Chapter 5
Cornwall Airport Newquay…
Emily barely had time to blink, much less react, when the two men hopped from the car brandishing big, black handguns.
The same could not be said for Christian.
No sooner had the man in the SUV shouted his order for them to reach for the sky than Christian grabbed her wrist and yanked her behind him. He took a half step back, pinning herbetween his big body and the farm truck.
The rain was biting, and the metal of the truck was cold, but Christian’s back and legs provided surprising warmth. They helped ease the chattering of her teeth. Alas, nothing could stop the runaway beat of her heart. Blood pounded like a snare drum in her ears, then crashed like cymbals.
She prided herself on her bravery. How many times had shestood up to the playground bully? Or cursed out the preppy girls who’d teased her about her clothes or her ratty shoes or the fact that her mother was on her third husband in four years? But there was a vast difference between mouthy kids from the South Side and the two men pointing really scary weapons in her direction.
So close, was all she could think. They had been so close to making aclean getaway.
“You!” The man who had barked the order to put their hands in the air spoke again. “Come ’round to this side of the truck so I can see you!”
Emily glanced over her shoulder to see Angel nod. Just an infinitesimal jerk of his chin. His advance was slow and calculated, not a hitch in his step that would cause their assailants to get antsy as he joined the rest of them on thepassenger side.
When she dared peek from behind Christian’s broad back, she blinked away the icy water sluicing down her face and saw all the men in her group were mirroring Christian’s stance. Muscled legs slightly spread. Big hands raised in the air, but only lifted to shoulder level.
None of them would put their hands any higher unless ordered, because all of them knew it was the workof an instant to drop their hands, should the opportunity arise for them to make a move to disarm their assailants. People who actually put their hands all the way over their heads, arms extended, were fools who hadn’t been through months of CQC training and then spent years putting that training into practice.
Even Rusty, who’d waved buh-bye to the marines over four years ago, hadn’t forgottenthe lessons he’d learned about close quarters combat.
“Who are you?” Christian demanded, his voice competing with the roar of the rain against the corrugated roof of the private jet hangar. Rivers of water poured from the gutters, the tin channels unable to keep up with the rate of the deluge. “What do you want?”
“I’masking the questions here, Watson!” the man yelled.
Emily wouldnot have thought it possible for Christian’s muscles to clench any harder. But suddenly he was wound as tight as the yarn inside a baseball.
Their assailants, whoever they were, knew who he was. And it wasn’t like Emily’s day had been a rainbow sandwich before, but she got the feeling it had just gotten a whole hell of a lot worse.
“How do you know me?” Christian’s low tone said he’d likenothing better than to reach down the men’s throats and start pulling their bones out of their mouths one by one.
“What did I just say?” the man shouted.
Obviously, he was the one in charge. Big and burly, with a flat nose and a Neanderthal brow ridge, he reminded Emily of a barroom brawler. And yet there was something in his eyes that assured her he was more than that. Some scary knowledgeor odd certainty.
Or maybe that’s simply rage, she thought, trying with little to no success to blink the rain from her eyelashes. She didn’t remember ever being this wet in her whole sorry life. Rain had filled her hiking boots until it felt like she was standing in buckets of water. The leggings she usually found so comfortable clung to her like a sopping wet second skin.
She felt Christianstruggling to hold his tongue, struggling not to tell Neanderthal to take his handgun, shove it straight up his ass, and pull the trigger. All of the Knights, but Christian in particular, disliked taking orders from anyone who didn’t have the title “president” or “general” in front of his name.
She didn’t know what possessed her. She snuck a hand under the hem of Christian’s coat, beneathhis sweater, and laid her fingers against the hot skin of his lower back. Then she rubbed. Gently. Soothingly. If she wasn’t mistaken, Christian shivered. But there was no way to know if it was because of her touch or because her fingers were ice cold.
“Tell the woman to step out from behind you!” Neanderthal shouted.
The woman.Not Emily. Not Miss Scott. So whoever they were—Spider’smen?—they only knew Christian.
“Go bugger yourself!” was Christian’s quick response.Seewhat she meant about being bad at taking orders?
“You sorry sonofabitch!” Neanderthal yelled. Peeking from beneath Christian’s raised arm, Emily saw spittle fly from Neanderthal’s mouth and mix with the pouring rain. “Do you fancy dying?”
He took a step closer to the group, and Emily didn’t missthe change in the men with her. They hadn’t moved. Hadn’t batted a lash. But suddenly they reminded her of a nest of vipers, poised and ready to strike.
“What I fancy is for the woman to stay precisely where she is,” Christian murmured, but somehow his voice cut through the clamor of the rain. “Whatever you want, whatever you came here to do, you can do it with her back there.”
“You’renot the one calling the bloody shots here!”
