Yeah, well, she might not have been nervous, but Trevor sure as hell was. Frasier was a cold-blooded killer who wouldn’t think twice about shooting Alina. And there was no way Trevor could get a clean shot at him. Right then, he didn’t give a shit if Frasier shot him. Alina was the only thing he cared about.
“Did he just admit to killing John?” a familiar voice said as two other men stepped out of the same shadows Frasier had.
Trevor would have liked to say he was stunned to see Dick and Thorn, but he wasn’t. No matter how many times you flushed, shit always floated to the top. The two men carried weapons, though Dick didn’t look nearly as comfortable holding his. He didn’t seem to know where to point it, either, instead moving it back and forth between Trevor and Frasier.
“Damn right he was behind the bombing in John’s office,” Trevor said as he backed up a bit to keep all three men in his sights. “Are you seriously saying you never realized what the hell Frasier was up to? Didn’t you used to work for the NSA? Aren’t you supposed to know all the secrets? They blew up John’s office when they realized he was close to getting the evidence he needed to send Thorn away for life.”
Dick’s eyes widened as he snapped around to look Thorn. “Is that true? You had John killed?”
Thorn shook his head in disgust. “Of course I had him killed, you moron. Are you really that stupid? Or just that naive?”
Dick’s mouth tightened. It was possible the man might have said something that would have changed Trevor’s whole opinion of him, but he never got the chance, because Frasier took his weapon off Alina for a second and shot Dick twice in the heart.
Trevor quickly darted to the side, trying to get a shot at Frasier, when suddenly, a large shadow dropped down from the second-story roof of the building beside them, knocking Frasier to the ground.
As Alina stumbled to the side, Trevor leaped for her, but Thorn got there first, yanking her close to him and using her as a shield. Trevor aimed his weapon at Thorn while keeping an eye on Frasier.
The dark shadow that had dropped down from above resolved itself into Adam’s muscular frame. Frasier tried to get a shot at the huge shifter, but Adam ripped the weapon from his hand. In a blur, Adam leaned in and sank his fangs into the man’s neck. Frasier cried out in pain, but Adam released him almost immediately, pulling his handgun and quickly stepping back to cover Thorn from a few feet to Trevor’s left as if Frasier didn’t exist.
Trevor wasn’t sure who to cover—Thorn, who was trying to use Alina as a human shield, or Frasier, who was only a few feet away from his pistol lying on the ground.
Frasier took a step toward the weapon, but then froze, a bewildered expression on his face. After a moment, he slowly turned to look at Adam, his expression now one of fear. Then he started to shake. Just a little at first, but then more and more, until his whole body was spasming in what had to have been tremendous pain.
Adam didn’t even look at him. Not even when Frasier fell to the ground and convulsed so hard that blood appeared at the corners of his lips where he’d bitten himself. Frasier opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It was like his throat was paralyzed. A moment later, he went still as the last breath left his body.
“You’re supposed to be dead!” Thorn shouted, looking at Adam. “Frasier killed you.”
Adam’s eyes swirled orange and gold, the pupils elongating to slits. “He failed.”
“It’s over, Thorn,” Trevor said, interrupting the happy reunion between the two men. “There’s no getting out of this one. It’s either jail for the rest of your life or a box in the ground. You need to decide quickly—or I will.”
Thorn slowly backpedaled toward the parking lot, dragging Alina with him. “That’s not going to happen. I’m walking out of here, and you’re going to let me go. Or I’m shooting her. And don’t even try to pretend you don’t care about her. You missed one of the bugs I left in her bathroom. I heard everything you said to each other. Very touching, but also useful to me. Back away, or I’ll kill her right now.”
Trevor hesitated. He couldn’t do anything that would risk Alina’s life. She was too important to him.
Alina suddenly caught his eye, and he knew what she was going to do even before she did it.
He opened his mouth to stop her, but it was too late for that. Alina stomped down on the top of Thorn’s right foot with the heel of her tennis shoe. At the same time, she brought the edge of her hand down in a groin strike, smashing the former senator so hard in the balls the man’s eyes went glassy and his face paled. Before Thorn could move, Alina reached up and grabbed the arm he had wrapped around her shoulder and neck, twisting it away from her body and torqueing his wrist until the bone broke. Then she lunged forward, rolling across the ground.
Trevor took the opening she gave him, putting a single bullet between Thorn’s eyes.
Alina scrambled to her feet as Thorn tumbled to the ground. Trevor ignored him and rushed over to her, pulling her into his arms.
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at her closely to make sure for himself.
Having her at the end of a gun barrel so many times in one day was too much. If it happened again, he was going to lose his fucking mind.
She nodded and kissed him. “I’m good. Thanks for backing me up on that and with Wade, too. I never did get a chance to tell you.”
“Always,” he said simply, meaning it in every sense of the word.
“The shooting has stopped in the gym,” Adam said softly, as if reluctant to interrupt them.
Alina turned to look at him. “Do you think that’s a good thing?”
Adam shrugged. His eyes were back to their normal color. “I guess the only way to know is to go in there.”
As they left the three dead men behind, Trevor couldn’t help glancing at Frasier. His body was still twisted into that bowstring taut position he’d been in before, two small punctures on his neck. They had barely leaked any blood. In fact, they looked almost harmless.
