by Linda Ladd
Roaring with pain and anger, Max shoved her back off him, and then backhanded her so quick and hard that she couldn’t dodge the blow. He hit her on the side of her head, on her ear and upper jaw. Claire went flying backward onto the floor, as he grabbed at his wounded side, groaning in agony, blood running out between his fingers. He started screaming down at her.
“You bitch, I’m gonna kill you, you fuckin’ little bitch!”
Claire lay on her back on the floor, dizzy as hell, ears ringing, jaw on fire from the brutal blow, but she rolled away from him as he lunged down hard on top of her and grabbed her by the throat with both his hands. Completely enraged, he got his thumbs on her gullet, squeezing, squeezing, fingernails cutting into her flesh, clamping off her air, and she was choking, but she still had a good grip on that blessed piece of glass. Her right hand was bleeding down her arm from the deep laceration across her palm, but she didn’t care, barely felt anything but the desire to kill him, kill him, stab him over and over and over again, until he was dead. Max was right above her, leaning down into her, his face purple with rage, all the self-containment and control that he’d bragged about now gone, his veins popping out on his forehead and temples, blood pouring down his side.
After that, Claire didn’t hesitate, didn’t think, and just acted out of raw, animal bloodlust. She jerked her hand with the makeshift weapon out from between them and started plunging the jagged, bloody, sharp shard into the side of his neck, as hard as she could, over and over, trying to hit his jugular vein. Then she finally cut it and hot blood gushed out of his slashed throat in a long pulsating stream of red, covering both her and him and the carpet. She jerked the glass back out again, did it again, still clutching the glass in a tight death grip, the palm of her hand a bloody mess of torn flesh, ripped deep in a gaping wound that she still didn’t feel.
Max came up on his knees over her, holding his butchered throat, and then he very slowly reeled backward onto his heels, no longer trying to stop the gushing blood that was pouring down over his arms and chest. He fell sideways, onto his left side, gurgling and gasping, his throat sliced down into his windpipe and making sickening sucking sounds. Claire scrambled away from the dying man, shaking uncontrollably all over, sick and sobbing and breathless, scrambling back as far as she could from his thrashing legs, and not stopping her hysterical flight until her back hit the far wall.
Then Claire just watched, groaning herself, sick with revulsion and burgeoning shock, as he rolled and floundered a few more seconds, but his death throes did not last long before he just stopped moving and went still, lying on his back in a giant pool of blood. Claire just sat there for a while, her heart thundering, cradling her butchered hand against her breast, filled with disbelief that she had done such a thing, killed a man in such a way, and then she somehow pushed herself up, shaky, trembling, but made it to her feet, and then she stumbled around, very weak, her shirt and jeans dark and slick and coated with Max’s blood.
Heaving in hard breaths, she forced herself to calm down. She bent over at the waist and clasped her hands together and felt like she was going to vomit. She still didn’t feel the pain from her sliced hand. She stood there like that, trying to overcome the shock and the horror of what she had done and tried to control the dizzy nausea that assailed her every time she tried to stand up. When she finally managed it and began to think clearly again, she looked at the door, expecting more armed men to crash in and grab her. She waited, her pulse racing, but nothing happened. She couldn’t let herself be overcome with the gore and the stink of freshly spilled blood and the horror of what lay there in front of her. She had to stay calm, because now, at a terrible cost, she was free.
Chapter Fourteen
When the bomb detonated, Novak had been the lucky one. He had seen the ticking bomb lying on the floor beside the bed, cried a warning, and dove back out into the hall. Although his two companions had leaped back away from the blast, they hadn’t been fast enough. So when the smoke cleared a little, Novak found himself lying on his back halfway out in the hall. He sat up slowly and tried to shake the fog of shock out of his head.
John Booker was lying just inside the door, having been blown backward and completely off his feet. He had hit the wall hard and crumpled down but he hadn’t been very close to the bomb, either. But it looked like he was either unconscious or dead. Novak wasn’t sure yet. From where he sat, he could see lots of shrapnel embedded in Booker’s arms and legs and sticking out of the Kevlar vest. After a few seconds, Booker moved, groaned a little, and Novak realized the vest and helmet had saved his life. He could hear Holliday groaning and could hear him rolling around in broken glass and rubble, also very near the door.
Novak rose up on his knees, still shaky, his muscles quivering. After a minute, he forced himself to stand and struggled back to the door. It had been blown off and was lying out in the hallway. Holliday was just inside the demolished room, conscious and holding his leg and groaning. The wound in his thigh was bleeding heavily from a short piece of splintered wood protruding out about four inches above his left knee. He was also covered in shrapnel wounds.
Everything else inside the room was pretty much destroyed, the windows blown out, the fire growing larger and getting closer to them. Novak held his aching head in his palms for a second. His temples were pounding hard from the severe percussion suffered at close range; his eyes ached from dust and grit and the taste of gunpowder and smoke. That’s when he realized his head was bleeding, because he had to blink blood away to clear his vision. Still, he was alert and in charge of his faculties, still able to function and cognizant of their immediate danger. He picked up his rifle and raised it to firing position and pressed his back against the wall in the hallway, pretty certain that Soquet’s men would storm the corridor any minute.
Soquet had outsmarted them. He had been expecting them to come. It had been a trap, plain and simple. This was the moment that Marcel could attack full bore and wipe them out for good. Especially since Novak was the only one up on his feet and in any condition to fight. He waited there a second longer, not ready to let down his guard yet. The long corridor remained empty; the chateau silent except for the periodic sound of plaster dropping off the walls and ceiling, the crackle of flames, and Holliday’s low groans of pain. But no pounding of boots, no ratcheting of guns, no men bearing down on them. That was good, but it was also surprising. Novak went inside then to get the others out before the fire devouring the room reached them.
Slinging his rifle strap over his shoulder, he grabbed Holliday by the back of his vest and dragged him out into the hall. Once he got him a safe distance away, he went back for Booker, hoping he wasn’t as badly hurt as he feared. Booker wasn’t moving now, and Novak knelt down beside him and placed his fingers against his neck. He could feel a beat, very faint, but he was still alive. Hopefully, Booker had just been knocked out. He had been first in, at the forefront of the assault, and thus the first one to get the blast. It looked as if he had thrown himself to one side and turned his back to the bomb, both of which had probably saved his life. The right side of his face was cut up pretty bad and bleeding profusely, and his helmet was singed. Novak pulled Booker outside and hunkered down beside Holliday, still watching the end of the hall for attackers.
Holliday was sitting up now, alert, his back propped against the wall. He had pulled the wood out of his leg and was binding up the wound. “Got hit with something,” he muttered, breathing hard, in obvious pain. “Penetrated my thigh. Went straight through, though. Didn’t hit an artery, thank God. Pretty sure I can walk.” He looked down at Booker and said, “He’s not dead?”
“No, but he might have some internal bleeding. Blast got him first. Lucky he’s still alive. So are you.”
“We need to get the hell outta here. Why aren’t they comin’ at us?”
“Maybe they’re outside, waiting for us. Think you can stand up and walk? We need to figure out what the hell’s going on.”
Holliday w
as able to push himself up. He held onto the wall. He was angry. “We walked into a goddamn trap, like fuckin’ amateurs. That’s what’s goin’ on. They planted Black’s GPS here and played us for fools. Now they’ve got him and Claire somewhere, and we’re never gonna find them. Not in time to save their lives.”
Novak already knew all that. Had realized all of that, and right off, and that all of this had been a skillful diversion to take them out, kill them all in one fell swoop. The guards downstairs had been duped by their own people. They had been nothing to Soquet but collateral damage in his attempt to stop Novak and the others. Claire had told him that Soquet was clever and well-practiced with complicated tricks and intricate bombings. They had been expecting him to use bombs in defense, but not the way it had come down.
Soquet had won this go-round all right. Claire was in his hands now, too, somewhere unknown, probably far from Marseilles, and that savage animal could do anything he wanted with her. They had been played for fools and were helpless now. Nick and Claire both faced painful deaths, if Soquet hadn’t already killed them. Furious at himself for walking into such a ruse, Novak said, “Okay, let’s get outta here. But I doubt this is the only surprise he’s got in store for us.”
Holliday took a step, using his rifle as a crutch, and groaned. Novak picked up Booker’s limp body and heaved him up and over his shoulder. Booker was trying to come around now, moaning and mumbling incoherently. Good sign, that. But that was the only good thing about what had happened. If any of them made it out of the building alive, it would be a miracle.
Novak took the lead, proceeding cautiously, expecting to be fired upon at every turn of the corridor and especially at the base of the staircase. But nothing happened; nobody showed up. Just the lifeless bodies of the men they’d killed to gain entry, still lying where they’d shot them down. They had been sacrifices all right, pawns to get Black’s rescuers upstairs to the bomb site, so Soquet could blow them to smithereens. Novak cursed his own gullibility as he carried Booker down the wide main staircase, because he knew they were in a world of hurt now. God only knew where Black and Claire were. He kept going, eyes moving from side to side, searching the shadows, his rifle up and ready, his mind working hard, trying to figure out how this could have happened. How they could have been so stupid.
Hell, Novak should have known when they gained entry with only a handful of men there to stop them that it was a trap. But they’d done what they’d thought was the right thing and had been tricked. Right now they couldn’t waste any more time thinking about that. They had to get out and go back to square one and figure out where they went wrong and where Soquet was keeping Black and Claire prisoner. Things had now hit a catastrophic level, and Novak wasn’t sure there was anything any of them could do about it.
Chapter Fifteen
Still shaking uncontrollably from her desperate struggle, Claire felt sick and woozy, both from a curious sort of macabre delayed reaction and from her own loss of blood. She stood perfectly still now, her back against the wall, staring down at Max Soquet’s lifeless body and the huge pool of blood. Then she opened her right hand and stared down at the deep, gaping, and very ugly wound. The glass had sliced through the middle of her palm from side to side, almost all the way down to the bone. It hurt so much that she wasn’t sure if she could stand it. She ground her teeth, as blood ran down over her wrist and forearm and dripped onto the floor and onto her tennis shoes. She had blood all over her, soaking into her clothes, making them glisten dark red. Her hair was coated with his blood, and she could even taste it in her mouth.
Trying to press the edges of the wound together with the fingers of her left hand, she groaned, the pain excruciating. She felt almost as if she was going to pass out, but she just waited, terrified, for guards to burst inside the room and kill her. But it remained quiet. There was nobody outside, not that she could hear, anyway. Trying to get a grip on her fractured, shivering, and quivering nerves, she realized that Max’s cell phone was still recording. She moved quickly across the room, grabbed it up in trembling, blood-slick fingers, and clumsily punched in Novak’s number. Oh, God, what happened to him? Why hadn’t they come to get them out? They should’ve made their assault before now. She needed them. She needed help. She clutched the smartphone in her left hand, mentally willing Novak to pick up, pick up, damn it! But the phone showed no reception and that the batteries would need recharging soon. She had to find a place where she could get satellite reception. She had to get outside and call for help.
Not sure what to do next, she cursed Booker and the others, and then stood very still and tried to think. She was still in way too much pain and too rattled to think clearly but she had to. Black was gonna die, if she didn’t get to him soon. That’s when his face came into her mind, bound and drugged and tortured in God only knew what ways. Jaxy taunting him and striking him across the face and hitting him with that stupid pink sap, forcing her mouth down on his mouth. Those terrible images did the trick. Calm descended over her then, like a nice cool, damp fog. She set her jaw, resolve returning, determination coming down hard over her shredded nerves. She tried to ignore the agony of the pain in her right hand. She had to move, get out, hide, and she had to do it now.
Claire moved swiftly across the room, avoiding the growing puddle of blood, and then got down on her knees close to the body. She took one very deep breath, catching the disgusting odor of the unbelievably bloody crime scene, Max’s blood still warm and barely oozing after his heart had stopped. She searched rapidly through the dead man’s clothes for anything that she could use as a weapon. The shard of mirror was still sticking out of Max’s neck. She didn’t want to jerk it out, not unless she had to. Once she left that room, she was going to face some very tough odds. She found no gun, but just like Black’s report had indicated, there was the Chinese silver dagger, snug and secure in its leather scabbard. She jerked it out and then pulled the sheath off his belt.
Then she found the key to her freedom, wet, red, and slippery with Max’s blood. There was more blood around the back of his head and mutilated throat, that had run out in a slanting line and was oozing underneath the bed. She avoided the blood, kneeling on the other side and jerking a white handkerchief out of his other pocket. She quickly wrapped it around her slashed palm, yelling out loud with the horrible pain as she pulled the open wound tightly together to stop the bleeding and then tried to knot it with her teeth. She couldn’t think about the pain, she couldn’t think about it and how bad the deep cut on her palm looked, how bad it hurt, or she surely would faint.
Claire forced herself to get back up and search through his blue jacket for a gun but didn’t find one. He preferred killing with the knife, no doubt, or with his bare hands, unlike his sister, who preferred to bludgeon her victims to death. He had not armed himself to the teeth for his encounter with her, but he should have. He had been secure in his size and ability to maim with his hands and dagger, no doubt thinking his two large fists were weapon enough to rape and beat one unarmed woman into submission. That scenario had probably worked for him well enough in the past. But not this time.
She realized again that her own clothes were saturated with his blood. The spewing stream of red had hit her mainly in the face and chest. The front of her black T-shirt was soaked and sticky against her skin, and she jerked the bloody, gory thing off over her head, wanting his blood and torn flesh off her. She stood there a moment, fighting the stunned realization that she had killed a man with a jagged piece of glass, cut his jugular and killed him, in the most brutal and ugly way possible. Her jeans were soaked to the skin, too, and she was shivering as she stood there in the bloody jeans and black sports bra. She looked down at Max again. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, lots of tiny rivulets of blood running down his chin and off onto his neck. She had butchered his throat down to the spine, and he had bled completely out. Oh, God.
Putting that image out of her mind, she knew she had to forget what she’d done and fle
e the room before the guards came back. She had to get out now. But they would search for her, search every inch of the place. She had to find a secure place to hide. But where? And even if she did manage to get away, she would leave a blood spoor for them to follow. She couldn’t do that or they’d find her soon enough and she would be very dead, very fast. Quickly, she squatted down and unlaced her high-top Nikes, jerked them off, and her socks, and then she unzipped and stripped off her bloody jeans. She could not leave a trail of blood. She had to think things through. Stay calm. Be smart. Do what she had to do to save Black’s life and her own. But she didn’t have much time. She had to move fast.
Grabbing the white dress shirt and blue jacket that Max had thrown over the bed, she pulled them both on and buttoned the shirt and zipped the jacket, and then she pulled up the blanket from the bed and wiped the blood off her face and arms and blotted it out of her hair. The blood was drying out on her skin already, making her face cinch into a tight and terrible mask. But she didn’t have time to wash it off, didn’t have time to do anything else. This was her only chance. This was Black’s only chance.
Fairly calm now, her heartbeat had slowed almost to a normal rate but not quite. She stuck the phone down inside the front of her bra and kept the dagger in her left hand. Her right hand was absolutely killing her, the pain so ungodly terrible that she felt like she was going to faint dead away. It felt as if her hand had been cut in two and was only hanging together by tendons.