With everything going on, and everything still left to do, he had to do, the last thing Adrian should’ve been worried about was leaving Jenna unconscious and alone with that Hall fucker.
But hewasworried. And hedidcare. Far. Too. Much.
Adrian didn’t know what it was about the fist-slinging, ball-threatening tiny bit-of-nothing woman. All he knew was, ever since he’d first laid eyes on Jenna Shaw, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head.
Adding more pressure to his accelerator, he increased his speed as he made his way down the gravel road leading away from the old barn. The sudden need to see her, to make sure she was okay had become a living, breathing thing inside him.
Ironic, given the fact that he’d been dead inside a long damn time.
Half an hour later, he was pulling up to one of the CIA’s numerous safe houses in the great state of Texas. For this particular job, Adrian had picked one that was on an isolated piece of land and had intentionally been left to appear neglected and run-down.
After all, if one wants to stash away a kidnap victim, one needed the assurance of privacy in order to keep that little secret safe from prying eyes.
Shoving the car in park, Adrian got out and began walking up the broken sidewalk toward the paint-chipped front door. He started to use the key, then realized Hall had left the damn thing unlocked.
Fucking idiot.
Walking inside, Adrian had just opened his mouth to holler out for the dipshit when he heard a sound coming from the back bedroom. The same room he’d locked Jenna in a few hours before.
He stopped and listened closely. Silence met his ears, but then there was a loud crash and a muffled scream.
Sonofabitch!
Adrian took off with a vengeance, covering the narrow hallway’s length in two seconds. Not bothering to turn the knob, he lifted his foot and kicked the damn door in. His vision filled with red.
Jenna was on the floor next to the bed he’d left her cuffed to. One of the cuffs was still attached to a wrist, the other had been unlocked. And Chris Hall—the motherfucker—was on top of her, holding her down by the wrists.
One second, Adrian was standing there, mentally cataloging the many ways he knew how to kill with his bare hands. The next, his body was slamming into Hall’s with enough force to send them both flying.
A searing pain spread throughout his injured shoulder, but he ignored it and pushed on.
“What the fuck?” Despite his being trapped beneath him, Hall somehow managed to pull his gun from his waistband. He started to bring it around, but Adrian knocked it out of the man’s hand before he could pull the trigger.
The weapon skittered across the dull, hardwood floor, but Adrian was too busy punching Hall’s lights out to pay attention to where it went. All it took was one hard, right hook and the man was out cold.
Without giving it another thought, he shot to his feet and started toward Jenna. It was only then that he realized she’d picked up the gun…and was pointing it directly at his head.
“Whoa!” Adrian threw his hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Using her free hand, she clumsily crab-walked herself back toward the bed. Shaking her head wildly, she spewed what he could only guess was a long line of curse words from behind the duct tape covering her full, rosy red lips.
“Are you okay?” Adrian made his way toward her slowly. “Did he hurt you?”
Shoving the mass of red, unruly hair from her flushed face, Jenna’s auburn brows turned inward with an angry scowl. Her perfectly proportioned breasts rose and fell with each of her heaving breaths, and the metal cuffs he’d used on her dangled from the hand holding the gun.
Never taking her eyes off of him, she used the bedframe to push herself up into a defensive stance. Bringing the other hand around, Jenna’s arms shook as she kept the weapon trained on him.
“Easy.” He kept his hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The sounds coming from behind the tape told Adrian she wasn’t buying it.
Yeah, I wouldn’t either, sweetheart.
Doing the only thing he could think of to prove he wasn’t lying, he went back to Hall who was starting to stir. With another fist to his jaw, Adrian ensured the guy stayed out for at least the next several minutes and then grabbed the small set of silver keys from his pocket.
Taking caution, he began walking toward Jenna once more.
“Here.” He showed her the keys. “I’m going to take those off of you and put them onto him.”
