The Bodyguard: A BWWM Bad Body Romance(66)

“I can’t lift him by myself,” Mike all but whined. “Come on, man. Let’s just do it quick.”

And then, like magic, they were both right in front of him.

Considering his numerous injuries, Hank moved with astounding speed. As he was already half-untied, ripping off the rest of the duct-tape was painful but easy. Inside two seconds he had Gerry in a headlock, bringing his knee up hard enough to blind him in one eye. The man went down without a sound. Mike, on the other hand, put up slightly more of a fight. He landed a blow on Hank’s already broken cheek, drawing an agonized grunt of pain from him a moment before he kicked him very squarely between the legs.

If he hadn’t been one of Solomon’s grunts, Hank might have empathized. Instead, he merely grunted in satisfaction as the man dropped to his knees to nurse his withering genitals. This gave Hank the opportunity he needed to knock him out cold with a single punch.

It took a good twenty seconds or so before the ensuing adrenaline fled, and he swayed on his feet in sudden fatigue.

Fuck. He sure as hell couldn’t afford to pass out now. Instead, Hank stumbled to Solomon’s desk, knocking half its contents off as he searched for the watch he had discarded. It read quarter to nine. That gave him all of twenty five minutes to get out - hopefully intercepting Juliet before she got anywhere near Solomon.

Taking a deep breath to steady the swaying room before him, Hank went for the door. He opened it slowly, thanking God when there wasn’t even the slightest hint of a creak.

He knew the layout of the house well enough to know what to look for. There were two guys at the top of the staircase, their backs turned to him. Solomon himself was pacing the upper floor as he waited for the guest he presumed was on her way. Below, no less than ten hired thugs milled around, drinking beer, cleaning weapons and otherwise trying to look imposing. Hank might have been able to take on two, but ten was entirely different. At this point, he was looking to avoid confrontation.

Which meant he was somehow going to have to get around them all. Closing the door, Hank exhaled a long breath, praying his body would hold out long enough to get him out of this shit alive. He winced as a fresh wave of discomfort seared down his left side. If he was lucky, there was no internal bleeding, and if he wasn’t, well...he didn’t have a shit ton of time left to do what he had to do.

Hank turned back to the room they’d held him in. He had about ten minutes before the idiots on the floor woke up, and besides that, he’d had days to ruminate on an escape route. The fact of the matter was that one didn’t really exist. Unless he wanted to fight his way downstairs, it was either contort himself to fit through the tiny bathroom window, or break the floor to ceiling windows and topple thirty feet to the ground.

Hank considered for perhaps half a minute before retrieving the chair that had been his prison for the past few days. It would take all his strength to break one of the glass panes and even then, the crash would bring everyone running. He’d have to hightail it off the property like hellhounds were on his fucking heels.

Well, he’d spent more than enough time thinking about it.

Hank took three brief steps towards the window before swinging the heavy wooden chair with all his might. On the first strike, it only impacted the glass with a low thud, sending a spiderweb of cracks spreading from the center of the pane. That, he knew, would be enough to alert anyone who wasn’t deaf. One more swing of his somehow still functioning arms and the glass shattered with a din that probably echoed for a few blocks.

Hank didn’t hesitate. He tossed the chair aside after a quick glance outside to see what his prospects were. The safest bet seemed to be a spreading oak tree about five feet from the building. The door to the office burst open a moment before he leaped.

If Hank hadn’t already been in so much pain he might have been more affected by the bullet that grazed his shoulder followed by the tree branch that slammed into his already wounded abdomen. Instead, he took the impact in stride before dropping the ten feet to the ground.

The house was immediately in an uproar. More gunshots sounded as Hank’s feet struck the ground. His thighs screamed - a jolt of pain down the back of his legs to his heels - but they held. Men were swarming out of the side door when he began to run, and he was more likely to be gunned down than he was to make it to the street.

At least, that’s what he assumed.

Because in that moment, everything changed.

**

There was no time.

Later, Juliet knew she would be sorry. There was no way she was getting out of this without repercussions. And it wasn’t just Simmons’ disapproval she had to worry about. She had set a fucking fire.

Just the memory was enough to horrify her anew. For the past few months, she’d tried to tell herself she’d never committed a real crime. But now she had. Granted, she had little choice. She knew Solomon would deliver on his ultimatum, and there was no way she was going to have Hank’s death on her hands.

Not if she could prevent it.

So she pushed her misgivings about arson to the back of her mind. The fire had thrown the hotel into chaos - which was just what she needed to slip out unsupervised. Despite the fact that she had very little cash, Juliet caught the first cab she could find to the address Solomon had specified. The car couldn’t move fast enough - something she tried to stress to the driver only to have him threaten to kick her out of the cab entirely.

Juliet clutched her phone in a death grip as she hovered on the edge of the seat. All she could see in her mind’s eye was how Hank looked in the video Solomon sent - how broken he already was.