Deke could have asked a lot of questions and probably would later, but the soldier in him responded to the urgency of Hunter’s tone. “Done. I’ll text you.”
“Sir, you have to turn off your phone.” The flight attendant hovering in the aisle scowled.
“Thanks, Deke.” He ended the call, moving restlessly in his seat, praying like hell that help wouldn’t be too late for Kata.
He’d known her less than twenty-four hours, and already she was perilously close to being the most important person in his life. He’d never sought love, but now that it was breathing down his neck, anyone who wanted to steal his possible happily-ever-after would have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands.
Despite the fact that it chafed him raw, Hunter powered the phone down and tucked it into his jeans pocket. He had no idea how he was going to survive this flight without losing his mind. Scrubbing a harsh hand down his face, he tried not to picture Kata hurt, bleeding, alone. Dying. Goddamn it, he should be there to save her.
He swore that if she lived, he’d never leave her unprotected again—not for a single second.
THE sharp report of gunfire startled Kata, echoing through the office. She jumped and lost her grip on her phone. It skittered across the floor, under a colleague’s chair about fifteen feet away as she hit the tile floor on her hands and knees, diving under her heavy metal desk.
Where had the gunfire come from? Given the deafening sound, inside the building, maybe even inside the room. She was the only person in the office, since it was Sunday. But God, who would shoot at her? Had Cortez Villarreal or his goons caught up to her?
Heart beating until she feared it would burst, Kata mentally raced through her options. Her phone had fallen in the intruder’s direction. It was too far away to safely retrieve. Instead of retrieving it, she had to focus on escape. The main exit lay in the direction from which the shot had come. The emergency exit was to her right, on the far side of the room, a good twenty feet away. How the hell could she reach either door before this thug’s bullet struck her? She had to try.
Her phone rang again, a jarring clatter in the thick, empty room. Hunter. God knew what he was thinking now. The ringing stopped, started again.
Then the phone fell eerily silent. Quiet, methodical footsteps echoed off the tile floors in the utilitarian room. There was no one here to rescue her—and they both knew it. If she was going to live, she had to save herself.
Clutching the leg of the desk, she peeked around the corner to see if she could get a bead on the shooter’s exact location or any other possible escape routes. All she saw were rows of empty desks, piled high with outdated computers and paperwork. Then another blast ripped through the room, followed by a metallic ping an inch from her ear. She jerked back in time to see a dent shaped like a bullet in the side of the desk.
The shooter knew precisely where she was. Kata suspected the bastard was toying with her. Next time, he wouldn’t miss.
She cursed the fact that her purse, with her gun inside, was in the top drawer of her desk. If she reached up to get it, she’d make an easy target of herself. But better to die trying than to sit and wait for the fatal bullet.
Slithering out from under the desk on her belly, she curled up in front of the drawers and reached for the handle of the top one, opening it slowly. It creaked, and the sound exploded through the still office. She’d already alerted him; better to finish and be quick.
After opening the drawer, Kata reached up and groped for her purse.
Another shot rang out, closer. With a sharp gasp, Kata jerked her hand down. She’d felt the bullet whiz just over her wrist and had to cover her mouth to hold in her scream.
Then she got mad. This unseen fucker was screwing with her head before he took her life. She’d be damned if she was going to let him do it without a fight.
Again, she reached up into the drawer. From her first foray, she knew exactly where to grope, and jerked the little Coach bag free.
It landed with a thump between her feet—just as she heard more whisper-light footsteps in aisles between the desks mere feet away.
He was coming closer.
Ripping into her bag, she pulled out the little semiautomatic, unlocked the safety, and popped off a round in the shooter’s general direction as she ran, crouching behind the next desk over, one closer to the emergency exit.
She listened for his footsteps again, wondered where he was, how close. But she heard only her own panting, terrifyingly loud in the thin silence.
Biting her lip, Kata peeked above the desk. Her assailant was nowhere in sight.
A fresh wave of fear overtook her. He hadn’t left; she could feel him plotting, creeping steadily closer. Her thoughts spun again. Sit tight for a better opportunity, or run?
A better opportunity might never come.
Sucking in a breath, she darted past a desk. No shots rang out. Holding her weapon in one hand and covering her mouth with the other, she listened. Waited. Though Kata couldn’t hear this murderer, she knew he was coming for her.
Gasping a silent breath, she ran, crouching, to the next desk. Only one to go before she reached the emergency exit. Kata pressed her back against the cold metal, handles digging into her back. Oddly, the pain reminded her that she was alive. At least for now. She gripped her gun tightly, determined to stay that way.
Hunter crossed her mind.
Despite the fact that he hadn’t called again, she had no doubt he was worried. If she didn’t escape, somehow she knew he’d mourn her. For some reason, he cared, way more than she would have expected. Kata regretted like hell that she might never see him again.
God, she was in the most terrifying situation in her life, and yet she worried about a man she’d met less than twenty-four hours ago. Where was her head?
Kata paused, straining to hear the shooter’s breath or footsteps, but she heard nothing. This asshole, whoever he was, was good. Where the hell was he? Kata knew all too well that he hadn’t gone. He likely had her cornered. He knew it . . . and so did she.
She leaned around the far edge of the desk, until she could glimpse the right half of the room, including the path to the emergency exit. No visual, no movement, no sound.
Kata took a chance, scurrying over to the next desk on her knees. The emergency exit was about four feet away, but once she left the relative safety of the desk, she had no cover between her and the exit. She’d have to run in the open, pause to push the heavy door open, wait for it to part enough to let her through—plenty of time for a killer to do his job.
But she had no other escape.
Drawing in a shuddering breath, Kata began counting in her head. One . . . two . . . th—
Behind her, she heard a gun cock—not more than a handful of inches away. She froze, her entire body turning to ice.
“Stay on your knees,” he demanded. “Bow your head.”
No! She had read enough about crime scenes over the years, seen plenty of gut-turning photos. Her guess was that he planned to kill her execution style. Kata tamped down her panic.
“What is Villarreal giving you to kill me? I’ll pay you cash to walk away.”
He didn’t respond, except to press the cold barrel of his gun at the base of her skull. Her heart pounded as terror and fight crept in. If he was one of Villarreal’s gangster thugs, he wouldn’t betray his colors. They were each other’s family, often not having much of a real one. They sought power, were willing to kill for respect. Murdering a woman to help his “brother” was nothing, and no amount of money she could afford to offer him would make a damn bit of difference.
“Say good-bye,” he growled, his Hispanic accent very pronounced.
Like hell.
Kata dove forward and flattened her belly to the floor at the same time she kicked out with all her might and struck her assailant’s shin. A loud rattle of metal and a curse told Kata that she’d knocked him into the desk. Then she heard the clang of a weapon, whirled to find his gun skating across the tile.
Leaping to her feet, she lunged between him and his weapon, pointing her own gun in his face. She’d never seen him in her life. Hispanic male, average height and build, around thirty, shaved head, cold brown eyes. He possessed no visible tattoos but his black, long-sleeved shirt would cover most. His jeans were baggy, puddling over the tops of his high-end sneakers.
Suddenly, he smiled as if the joke was on her. “You won’t pull the trigger.”
Bullshit! Before Kata could mutter a word, he lunged at her, hand outstretched for her gun. She tried to get a shot off, but there was no time. She scrambled back to prevent him from tackling her, but he managed to grab her wrist. If he got his hands on her weapon, she was as good as dead. Yeah, she’d love to corner this bastard and call the police so he’d serve time. But she wanted to live more.
Hauling her free arm back, she let it loose and punched his face with every bit of her strength. After an audible crack, pain shot up her hand, but he stumbled. Kata ran for the emergency exit as if she were on fire, looking behind to see if her assailant followed.
She hadn’t cleared the door before she felt a man’s chest, hard as a brick wall, block her. Steely arms closed around her. She screamed at the unfamiliar man holding her. Tall. Sandy hair, green eyes. Gorgeous. Clearly, the guy was intimately familiar with the gym, and wore a look that said he meant business.
God, had Villarreal sent a damn hit squad to kill her?
Panicked, she struggled to reach the daylight beyond him, but she could not pass or move him. She yelled as loudly as she could, hoping someone nearby would hear, even though this business district was largely deserted on Sundays.
“Shh.” The big guy pulled her away from the open door, into the alley, his voice oddly gentle for such a big man. “Hunter sent me.”
Those words ricocheted inside her, and relief blanketed Kata, warming her cold panic. She was safe. No one in her life knew of her connection to Hunter except Ben, who’d come to her apartment and cursed a blue streak when she’d refused his advances and said she’d wanted to be alone. No one Villarreal had sent to kill her could possibly know that by uttering those three words, she’d instantly trust him. With a shaky sigh, she stared up into the stranger’s calm green eyes.
“Thank God.”
The blond guy cast her a reassuring stare and set her behind him, then turned back through the open door, looking into her department’s office space.
At the sounds of a scuffle, Kata peered around her rescuer to see another beefy blond guy with a military haircut and a grim smile holding her attacker to the ground with a large, veined hand around his neck.
Who were these guys? How had they found her so quickly?
“Give me a reason to kill you,” her second rescuer said. “Even a small one will do.”
“Fuck you, cabrón!” The thug was all bravado. He was outgunned and outmanned—and from the panic in his eyes, her assailant knew it.
“I’m married, and you’re not my type,” said the buzz-cutted hulk. “Get on your feet, scumbag.”
Her would-be killer resisted, and the big stranger manhandling him looked positively gleeful when he jerked the shooter up by the arm—in a way designed to dislocate his shoulder.
Suddenly, the thug screamed like a little girl.
“One more good tug will do it,” the stranger warned. “You going to cooperate?”
The vicious bastard who had done his best to kill her gave a jerky nod.
His captor smiled. “Tyler, call nine-one-one.”
“Already on it.”
Kata glanced as Tyler, the man who had caught her coming out the door, looped a protective arm around her waist. He had a cell phone jammed to his ear and glared at her assailant as if he’d love to rip the guy in half.
Standing so close to the phone, she heard dispatch answer. He responded with all the pertinent information, his voice low and controlled.
“What’s your name?” Mr. Buzz-cut asked her attacker.
“I have nothing to say to you,” he spat out.
“Not going to cooperate? You get that’s going to be bad for your health, right?”
His dead brown eyes narrowed. “You are not the police.”
“Right. Which means I have no rules to follow. And if the cops get here before I can finish fucking you up as much as I’d like ... well, I can make sure when you go to county lockup, you have a very horny cell mate, if you don’t start talking. Now, why did you try to kill her?” He pointed to Kata.
Her attacker hesitated. “Just doing a job.”
Kata’s gut balled tightly at the answer. As she’d feared, someone, probably Villarreal, wanted her dead, enough to hire the job done. A quick glance at her rescuers’ faces told her that both men were blazingly pissed.
“Who hired you?”
Her assailant pursed his lips and looked away from his captor, his refusal to talk evident.
Tyler pocketed his phone. “Police are on their way.”
The big man holding her attacker grunted. “That means I’ve got about five minutes to make your face look like hamburger. No sweat.”