No Place to Run (KGI #2)(22)

Without a sound, Sam unsheathed his knife and crept forward, pausing when the wind stopped or his target moved. He was three feet away and the man still hadn’t detected his presence. Then the wind shifted, blowing from the west. The man turned up his head, nostrils expanding as he scented Sam like a wild animal.

Before he could turn, Sam was on him. The blade pressed into the neck smeared with camo paint, and Sam hissed his demand close to the man’s ear.

“Who sent you?”

“Fuck you.”

The intruder twisted and tried to ram his gun between him and Sam. Sam sliced, cutting the man’s throat in one quick motion.

The hiss of escaping air and the slight gurgle of blood were the only sounds denting the breeze.

“Good work,” Garrett said into Sam’s earpiece.

Sam held up the okay sign and then signaled that he’d take care of the body. He’d have left it there to rot, but one, it was too damn close to his house and he didn’t want to smell the bastard, and two, it would be a headache for Sean when the body was discovered.

Better it disappear for good.

An hour later, he returned to the house to find Garrett and Donovan both waiting.

“I’ve set a secure perimeter around the house,” Garrett said. “No one will be able to so much as piss in the direction of this house without us knowing.”

“We need to call Steele and Rio in,” Sam said as he glanced toward the couch where Sophie still slept. “Mouton made the mistake of stepping onto our turf. We’ll take the fight to him. This time he goes down.”

Both Garrett and Donovan nodded their heads in agreement.

“Until Rio and Steele get here with their teams, we stay put. I don’t want to get Sean or Mom and Dad involved in any way. We’ll put big shiny targets on our asses and dare the bastards to come and get us.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Garrett snarled.

“And Sophie?” Donovan asked.

Again Sam glanced over to her curled up body on the couch.

“She stays with me. She doesn’t get out of our sight.”

SOPHIE struggled in her dreams. The thing was she was aware enough to know she was only dreaming, but she couldn’t shake out of the hazy world of sleep. Exhaustion held her too firmly in its grasp.

The assassin was holding her while he slowly carved a line into her belly. She felt the skin give way. Horror overcame her. She screamed, a giant, silent scream. She couldn’t get her lips to work, and her mouth was as dry as sawdust.

Whimpers tore from her mouth, and she shoved invisible arms away from her. But still, she felt that blade, cutting closer to her womb.

“Sophie. Sophie!”

The gruff voice startled her to wakefulness. Panic shrieked through her spine. God, she wasn’t dreaming. He was here. He was standing over her ready to kill her.

She came up swinging. Her fist connected with his nose, and she felt the satisfying snap as his head popped back.

“Son of a bitch!”

The snarl had her rolling over despite the scream of protest from her arm. She drew back, ready to hit him again, her other arm instinctively over her belly.

“For God’s sake, it’s me, Garrett. You were dreaming.”

She blinked and stared up at the man looming over her. He was holding his nose, and blood smeared his fingers.

She couldn’t even bring herself to apologize. The words stuck in her throat as she remembered what an ass he’d been so far.

“What the hell’s going on?” Donovan demanded as he walked up. He looked at Garrett with an expression of disbelief. Then he cocked his head in Sophie’s direction and arched an eyebrow in question.

“She decked me,” Garrett said.

Donovan’s shoulders shook and his lips twitched. His eyes gleamed in merriment.

Garrett made a sound that came out as a grunt. “She packs a mean right.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to,” she said in disgust. “I thought you were the ass**le trying to kill my baby.”

She clutched her arms tighter around herself and refused to look back up at them. The two men remained silent, and finally she heard Garrett walk away. A moment later she heard the kitchen faucet turn on.

“Where’s Sam?” she asked, still not looking at Donovan.

“Making another pass. Making sure we don’t have more company.”

She did look then. “More? Are they here already?” She shook her head, clearing the remnants of her drugged, fogged-up feeling.

“You drugged me,” she said through her teeth as she sat forward on the couch.

He stepped warily away. The memory came flooding back of her begging and pleading for them to let her go.

“Who’s out there?” she demanded.

She rose unsteadily to her feet and cursed when Donovan reached out to prevent her from falling.

“Hey, you okay? Maybe you should sit back down.”

“You stay away from me,” she muttered as she side-stepped him.

He sighed. “You were in pain.”

She bared her teeth. “When is Sam going to be back? And you never answered my question. Who’s out there?”

Garrett returned from the kitchen and frowned in her direction.

“I don’t know who was out there. He wasn’t up for conversation,” Donovan said.