On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(92)

Chapter Sixteen


Alex stormed out of the elevator, his only thought on finding Eve.

“The common rooms are on your right.” Kristen jogged to keep up with him. “No one can get her in this building, Alex. I made sure I picked a very secure location. No one can get in without a key fob.”

There were so many ways around that it was silly. He stalked down the hall praying he would see Eve coming the other way. She would be in the common room messing around with the coffee maker. Deep breath. Move.

“And no one knows we’re out here,” Kristen argued.

“Someone could have easily followed us from the club.”

“But we’ve been driving different cars and switching at the apartment in town. I had protocols in place. No one should be able to find us here.”

If he’d been on the other side and new faces had shown up right around the time that Evans was scheduled to visit, he would have put a twenty-four hour ghost on them for a couple of days, but then Chazz was kind of an idiot.

“Here it is.” Kristen pushed the door open.

It was a small kitchen, the scent of coffee still lingering in the air.

No Eve.

He checked in the trash. There was a single-use cup tossed into the can. It was a dark roast, exactly what Eve would have selected. She’d been here and now she wasn’t.

“She went outside.” She’d talked a lot last night about enjoying the mornings here. She loved the waves and the scent of the ocean. Which exit would she have used? The main exit was closest, but there was an exit just a few feet from the private elevator. It was closer to the building’s pool and had a spectacular view of the ocean.

He was going to spank her ass red if she was sitting out on the patio sipping her coffee. Please let her be sitting out on the patio sipping coffee. Please. Please.

“You think she left? Alex, we should go and grab some ordinance,” Kristen said, worry creeping into her tone. “Maybe something bad has happened. I’m not carrying.”

Neither of them was carrying because he hadn’t gotten dressed for the day, because he’d been too busy luxuriating in his wife to take care of her. “Call Adam. I’m going to search the grounds.”

“Damn it,” Kristen cursed behind him.

He made it to the side door and immediately saw something that set his heart to racing.

A cup on the ground, coffee spilled all over the concrete.

He pushed through the door, his eyes searching for Eve. “Eve!”

“Shit. McKay, let’s get back inside.” She had a cell in her hand. “Adam, Eve’s not here. Turn on the locator to her cell phone now.”

“Where’s our SUV?” He looked out over the lot. He knew damn well where he’d parked last night, and the vehicle was gone. But Eve’s keys were upstairs. She didn’t have them on her. So where the hell was the car?

He forced himself to calm down. He needed his brain working, not pondering every bad possibility.

“Shit and f*ckballs, is that her phone?” Kristen walked onto the lawn and bent down, picking something up. She turned, showing him the phone in her hand. Eve’s phone. She wouldn’t have just lost it.

“He made her get rid of it.” And then it was easy to follow the bastard’s line of thinking. “He’s in the car we rented. Have Adam start a trace on the GPS. The rental company will have some way to track it down.”

Kristen stepped out, speaking to Adam, but she had a hand over her brow as though trying to see in the distance. “Yes, get someone on it. And pull the feed from the CCTVs. At least we’ll know when she stepped out of the building.” Her arm came down in a quick motion. “Alex, drop!”

He saw it, but briefly, a little flash of light, the sun hitting the scope of a rifle and reflecting off of it.

He started to move, but there was a crack in the air. He needed to drop, but Kristen had moved faster than he had, and she covered his body.

Alex felt the bullet hit her, her frame jerking against his.

He put his arms under her and pulled her back, his hands going for his key fob. He had to get them out of the line of fire.

In the distance, he was almost certain he heard someone scream, but he couldn’t make it out.

There was another flash and he ducked, covering Kristen’s body as much as he could with his own. The bullet zinged past his ear, fire grazing along his skin. He covered her head with his hands.

“Fuck that hurts,” Kristen said. “Oh, god. Oh, god I can’t breathe.”

Her words came out in tortured pants, and he could feel blood covering his arm.

He needed to run like a madman toward the man with the gun. The man with the gun had Eve. Was she dead? Was her body lying somewhere just waiting for him to find it? Had Evans come in early and somehow discovered they were here? Was he back to finish the job?

The door behind him came open, and Alex felt two arms go under his own, pulling him back. He held onto Kristen, his hand on her wound.

“She’s hit bad, Adam.”

“Already called a bus. I heard the shot over her phone. Are you hit?” Adam’s voice held none of his normal sarcasm. As always in a crisis, Adam became deeply competent.

“No, she jumped in front of me.” Why the hell had she done that? She didn’t have to. It was obvious who the f*cker was going for, but this woman who didn’t really know him had leapt to save his life.