The man made the threat, but both men’s guns never wavered. Both pointed at Risa, which gave Aaron the advantage he needed.
With as little movement as possible, he slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket, fumbling with the fabric until his fingers connected with the metal from one of his extra weapons.
Using all his weight, he crashed his body against the door and knocked the backup attacker off balance. His head snapped back when the door connected with his face. Blood spurted from his nose, and his hands went to his face as his attention slipped from the attack.
“Risa, get down!” Aaron barely got the words out before the leader turned toward him.
She dropped to her knees as the room broke into chaos. Aaron got off two quick rounds that boomed through the shouting. One shot exploded through the door, catching the backup attacker in the side and sending him falling back into the hallway on a howl of pain.
Aaron’s second shot slammed into the leader’s shoulder and spun him around and straight into Risa. He stumbled over her, then fell to the floor over her back.
Despite Royal’s yelling in his ear and Risa’s screaming in the small room, Aaron kept moving. He pocketed the fallen attacker’s dropped weapon. With a quick glance at the man heaving and rolling in pain in the hall, Aaron raced toward Risa. He reached down and pulled her up beside him, then pivoted toward freedom.
They got two steps before her trim body turned to deadweight. It was as if her feet fell out from under her. Aaron assumed she tripped and bent down to lift her, only then seeing the death grip the leader had on her ankle.
“Drop the gun.” He issued the order through shallow breaths.
As he held the weapon pointed at them, the man’s hand shook. He blinked repeatedly as if trying to keep a cloud from settling over his mind.
Aaron didn’t waste any time. He kicked out, ramming his heel into the other man’s fist and sending the gun flying from his loose fingers. The second kick landed on the guy’s temple and pressed him into an unconscious heap.
Risa gasped as she lost her balance and Aaron grabbed her. Relief flooded through him when her hand tightened on his. With a tug, he drew her into his arms and held on with all his strength.
Feeling her body shake against his brought reality rushing back. She was a civilian in the wrong place at the very wrong time. She was innocent, as were the people downstairs. Someone was making a move on Lowell and somehow mistook Risa for Angie. The plan reeked of desperation and poor planning. That meant everyone was a target and no one in the building was safe.
Royal’s voice finally registered in Aaron’s ear. Instead of answering, he asked a question of his own. “Where are you?”
“Coming.” A one-word reply, and then silence filled the other end of the line.
“Royal?”
Risa wrapped her fingers around Aaron’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” It was as if the world went quiet. No one even breathed on the other end of the comm.
Worry for his team warred with the fury racing through his body over the attack on Risa and how close he came to having her pulled out of his hands. But the groan in the hallway as the slumped man tried to sit up against the wall refocused Aaron’s attention on the disaster on this floor.
“Stay here.” He tried to move away from Risa, but she held on.
“No way are you walking away from me again.”
Since she left his shooting hand free, he didn’t argue. With her body plastered against his side, he walked toward the injured man.
“Who do you work for?”
The man on the floor snarled as he pressed his hand against his bloody side. His shoulders rose and fell on labored breaths, but he had enough energy left to pronounce his loyalty. “Go to hell.”
Aaron shoved his foot against the man’s open wound and the blood-soaked shirt underneath. The string of curses started a second later, but Aaron didn’t let up. He increased the pressure until the other man squirmed against the floor.
He winced and swore. “I don’t know.”
Aaron leaned in, letting menace flow through his voice as he aimed his gun at the attacker’s head. “Someone is paying you and you have two seconds to tell me.”
The guy slid flat against the floor, his voice shifting from talking to panting. “My orders were to grab the woman.”
Risa leaned over his shoulder. “You picked the wrong one.”
Confusion wrinkled the man’s brow.
Aaron didn’t let that part of the conversation go any further. “I want a name.”
“I don’t know.” The man shouted his answer this time.
Fearing the guy had an earpiece or a mic, Aaron ended the interrogation. With a sweep of his arm, he landed a sleeping blow to the side of the guy’s head, knocking him unconscious.
“He’s still bleeding,” she said.
“Right.” Part of him didn’t mind the idea of this guy bleeding out, not after what he’d tried to do to Risa, but Aaron figured he’d lost enough humanity in this job. He couldn’t afford much more.
Using the cloth towels on the sink top, he constructed a makeshift bandage and pressed it hard to the guy’s side, anchoring it there with his belt.
Risa leaned over Aaron’s shoulder. “Will that be enough?”
He didn’t pretend to be a medical expert, but he knew the guy needed real attention soon. “For now.”
After a quick check for more weapons and a phone, which proved futuile, Aaron turned back to Risa, expecting to see fear or disgust at the violence and bloodshed. Instead, she bit her lower lip, as if in deep thought.
“What is going on? I came to check out a party venue and walked into some sort of mistaken-identity nightmare.” Her voice slowly returned to normal as she spoke. Gone was the tremor of fear. In its place was a simple determination to get through the next few minutes.
Aaron appreciated the change, and the bluntness of her response startled him into an honest answer. “It looks like someone is planning an attack against the businessman downstairs and is using a woman to get to him.”
“This Angie person.”
“Yes, and I have no idea how anyone would confuse the two of you.” Aaron’s mind shifted to the Lowell’s mistress. They both had long brown hair and hovered around five foot six. But the similarities stopped there.
Angie was in her early thirties, a few years older than Risa, with a deep bourbon-soaked voice and a buxom Barbie Doll shape that had men discounting her brains. Aaron didn’t like the overly done look, but he never underestimated her. The woman ran the office with a quiet confidence and manipulated everyone in it, ignoring the affair whispers blowing around her.
Where Angie reminded Aaron of smoke-filled back rooms and expensive jewelry tastes, Risa…glowed. With the soft skin and shiny hair, it was as if sunshine kept her in its sights. The skeptic in him wondered if he’d seen so much bad that goodness of any type got magnified to an unrealistic degree.
His luck with women usually made sure that didn’t happen. One broken engagement hadn’t ruined him for all women, but it did make him wary. But he’d been struck by Risa from the very first time he saw her fighting with her laptop in a coffee shop a few weeks ago. Wearing sweatpants and a slim T-shirt, she’d had that sexy, ruffled, just-out-of-bed look that had sent his temperature spiking.
She didn’t have to work very hard at being pretty. When you turned over on the mattress in the morning, you knew who you’d see on the pillow beside you. She wouldn’t have to put on her face first. At least that’s how it had worked in Aaron’s mind. He’d never gotten as far as the bed, or even the couch, let alone a kiss, with Risa.
Yet.
Risa treated him to a half smile. “You know when I see this Angie person and do a comparison, you might get punched for that comment, right?”
“I’d prefer you anytime and anywhere.” He held a hand up as a pledge. “Couldn’t be more serious about that.”
Risa lifted an eyebro
w but didn’t respond to that. “Why are these two up here? It’s supposed to be closed off.”
“Good question.” He put his hands on her upper arms and with as little pressure as possible, moved her until she stood near the opening to the room with her back against the wall. “Stay right there.”
“Where else would I go?”
She sounded almost exasperated with his suggestion. She did everything but snort. He had to smile at her spunk. She’d been manhandled and threatened, seen men shot and attacked. Still, she stood there and handled it all. Not bad for a woman who sat behind a desk all day.
Aaron dragged the attacker by his ankles from the hallway and dropped his body next to his partner by the stall. After a check of the leader’s pockets, Aaron unloaded the weapons, littering the floor, pocketing the all the ammunition and dumping the guns in the toilet. He kept the leader’s secondary gun in case he needed an extra.
He had one last problem as he glanced up at Risa. “Any chance you have any rope?”
She lifted her arms. “Not on me.”
“Thought it was worth a shot.”
“There are cables and those sorts of things around as part of the construction.”
That meant a trip around the building looking for supplies. He doubted they had that sort of time, not when Royal had gone silent. “We’ll block the door and trust they’ll be out long enough for us to get downstairs and out of the building.”
“And if not?”
He stood in front of her, his gaze locked on hers. “I can’t be that unlucky.”
“You’re saying that as a tax attorney, of course.”
He didn’t try to hide the wince. He’d hoped he’d have another few minutes before the need for an explanation caught up and smacked him in the face. “What makes you think I’m not a lawyer?”
She eyed his hand. “The gun.”
“I can explain.”
Her head dropped to the side. “Are you going to?”
“Not right now.”
“Normally I’d insist, but since I want to leave this place right now—ten minutes ago, actually—we can save the I-lied-to-you-about-everything conversation for later.”
Not exactly a bullet dodged. “I’m not really looking forward to that.”
“Imagine how I feel.”
“Good point.”
Chapter Four
Risa slipped into the hallway behind Aaron, never easing up on her double-fisted grip on his jacket. This close, pressed against his back, she felt a subtle minty scent tingle her senses and block out the smell of new paint. She leaned in, almost touching her nose to his rich brown hair, and drew in a hint of his shampoo. Fresh, clean and nonfussy.
Until he showed up waving a gun around, she’d viewed him as uncomplicated and easy. When he’d dropped into the seat across from her at the coffee shop that day they first met, she’d found him to be handsome and smart, with an open smile that lit up his face.
She loved his slightly crooked nose, which he explained got banged up in a college lacrosse game. During their dinner dates, he’d wait until dessert and then slip his hand into hers. Leaving the restaurant, he’d press his palm against the sensitive small of her back. But at every point she thought he’d move their relationship forward, he pulled back.
She’d started to wonder if the attraction only sparked one way. Now she knew something much bigger was going on. He had a secret life. Since she needed his protection and the gun he seemed to handle so well, she didn’t hold his other life against him at the moment. There would be time for that later…she hoped.
“Risa?”
“Yes?” She matched her whisper to his as the bathroom door slipped shut behind her.
“I can’t breathe.”
“What?”
He reached around and touched his fingers to hers. It wasn’t until that minute she realized she’d pulled his jacket and dress shirt so tightly that the collar was choking him. His skin turned red and puckered from the force of her grip.
She dropped her hands and stepped back. “I’m so sorry.”
He winked at her over his shoulder. “You are more than welcome to undress me later. For now, I need the clothes on and in place.”
Then he was off. He eased all six feet of his lean body to the edge of the hallway where it dumped into the larger open space. Bending down, he grabbed something on the floor of the other room and stood back up. When he faced her again, he had a broom in his hands.
Her mind was stuck on repeat. “You’ve never said anything like that before.”
His face went blank. “What are you talking about?”
“Undressing. Sex. Anything intimate.”
She thought she saw a smile cross his lips as he brushed past her. A clanking thud echoed down the hall as he jammed the broom in the door handle. Shoving the small phone table outside the bathroom against the door produced a squeak that broke the remaining silence.
The scene took two seconds and amounted to less than a few sounds and a rattle of drawers in the table, and she spent the entire time standing there, staring at his hands and wondering not for the first time what he could do with them. When she blinked, he was in front of her again.
“Did you really think I never had that on my mind? That I never wrestled with the best way to get you out of your clothes?”
“I thought you were a tax attorney.”
This time he didn’t hide the smile. “I’m pretty sure they appreciate pretty women just as much as other men do.”
Okay, not her brightest comment. She’d admit that. Or she would if she could. Something about this conversation made her mind turn to mush. “Well, yeah, I…”
“I’d bet attorneys like sex, too.”
She had no idea what to say to that. Luckily, she was spared coming up with something smooth or even coherent, when he held out his hand. She took it without thinking.
“We’re going to stand over here, away from this door, and check in with downstairs,” he said.
She hated just about every part of the plan. “I thought we were leaving.”
“We need to make sure it’s clear first. That we aren’t in some sort of lockdown.” His eyes swept over the sterile surroundings and kept moving as he talked. He checked all around them, as if attackers could come from any angle.
“This is ridiculous. I was just trying to book a party.” She rubbed her forehead as she muttered.
When his fingers brushed over hers and he brought her hand to his mouth, her breath caught in her chest. Just rumbled up and stuck there.
“It’s going to be okay.” He leaned in and touched his warm lips against her forehead.
She would have said something if she could have forced even a syllable out. Instead, the words lodged in her throat, right next to her last breath. Much more of this tug of emotions, this wobbling between fear and attraction, and she’d pass out.
With his gaze locked on hers, he let go of her hand and tapped his ear and began speaking. “Royal.”
“Is that code for something?” she whispered.
“It’s a name.” Aaron tried two more times, then frowned.
She didn’t need a law degree or a gun license to know the lack of a response was a very bad thing. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” His forced smile said the opposite.
With a hand on her stomach he pressed her back against the wall and lifted his gun as he approached the emergency door. The stance was sure, as if refined from years of law enforcement or security experience.
A flash of a memory hit her. The first time he held her hand, his strength surprised her. She now wondered if he’d ever spent a workday behind a desk.
As he reached for the doorknob, she felt a whoosh of air behind her. An elbow clamped around her throat, and the hard end of a gun pressed against her temple before she could cry out for help.
But she didn’t need to. Aaron had turned and now had his weapon trained on whoever held her.
The look of burning
fury in his eyes turned them from green-blue to the deep, cold hue of the ocean. He didn’t look her in the eye. All his focus centered on the face hovering just out of her line of sight.
Her heart slammed hard enough inside her to hit the base of her throat. She would have fallen to the floor if the stranglehold on her hadn’t kept her upright. Between the roar of blood to her ears and the sudden buzzing in her head, she could barely hear.
“Let the lady go.” Aaron’s flat voice rang throughout the unfinished floor.
The man’s heavy breathing hit her cheek as he spoke. “This is not the time for you to be a hero.”
She totally disagreed and wanted to scream that fact, but she used all of her energy to stay still instead. Aaron had been playing the role of hero since he’d stormed into the bathroom to warn her. She would let him play it forever if he somehow got them out of this nightmare.
When she finally forced her body to breathe and her heart to pump in the nonstroke range, she picked up the sounds of the room. The uncovered lights hummed above her head, and the floor creaked beneath her feet as she shifted her weight.
“You know something?” Aaron slipped a second gun out of his jacket pocket and fixed that one on the attacker, too. “I’m getting tired of guys grabbing her.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You’re number three and I’m about out of patience.”
The man’s hold tightened. “She’s coming with me.”
Risa grabbed on to the arm choking her, hoping to push him off, but the thick muscle didn’t give. The attacker tucked her body against his like a shield. She feared any bullet would travel through her before ever reaching him.
Even with Aaron’s skill and laserlike focus, he couldn’t make a bullet’s trajectory bend and sweep. This wasn’t a movie. This was real life, and the possibility of her bleeding out on the floor grew greater with each passing second.
Her attacker’s chest expanded against her back right before he spoke. “I have her, so you’re going to step back.”
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