No Place to Run (KGI #2)(73)

Tomas swore and immediately dropped down to retrieve the pin. He extended it toward her, his hand shaking.

“You put it back in,” he said hoarsely. “Put it back in now.”

Her father stared at her for a long moment as if measuring her determination. “All right, Sophie. You’re calling the shots. If you want Mrs. Kelly to be freed, you come to me and make the trade. You for her. She doesn’t move away from me until you’re close enough to dissuade the snipers.”

She swallowed and took a hesitant step forward. She wouldn’t look back. She couldn’t. If she did, she’d only see what she’d never have.

When she was close enough to Marlene, she whispered, “Tell Sam I love him and that I never lied to him.”

“How touching,” her father sneered.

Lightning fast, he thrust Marlene away from him and yanked Sophie to his chest.

“Run!” Sophie yelled hoarsely.

The world around her erupted in chaos.

Marlene fled toward her sons. The two guards standing on the steps fell, blood running from gaping wounds in their heads. Tomas dove back into the house. Gunfire erupted over the compound. A heavy explosion rocked the ground. Sophie held tighter to the grenade as her father backed through the heavy front door, his arm a stranglehold around her.

Her last glimpse of Sam was as he rushed his mother into the safety of the SUV.

She closed her eyes. Thank God.

CHAPTER 29

“MOM, Mom! Are you okay?” Sam demanded as he leaned over her in the SUV. “Get us the f**k to cover!” he yelled at Garrett.

Resnick and Sam’s brothers threw themselves into the SUV and Garrett rocked it over a planter and through a hedge until it dove down a narrow embankment behind a rock outcropping.

“I’m okay, Sam. I’m fine. Just terrified.”

Her hands on his face penetrated some of his red haze. He was furious, and he was scared out of his mind.

“We have a hostage situation,” he barked into his mic. “Sophie’s inside the building. Proceed with extreme caution.”

Marlene tried to sit up, but Donovan shoved her back down, his body covering hers. “Stay down, Ma.”

She looked up at Sam, torment crowding her tired eyes. “Sam, you have to get her out of there. She thinks she’s going to die.”

Sam closed his eyes.

“She told me to tell you she loves you and that she never lied to you,” his mom said in a tearful voice.

“Sweet mother of God,” Garrett said in a strained voice. “Son of a bitch!”

“What?” Sam demanded as his head swung in his brother’s direction.

Garrett held up the key. It was missing the leather tie, the one she’d held in the same hand with the grenade.

“She must have slipped it into my pocket when she nabbed the grenade.”

Sam’s gut tightened. He remembered well her determination that Tomas never get his hands on the key. How much more determined would she be to keep it from her father?

“Oh dear God,” he whispered. “He’ll kill her.”

Ethan picked himself up off the floorboard of the third-row seat and grabbed at his mom’s hand.

“Ethan,” she murmured in surprise. “What are you doing here? Where is Rachel?”

“She’s safe, Ma,” Ethan said gruffly. “Thank God you are too.”

Marlene looked anxiously back at Sam. “Are you going after her? You won’t just leave her there, will you?”

“Sam, I’ll radio for a helicopter. I can have your mom out of here in minutes,” Resnick said. “You go. I’ll stay here with her.”

“I want the rest of you to go with Mom,” Sam said. “This is my fight. Your job is to make damn sure Mom gets out of here alive.”

“Bullshit,” Marlene snapped.

Five pairs of eyes stared at her in surprise.

“Your brothers would never let you go back in alone. Your father raised you all better than that. You get back there and save my grandchild. You save that young woman who just traded her life for mine.”

“Don’t worry, Ma,” Donovan said. “We weren’t going to let the dumbass go anywhere without us.”

“We’re taking heavy fire,” Steele said in Sam’s ear.

The others turned to Sam, their worried gazes finding his.

“Let’s go,” Sam said. “I’m not letting this bastard take even one of my men’s lives, and I’m damn sure not letting that fool-headed female of mine get herself killed.”

SOPHIE wrenched herself free of her father’s grasp as soon as the doors closed. It felt like the stone being rolled over a tomb. Damn if she’d let fear paralyze her now though.

Her thumb was slick over the lever of the grenade. It would be so damn easy to let go. But she had no intention of dying, no matter what she may have said.

“Put the pin back in, Sophie,” her father said.

Tomas stood, hand outstretched with the pin, sweating profusely and shaking. Alex stared at her through the narrow slits of his eyes—cold eyes that betrayed no fear. Was the man made of stone or was he just that convinced that he was indestructible? For that matter, she’d shot him and yet he’d survived. Maybe he was invincible.

“I s-shot you.”