Page 65 of Bought By Sin

Not even a grunt.

He slammed into me so instantly that I could only tense up and fling my arm out to break my fall. My hand smacked into the desk, and I gripped the edge for support. All I grabbed was air and a slim piece of plastic, though. Because I was falling. I was tackled. In a rush of action that blurred so fast that I couldn’t keep up with it, I was plowed over and knocked clear to the floor.

Alarms went off in my head as I was taken down. Panic morphed into determination, because I didn’t need any other cues to know this was it.

I had been found and they wouldn’t show me mercy.

I struggled to get out of his chokehold, realizing that the impact of being slammed to the floor had knocked my hat clear off my head. It rocked to settle on its side, almost upside down with the bill of the cap turning the headgear into a bowl on the floor. I slapped my hand out to it, slamming my palm on the corner of the hem where the camera was.

I disabled it so they wouldn’t find it. So they couldn’t notice it and go after Lev and the others waiting by. All that tech was so traceable, and I couldn’t risk their being in harm’s way.

The man ordered me to stop fighting, to stay still.

He was a muscular brute, but not enormous in size.

I fought and squirmed to get free. I tried all the tricks and maneuvers I’d learned under Roman’s training at the facility. I banked on the sheer need to escape to power me into a fighting machine.

But no matter what I tried and how I resisted this hold, I couldn’t get free.

Noticing the air in my ear, I realized the absence of my comms unit too. It had been knocked out in my struggle, and I knew that wouldn’t save me, either.

Lev wasn’t here with me.

His soldiers were waiting as backup too far away to help me.

I was alone. On my own. Captured.

I craned my neck to see past the bulk of the man’s body at my back. He shouted at me in Spanish to stay still. The pounding vibration of footsteps filled through me as I lay on the floor. Others arrived, and I watched as one man’s heavy boot smashed the comms unit as they rushed in. Even if it had still been functional after flying out of my ear, it was crushed beyond use and repair now.

I had nothing.

No backup.

No weapons.

Nothing but myself.

Like always.

Don’t panic.

Don’t panic!

Breathe through it.

Stay alert.

Do. Not. Panic.

Between the mixed languages from the men as they argued and yelled at me, the common denominator of the message was clear.

They’d found someone snooping. And they weren’t happy about it.

Pulled by my hair to stand, I gritted my teeth and refused to let them hear a cry of pain.

I staggered to place my feet flat on the floor as I battled the loss of orientation. My arms were held too tightly behind me. My head was searing with fiery pain with my scalp pulled like this. I was pitched forward as they treated me like a rag doll. But as soon as I was upright and they saw that I was a woman, one man growled and cursed at me before he backhanded me.

Again.