“Can I help you?”
“You can. May I come in?”
He didn’t have time to respond before a tranquilizer dart embedded itself in his neck. His fall was loud, his body slamming into the doorframe.
Blake stepped over him, not bothering to move the body out of the way or close the door. On silent feet, gun raised, he swept the house, disabling three more guards. He was like a machine, his face expressionless, every movement calculated and precise.
Soft music sounded from the back part of the house. With a touch of his finger to his lips, Blake tipped his head in the direction the sound was coming from.
I nodded and followed his catlike movements with my own clumsy ones, barely avoiding running into a side table and tripping over a pair of shoes that, on closer inspection, were much too small to fit an adult.
Praying that meant I’d been right in assuming Sofie was here, I sped up.
Blake burst into the room, shooting his gun.
Meabh dropped from the chair she’d been sitting in opposite a girl I guessed to be Sofie, who screamed, watching Blake with wide eyes as he rushed up to her.
He dropped to his knees in front of the chair the girl was still sitting in and pulled her into a hug, his gun dropping at his side. “Are you okay?”
He kept asking the same question over and over again, his voice unsteady.
“Blake?” I stepped closer, my heart clenching at the sight of his emotions. “We need to go. They’ll know we’re here by now.”
My words snapped him out of it, and he stood up with his daughter held firmly to his chest, his gun in his other hand. Sofie had quieted and was staring with wide eyes at the prone form of Meabh.
When they came closer to where I was still standing in the entrance to the room, I shot her a shaky smile. “She’s okay, honey, just sleeping.”
Blake noticed where his daughter’s attention was and curled her further into him. “Don’t look,preziosa.”
She didn’t argue, just buried her head in his chest and held on tight.
From the moment we’d entered the house, my body had flooded with adrenaline, my hands twitching, the gun they held shaking. I hoped I didn’t shoot a hole in anything accidentally.
Blake had been thorough in taking everyone out, and we didn’t see another guard. Sofie kept her gaze averted, her little arms clutched around Blake’s neck.
We rushed down the driveway, my head swiveling every which way, imitating an owl.
But if the movies taught me anything, now was the time for someone to jump out of the bushes or for the selfless heroine to shoot herself accidentally.
I should probably put the safety back on.
That was the last rational thought I had before someone barreled into me and I went sliding on the gravel drive, a big body crushing me.
Blake shouted, his gaze frantic between my sandwiched state and his daughter, who was crying.
“Go,” I wheezed, my chest crushed by at least two hundred pounds of a donut-sculpted body.
How did we miss a guard?
Blake didn’t look like he’d leave. While I was grateful for his heroics, I knew what I was getting myself into before setting foot on the property. He had to get Sofie out of here.
The guard hauled me up, his grip bruising. Cold metal pressed to my temple, and I slumped in defeat.
“Stop or I’ll shoot her.”
He crushed me to his chest, his arm around my neck cutting off my oxygen. The fight drained out of me, and my vision grew blurry.
Then I felt something wet hit my cheek and tilted back. The hold around my neck disappeared, and I gulped in big breaths of air, not caring that I was slumped on top of my now very dead captor.
