Brawn - Laurann Dohner [19]
“Don’t move.” Her voice shook. “I will fire.”
“Easy,” he repeated, not moving a muscle. “You have no chance of survival if you kill me. Pull that trigger and my men will take you out. Do you understand me?”
Terror gripped her. She knew there were more of them, that he wasn’t bullshitting, but they’d killed Tina. They’d kill her too. They weren’t burglars. That fact sank in fast and hard. They dressed the way her father’s men did for covert operations. She’d seen enough of her dad’s laundry to know military issue when she saw it. What the fuck is going on?
“We came for the New Species.” He kept his voice low and calm. “That’s all. Lower the gun, miss. You’re not our target.”
“You can’t have him.” Her voice came out a little stronger. “I’m not stupid and I’m not lowering this gun. I won’t miss you.” She adjusted the aim to make sure he knew she pointed it at the center of his skull. “Tell your men to get the fuck out or I’ll be cleaning your brains off the walls for weeks. I called 9-1-1. The police should be here any second.”
“Fuck,” a male voice hissed from the other side of the wall, telling her that another man was inches from the door and within reach of the asshole who filled the bathroom door.
“Tell your guy to back off.” Her finger tightened on the trigger. “I’m scared, freaked the hell out, and I might shoot you if I see the slightest movement.”
“Back off,” the guy who seemed in charge ordered. “She’s got a Berretta pointed straight at my head.”
“And I know how to use it,” she said for good measure. She glanced at the space between the guy’s head and the doorway and spotted Brawn still motionless. Her attention focused on the threat. “Move real slow and drop your weapon.”
His hand opened and the weird weapon landed on the dead guy on the floor. “Are you a cop?”
“No, but I won’t miss you.”
He cleared his throat. “Are you his security detail?”
“No but I’ll kill you to protect him. You aren’t taking him. Order your men to leave my house but you don’t move. You’re my insurance that they don’t try anything stupid. They do and you’re dead.”
“Your house? He lives with you?”
“Shut up and do what I said. Order your men out.”
He hesitated. “Fine.” The fingers of his open hand jerked at his side in a wave motion.
She relaxed slightly, a mistake on her part, thinking he’d silently ordered his men to leave with the hand signal. Instead bullets blasted through the walls. She pulled the trigger and threw her body to the floor.
Weight slammed down on her back. She couldn’t even scream from the pain of being crushed and the gun was torn from her fingers. Whoever had slammed into her shifted his weight and a hand fisted painfully in her hair, forcing her head back. She gasped in air and screamed then.
An elbow nailed her in the back, cutting the sound off from the fresh pain and the body lifted. She spotted her gun near the toilet, too far to grab before she was hauled up by the vicious grip fisting her hair at the base of her neck. She swayed on her feet, clutched at the gloved hand and realized she’d missed killing the son of a bitch when he spoke.
“A couple inches off your mark but you clocked my cheek.” He sounded pissed. “You’ll pay for that, bitch.”
He shoved her hard. She slammed into the wall and groaned. She turned, knew she would die and prayed her father had gotten lucky with his date. He’d have heard the explosions and gunfire from the main house. The bastards had either killed her dad before they’d attacked her house or he was spending the night elsewhere. Otherwise he’d have come after her by now.
She glared at the son of a bitch who had her trapped. It was satisfying to see the tear in the black material near his ear, red showed from the bloody wound the bullet had inflicted and she hoped it left a hell of a scar. Her chin rose as she glared at him and her