Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [27]
Best to get it over with, he thought, rising. “I don’t think so,” he said. And caught her as she tried to jump him, turning her easily, twisting her arm behind her back. A second later she was down on the floor, his knee in the center of her chest, and she was staring up at him with mute shock.
Madame Lambert set her encrypted PDA down on the table beside her untouched glass of wine. She prided herself on being able to make the hard decisions and do them in public—she was enjoying a solitary dinner at a quiet little restaurant not far from the office, and she had no trouble sending and receiving the information she needed.
No, she wasn’t enjoying her solitary meal, she amended, picking up the glass of very fine wine and taking a sip. Right now she wasn’t enjoying much of anything. She had just sent orders to Peter Jensen that he would have to kill the young woman who’d gotten in the way. And it made her sick inside.
Peter would do it, of course, no questions asked. And he’d do it in as humane a fashion as possible. But each death, no matter how justified, left a psychic wound that never healed over. The death of an innocent would be far worse. She’d known Peter too long to be happy about that.
But they were running out of time, and Harry Van Dorn would never give up a thing, no matter what they did to him. The only chance of derailing things was for him to die.
That was the problem with sociopaths like Harry, Isobel Lambert thought, taking another sip of wine. Torture was useless when the victim enjoyed pain, and even someone with Peter’s expertise wouldn’t be able to break him. Besides, once again there was the price to be paid for committing such acts. A clean execution was one thing. Torture was another, and there was a limit to what the human psyche could take. She was afraid Peter Jensen was reaching his limit.
Killing the girl might put him over the top. But she had no choice.
And neither did he.
6
Genevieve couldn’t catch her breath. Even on that padded, carpeted floor, he’d thrown her so hard the wind had been knocked from her, and his knee on her chest didn’t help. She gasped, and then the air came back, and with it her anger.
She moved fast enough, catching his ankle and attempting to dislodge him, but he was stronger, harder than anyone she’d ever practiced with. And this wasn’t practice.
He reached down, pulled her hands away and yanked her upright. He was uncomfortably taller than she was when her feet were bare, but she didn’t hesitate, bringing her knee up, hard.
She didn’t connect—he’d already spun her around, her arms behind her back and her face up against the wall. “You’ve got moves,” he murmured in her ear, “but they’re pretty damn pathetic. Never try to knee someone in the balls if there’s any chance you won’t get away. It pisses the hell out of men and they tend to get dangerously grumpy.”
She said nothing, feverishly thinking where she could try next. Behind the knee was always vulnerable, and there were various blows that she’d been warned could be lethal, blows she shouldn’t hesitate trying.
And then he stepped back and she was no longer plastered against the paneled wall. He still had her wrists captive, but she wondered if she could kick backward again.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” he said in his low, amused voice. “You telegraph every move ahead of time, and it takes no effort at all to stop you. And I warned you to stop aiming for my testicles. It annoys me.”
Somehow he managed to spin her around so that she was facing him, her wrists still held tightly in one of his strong hands. She hadn’t even realized he’d let go of them for a moment—she was doing a pretty pathetic job of trying to protect herself after being Master Tenchi’s prize student. “I managed to hurt your friend,” she said defiantly.
“So you did. But Renaud’s a fool, and he underestimated you. I’m afraid he’s the type to hold a grudge. I don’t intend to give him a chance to pay you