against her elbow. “Give me an excuse to shoot.”

Grace looked up at the man holding her. He was grinning at the dark-haired man. He never looked at her. She had a horrible feeling she barely existed for him. She was like a tool dangling from his arm, useful to get something he wanted, of no intrinsic importance. “I’m waiting. I hope you give me the excuse to blow her away bit by bit. I’ll enjoy it.”

No doubt he would. Cruelty was etched in every line of his face.

The dark-haired man reached around his waist, pulling a gun from behind him. Moving slowly, he placed it on the ground.

“Knives,” her tormentor rasped. “And don’t tell me you don’t have any.”

In a second, two sharp, gleaming knives clattered to the ground.

“I hear you carry a karambit. Out with it.”

A wicked-looking curved knife that came to a surgically sharp point fell to the ground in a flash of steel. The man holding her grunted.

The attacker on the ground stood up, wincing, with a sneer of victory. He’d been bested in a fight, but now the odds were in his favor.

“Turn around,” Leather Coat growled to the dark-haired man.

Grace’s gasp was loud in the alleyway. The dark-haired man was unarmed and helpless. They’d already tried to kill him once and now they were going to finish the job.

She had no idea who he was, but she felt connected to him somehow. He had let himself be disarmed to spare her. She had no idea if he could have prevailed against four men, but the way he fought proved that he wouldn’t die easily, not without inflicting a great deal of harm. The dark-haired man knew how to defend himself, not to mention the fact that he walked around with a small arsenal on his person.

Maybe he was a bad guy, too, just like the other four. Maybe she had stumbled onto some kind of turf war of drug dealers or something. Maybe this was a mob shakeout.

She could believe that, absolutely, of the other four but found it hard to believe of the dark-haired man, for no special reason her oxygen-deprived brain could conjure up, except that he had a different look.

Whoever he was, he’d pissed off the four criminals greatly and on the theory that your enemy’s enemy is your friend, she was on his side. As he was on hers. He’d allowed himself to be disarmed and was probably going to die, right now, to spare her.

No. Every cell in her body rejected the notion. He wasn’t going to die, slaughtered like an animal. She wouldn’t let him. Apart from anything else, the instant he was gone, she would be dead, too. She’d seen the goons’ faces. They weren’t the kind to leave witnesses behind.

Together with some oxygen, an electric pulse ran through her, grounding her, giving her strength. She wasn’t ready to die. Not here, in this filthy alley, and not now, two months from her twenty-eighth birthday.

And neither was he going to die. She met his eyes, the deepest brown she’d ever seen. His gaze was clear, direct and sad. Grace caught his gaze, willing him to look at her, to follow her thoughts, darting her eyes to her purse. He could see that the clasp was open. She looked deliberately at her purse, at him, at the man holding her. Over and over again.

He understood. The slight aura of resignation and defeat was gone. Grace watched as he turned back into a warrior, right before her eyes. His broad chest expanded as he took in deep breaths, like swimmers do before going a distance underwater. His stance changed, became springy as he balanced on the balls of his feet. The other men seemed oblivious to the change. They were gloating, sure that they’d won this battle, and weren’t paying attention.

Which was perfect.

Grace had no idea how good a fighter this man was, but she was willing to risk everything to find out. And if he couldn’t overwhelm four men, she’d rather die by a shot to the head trying to get away than by slow torture.

“Hey!” Leather Coat bellowed to him. “You heard me! Turn around right now, you fuckhead, or I’m blowing a piece of her away.”

Leather Coat was distracted by the drama. Like all bullies, he relished control, imagining victory before victory was his, simply because it was unthinkable that he lose. She’d known people like that, who loved wielding overwhelming power over others because it fed their ego. And Leather Coat’s ego must be really pumped right now, holding a gun on a woman, facing an unarmed man four to one. The kind of odds bullies loved.

Grace could feel him relaxing, letting down his guard, ready to enjoy the next couple of minutes. It was a done deal, as far as he was concerned.

Over her dead body.

She waited a beat, allowing Leather Coat’s grip to loosen further, gave a sharp nod to the man, hoping he understood, reached into her purse with a lightning fast move, brought the Mace canister up to Leather Coat’s face and sprayed him full in the eyes.