My eyes flick to the kidnapper-savior panting beside me. “Whoareyou?”
He grabs my arm in an iron grip, forcing me back into his orbit. “Ask me again if we survive this.”
A quick inspection reveals that no one else remains standing. The room reeks of gunpowder and copper as we shuffle through the foreman’s office door to the landing outside. A squad of mercenaries approaches us from the ground floor.
I shuffle back, a not-quite-scream caught in my throat.
“Time for a little field trip.” My kidnapper pivots toward me. “Give me your foot.”
“What—”
“Now!” He clasps his hands together near my calf like a step.
After I shove my foot into his palms, he tosses me onto the low roof of the foreman’s trailer with the force of a male cheerleader. With a loud thump, I land on my back, staring up at the open sky as I catch my breath.
I barely register him scrambling up onto the platform behind me until he clutches my wrists. “Let’s go!”
Yanking me up by my bound hands, he jogs us toward the far edge, where a set of scaffolding climbs up the edge of this unfinished husk of skyscraper. He pushes me upward. Once we’re standing on the open-air structure, he flings me behind a stack of drywall and concrete bags.
“Stay put if you don’t want to die.” Spinning away from me, he reloads his gun.
I shudder and close my eyes as he rattles off several quick shots. Every time a bullet glances off metal, my ears ring.
Gunpowder coats my tongue.
How much more of this is there? How many men have to die?
Why are they all hunting me?
After a few moments of silence, I risk a peek. Tall-Dark-Kidnapper checks his weapon, then grabs the back of my neck.
“Wait, what are we?—”
“This way.” His grip tightens as he guides me along.
I don’t peer down. I know I’ll just see bodies.
As we travel from cover spot to cover spot, my pulse continues galloping. He jerks me around, barking orders every few feet.
Stay down. Watch it. Hurry up. Got a death wish?
The orders soon start to blur together in my head. I’ve spent lots of time around enforcers like Finn and his friends, but this guy is different. He seems solely built for combat.
Part of me wants to snap whenever he issues another command.
Another, deeper part tingles with each sharp instruction, igniting sparks of arousal in my body.
Stupid or not, some primal instinct rooted in my psyche likes the fact that he’s capable and strong.
“They’re getting away!” A man points as we jog across the second level of this monstrosity.
“Get back!” My kidnapper pushes me behind him as he ducks into the shade of an industrial-grade column to exchange fire with the men below.
Safe behind his broad shoulders and outside the action for a moment, my brain finally starts functioning again. I hold my breath and take stock of my surroundings.
A few feet away, tucked into the corner of the wall behind me, a rectangular chute juts out of the drywall. An emergency stairwell.
My freedom.
