One of the men waved the others off, his head moving too much for Emmett to read his lips. He didn’t care that he was staring. He had to. The peace he usually found in the silence was nowhere to be seen. Here? It could very well cost him his life.
The man sat down across from him, dropping a piece of paper and a pencil on the table. He looked up, green eyes meeting Emmett’s gaze. His nose was crooked from what was likely a punch too many, and he had short, blond hair, and a face that looked familiar in a way he couldn’t quite grasp.
He wrote something down, then held up the paper for Emmett to see.
Tell me about Kian.
Emmett shook his head. “Fuck you.”
He arched a brow at Emmett, who glared right back at him.
The man reached for something at his side, and breath got stuck in Emmett’s throat as he laid a black handgun on the table between them.
Emmett raised his head, glaring at him with all the rage he could muster.
“Fine. You wanna know about Kian? He’s loyal. Courageous. Kind. And all of that isnotgoing to be in your favor because he will kill all of you and not just because you’ve taken me, but because it’s what he does. He protects. He rids the world of murderous assholes like you.”
Those eyes felt like staring into a pit of utter darkness as they searched his face. He pursed his lips for a second, then scribbled something else down and turned the paper around.
You think he’s coming for you?
He opened his mouth to say, of course, he would, but a thought struck before the words could leave his mouth. Was that what they wanted? For Kian to come for him?
He snapped his mouth shut. He’d already said too much.
The man leaned back, those cold eyes giving away nothing.
He didn’t know enough about the people who’d taken Kian prisoner a few months ago to say with certainty that these were them, but he could take an educated guess. He knew from Kian himself that they’d left him without a scratch. That they’d tied him up in a room and left him alone. Waiting. But for what? For who?
“What do you want with him? Who is he to you?”
He thought he saw a quick flash of emotion cross the man’s face, but it was gone the next second. It might’ve been a trick of the light, but his gut told him it wasn’t.
Goosebumps broke out across his skin, and then his world went dark. No. The light turned off, quickly replaced by a low, green emergency light.
He felt the table and his chair shake just before he was blinded by flashes of light. He threw himself to the ground, his heart hammering in his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and folded in on himself, trying to get as small as possible.
From behind closed lids, he could tell when the light turned back on and blinked his eyes open. The table had been turned over, and he crawled to the edge to peek around it. The flashes of gunfire drew his attention to the bar where he saw the man who’d questioned him, along with one of the men who’d stood guard at his side, both shooting across the room until the guard took a bullet in the shoulder.
He didn’t need to hear or even read lips to tell the leader was yelling for his guys to retreat. He pulled the guard’s arm across his shoulders and ran for the door by the bar, disappearing through it just as a shadow fell over Emmett.
He jerked his head around, heart in his throat. He met a set of green eyes and did a double-take.Kian.
He grabbed the edge of the table to pull himself up. He opened his mouth, but movement out of the corner of his eye had him snapping his gaze to the door and the man standing there, half hidden in the doorway. He was holding a gun in his left hand, slowly raising it toward Kian.
Emmett shouted as he threw himself in front of Kian, sending them crashing to the floor. He ended up sprawled across Kian’s chest, a big hand cradling the back of his head. A second later, his back hit the floor, Kian above him, covering him. Fuck.No.Kian was the one in danger, not him. He grabbed at Kian’s shirt, tugging hard, but the man was pure muscle and didn’t move a fucking inch.
Someone was pulling Kian off him seconds later, and he could take his first deep breath in hours when green-flecked eyes met his gaze. He was pressed tight against Wilder’s chest before he could say a word, a sob escaping him as he buried his face in Wilder’s neck, breathing in that woodsy scent he’d thought he might never smell again.
Movement around them caught his attention for a quick second before he ignored it, knowing from Wilder’s lack of urgency that they were safe.
The tightness around his wrists disappeared, and he looked down to see the rope on the floor, Wilder holding a knife he recognized as Emma’s. Wilder put it away and dug something out of his pocket, holding his hand toward Emmett. It took him a second to realize that it was his CIs.
How had he…? They must’ve found them at Heath’s place. He cringed despite himself. Heat had been an asshole of epic proportions, but he hadn’t deserved an end like that.
Wilder put first one of Emmett’s receivers in place and then the other, sound rushing in and making him wince. He squeezed his eyes shut?as if that would help?and rubbed his temples.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
