She said as much.
“The honest, rule-following Detective Williams giving me an out?” She shook her head a little. “Well, that wasn’t on my bingo card for this trip, that’s for sure.”
Darius shrugged. He pointed at Theo.
“You holding me and my friends hostage in my house wasn’t on my bingo card either,” he pointed out. “Putting my gun in my sink was also something I didn’t plan for. We all gain some and lose some in this.”
The mystery man who had kept plowing into the bedroom door finally made progress. Before the woman could respond,the sound of splintering wood sent a new surge of adrenaline through Darius.
He didn’t need to see into the hallway to know that the bedroom door was no longer hanging on its hinges.
Along with adrenaline, anger flooded his system.
He bit out a warning.
“Pull him back,” he said. “Now.”
The woman’s smile was like the slithering of a snake. It twisted into one that indicated that she wouldn’t take his order.
“I might consider this one,” she said, motioning to Theo. “But everyone else needs to stay. Sorry.”
She wasn’t sorry, and Darius wasn’t going to just stand there.
He could go backward for his gun in the sink or close the space between the woman and Theo in an attempt to disarm her. Then, he could deal with the man in his room. By then the backup that Eve had no doubt called would arrive to assist. The only variable he would have to worry about was Theo and, Theo’s tensing body language probably meant he was about to try to make some kind of move to help.
Darius felt the muscles in his legs tighten in anticipation.
His fingers wanted to flex, ready to retrieve his weapon.
All he had to do now was make the first—
A body flew into view from the hallway, crashing into the woman with a loud yell and toppling her and her gun to the floor. The gun went off, but the shot embedded into the ceiling.
Darius moved quickly.
Before Theo could turn around to figure out what had happened, Darius was pushing him deeper into the kitchen.
“The sink!” he yelled.
Darius didn’t wait to see if the boy understood. Instead, he joined the current fray happening in the space between the kitchen and the hallway.
And the person who had not, in fact, escaped to call for help.
Eve had attached to the woman’s side like a koala. Legs wrapped around her, one arm trying to pull back the woman’s neck, the other wildly flailing to try to get to the gun still in her hand.
While Darius had been surprised at her sudden appearance, their attacker looked completely taken aback by it. Her reflexes had probably kept the gun in her hand, but the rest of her didn’t appear to be on the offense.
Not that she would have been able to do anything for long. Eve was too close to her—to the gun—and there was someone else in the house that, one step into the hallway, would have a clear view of Eve.
He needed the upper hand now.
Darius dropped down and grabbed the woman’s wrist.
Then he broke it.
She yelled out in pain as the gun dropped from her grip and clattered to the ground.
Darius had it in his hand within a heartbeat.
