Her chair tipped to the side, dangerously close to falling over.Harmony tried to lean the other way, but the chair jerked, then fell hard onto the dirt floor.Her head hit the dirt, making her ears ring again.
“What did you do?”another voice asked.
“She fucking spit on me.I can’t go anywhere like this.Fucking whore probably has some disease.”
Hands gripped her shoulders for a second, but she fought it.“I’m trying to help you,” the man said.
Harmony didn’t know why he would help her, but she did what she could to not work against him.
He positioned himself at her head and picked up the chair, and Harmony.
She looked at him, then realized who he was.“You broke into my apartment.”
His face fell, like he was ashamed he invaded her personal space.
“What fucking good does it do to pick her up?She’s going to be dead soon anyway,” Grant Pickens snapped.
“Why do we have to kill her?”
“Because she knows who we are.”
“You said we’re going to be gone.We’re going to meet the buyer, get across the border, and disappear.It doesn’t matter if she knows who we are or not.She doesn’t know anything about Africa, and she doesn’t know anything about what we’re doing.”
“Africa?”Harmony breathed.
“Tell her everything, why don’t you?What the hell is wrong with you?”
Grant Pickens was clearly the head asshole, but the other man was an unknown.Could he be someone who could help her?Maybe he would set her free.Maybe he would…
The cocking of a gun drew Harmony’s attention to Grant Pickens.
“Who are you working for?”Grant Pickens asked.
“Working for?My college, that’s it.”
“Do you really think I’m going to believe that?You were in Africa, and then you were watching my building?Who hired you to follow me?”
“No one hired me for anything.I have no idea what you’re talking about.I was in Africa for a research trip, and I was getting coffee when you staged a break-in at your own company.I don’t know anything.”
“But you know about my brother.Who else did you tell about him?”Grant Pickens asked.
“Brother?”Harmony gasped.She looked between the two men and saw the similarities and differences at once.She knew they were related, but brothers was not what she would have guessed.Not when one was light and the other dark.One was tall, the other much shorter.One stocky, the other lean.
“Yeah, my baby brother.Who can’t seem to shut his fucking mouth.Who knows about him?”
Harmony shook her head.“No one.”
Grant Pickens’ smile was evil and confident.“You’re not such a good liar, Ms.Gibbs.”
“I didn’t know he was your brother.How could I have told anyone?”
Grant Pickens threw his head back and laughed.“Oh, you stupid, stupid bitch.No one is going to figure out that we’re brothers.But if anyone knows he was one of the men who broke into my building, they could trace all this back to me.So who knows he broke into your apartment?”
Harmony shook her head, regretting the move when her head and nose throbbed, the pain blinding her.“No one knows.”
Grant Pickens snorted and took two steps toward her.Slow steps.He lifted the gun and pointed it at her thigh.“See, I know you’re lying because you weren’t home when he was at your apartment.The only way you know he was the one who broke in is if there was a video.”
Harmony realized what he was asking.She tried to come up with a lie, but before she could, Grant Pickens shot her in the leg.She screamed, the pain worse than anything she’d ever felt in her life.
