She trembled, her hand sneaking up around her neck. The gun felt cold and heavy in her hand.
Aaron pinned her with a hard stare, his gaze morphing from unreadable to understanding. He eased closer and cupped her chin in his hand. “It’ll be okay. We’ve got the tactical advantage here. I can pick them off as they come through the door. Besides, if they hadn’t found us, we would have had to leave this place sometime, and they would’ve still been waiting. At least this way I don’t have to wait on someone else to do the job that should have been done in D.C.”
A shadow moved across the front window and her trembling turned into a full out earthquake. Aaron held a finger to his lips and gestured for her to get down. She squeezed closer to the bed, her knees curled to her chest, as Aaron belly crawled to the railing and settled his rifle against his shoulder. He moved like he was born to do this. She sensed the steady hum of energy building in him, as he fluidly he sighted his weapon on the front door. His hand caressed the rifle andheld it as close as he’d held her.
The tiniest bit of tension eased from her shoulders and she concentrated on the man guarding her. From this vantage, they could both clearly see the front door and window, leaving whoever was dumb enough to break in a sitting duck.
When she heard the door knob rattle she almost didn’t believe it. Weren’t these guys pros? They’d penetrated a top-secret layer of the pentagon.
Aaron didn’t tense, didn’t change his breathing, just slow and steady and patient. Just like him.
She heard another click and then the door swung open, a large man filling up the doorway. Her recognition was instant. It was Daniel, from the airport, his big burly frame practically rolling with menace.
So why was he just standing there?
She wanted to nudge Aaron and tell him to shoot the bastard, but she didn’t dare break his concentration. If Daniel got past Aaron, the false calm she’d achieved would crumble.
Daniel eased inside, pistol raised, and did a slow sweep of the living room, and then disappeared to the right. He was in the kitchen. After that, there would be nowhere else for him to go but upstairs.
She tightened her grip on the pistol and focused. Just breathe. Why the hell didn’t Aaron shoot him?
A stair step creaked and she froze. Aaron had tucked her close to the bed and wall, she couldn’t see straight down to the steps.
Aaron shifted his gun left and down. His finger fell from the rifle stock to the trigger. He breathed out and squeezed. The bullet zipped through the room and she realized he had a silencer on his gun. Then there was a thunk, like Daniel falling to the floor.
Celine eased up onto her knees. Aaron was still facing the ground floor, focused on the open door.
She sensed a presence behind her a second before a hand closed over her mouth and a sharp tip nicked her throat. She needed to scream, to fight. She jerked, but that just drove the knife deeper into her skin. He shifted on the bed behind her, the mattress creaked.
Aaron jumped up and spun around, his pistol at the ready. The man behind her jerked, yanking her to the other side of the bed in one violent pull that seemed like it crushed her windpipe. Celine slapped at his arm with her free hand, digging her nails into his skin, holding tight to the gun in her other.
“Drop her and I’ll kill you fast,” Aaron leveled his pistol right over her shoulder.
“We both know that’s not how this is going to play out.”
Dear Lord, it was Eli.
Chapter 25
Aaron watchedas Eli dug his knife into Celine’s throat and the small trickle of blood that followed. Rage hit him hard, but he shoved that emotion back down. Celine needed calm and cold. Just like he’d been trained. “Let her go.”
Eli eased the knife down, tracing the tip down her chest and belly. “I don’t really want to do that.”
When he tucked the knife between her thighs, like a sick lover’s caress, Celine moaned and her eyes went wide. He kept his other hand over her mouth and continued his slow arc back up to her neck.
Aaron fought back the nausea and concentrated his aim at just over her right shoulder. This close he could probably get a round off without hitting her, but the blast would burn, and if he was so much as a hair off…
The open window behind Eli caught his attention. He needed a distraction. “You scaled my cabin?”
“Easy peasy.”
“And you sent your friend through the front door as a distraction, even knowing I’d put a bullet in his skull.”
Eli shrugged, but his eyes glowed with pleasure. “He said he wanted to help.”
Aaron had seen men like this before. Killing didn’t bother him, it excited him. Being in power, like he thought he wasnow, aroused him. Aaron shifted right, to a better position to fire. “Who sent you? You’ve left my agents scouring the pentagon for moles, but I don’t think your boss is there anymore.”
Eli turned, countering his movement. “I think we both know who I work for and what he wants me to do to her. But not before I take care of you. Drop your gun and I won’t make you watch. The men usually cry and beg when I kill their women, it’s a huge distraction from my pleasure.”
