Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(96)
If he shot her, the bark of the weapon would bring those inside running. And he’d be a dead man. If he let her go, she would scurry inside and alert the others. They’d undoubtedly catch him before he could make his escape. And he’d be a dead man. If he continued to hold her hostage while digging around inside his hold-all for the transmitter, he could push the button and blow the place sky-high. But he was inside the blast radius. So he’d be a dead man.
No matter how he looked at it, he was a dead man.
He nearly cried out in anger, in fury, in hopelessness. So close. So bloody close. He was just about to settle for option number three when a thought occurred. And then he nearly cried out in triumph. He didn’t just have three options. He had four. He could drag her with him to the front gate and give the guard the choice between opening the gates or watching her die from a fatal dose of lead poisoning. The guard would undoubtedly decide to open the gates. And once George was through, then he could grab the transmitter and punch the button.
“Don’t say a word,” he hissed in the woman’s ear. “And come with me.”
He’d just started to pull her backward when Daniel Currington pushed through the back door. “Penni, when you asked for bottled water, I didn’t know if you wanted still or sparkling so I grabbed both and—” Daniel dropped the bottles when he saw George. The plastic containers bounced against the slate stones making weird splonking noises. “You!” Daniel roared.
Then and there, George saw his life flash before his eyes and a terrible certainty filled him. Sweet Bella, I’m so sorry…
*
Terror…
That was the only word to describe what Dan was feeling. Straight-up, no-holds-barred, do-not-pass-go terror. It filled him. Ate at him. Consumed him until there was nothing left but the rot. And a fury unlike anything he’d ever known.
Not again. Not f*cking again!
He would have roared the words into the sky. Shaken a fist. He couldn’t lose another woman he loved to a thug’s bullet. Life couldn’t be that unfair. The God he wasn’t even sure he believed in couldn’t be that unfair. Fuck!
“I know you,” he ground out, trying to force calm into his voice when calm was the dead last thing he was feeling. “I recognize the hat. You were at the bar in the hotel in Cusco. You were watching us.”
The man said nothing as his eyes darted quickly right and left, his receding chin twitching side to side. Dan glanced into Penni’s wide, dark eyes and wanted to cry for the bone-chilling fear he saw in them, for the terrible flush that blazed in her cheeks, and for the wetness that clung to her lashes. He dipped his head once, trying to convey that everything would be okay. But he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded in convincing her. Probably because he wasn’t totally convinced.
This man, whoever he was, had trailed them all the way from South American to Chicago, and had the audacity to break into the BKI compound. Which meant he was more than willing to go to great lengths to achieve his goal. Whatever that might be… Dan didn’t dare give himself time to contemplate it.
When one lone tear spilled over Penni’s lid, slipping down her cheek and wetting the butterfly bandage there, a lump formed in his throat. And since his heart had already jumped there when he saw Hat Guy with a gun to Penni’s pretty head, it was getting quite crowded, making it impossible to breathe.
“Were you the one on the tarmac too?” he asked, taking a step forward.
“Stay bloody well back!” the man shouted, his English accent thickened by fear and adrenaline.
“Are you the one they call Spider?” Dan asked, inching closer still, hoping to distract the guy with questions.
“Ha!” Hat Guy laughed, but it wasn’t funny. The sound was filled with hysteria…and a strange sort of sadness. “I am just the bullet. Another man pulls the trigger,” he said cryptically.
“Is that man Spider?” Dan asked, shuffling just a little closer. He tried to slow his racing heart using the technique he’d been taught during SEAL training. But it didn’t work. The organ refused to cooperate and continued to gallop out of control, sending adrenaline surging through his system until his nerve endings burned, until he could taste its metallic flavor on his tongue. Despite the cool, fall evening, a trickle of sweat slipped down the groove of his spine.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Hat Guy hissed. Dan lifted a brow when he saw two fat tears slip from the man’s eyes. And now Hat Guy’s receding chin was trembling. “You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
“Who? Spider?”
Hat Guy just swallowed, his face the picture of anguish.
“Please,” Dan begged him. Obviously the guy had some sort of conscience, the ability to feel something, even if that something was fear. “Let the woman go. We can talk about this. We can figure a way out.” He inched closer still, then stopped and raised his hands in the air when Hat Guy pressed his barrel tighter to Penni’s temple, making her cry out.
I’ll f*ckin’ kill him! Terror and fury mixed together with the growing panic in Dan’s veins to create a deadly cocktail that threatened to melt away his reason, his control. He was about to Hulk out. He could feel it.
“There is no way out.” Hat Guy shook his head, taking a step back. “You don’t get out.”
“There’s always a way,” Dan implored him. “Always.”