Page 53 of Mountain Trial

“Give me your handbag,” Luc whispered urgently.

Kat shook her head vehemently. There had to be some place she could stash it. If these men found the gun―

“Now, Kat,” he mouthed. “Put it behind me.”

“Are you mad?” she whispered.

“Believe me, no man is going to want to get close to this chair. Do as I say. Now.” Luc tugged on her handbag, trying to take it from her.

“No talking,” a voice growled.

Dogfish.

The man strode towards them menacingly.

Kat started to stand up to face him, when there was a commotion further down the line of hostages.

“I’ll give you my check if you let me go!” Jacques shouted in a loud, nasal voice. He crawled on his knees, dragging the large, cardboard check behind him.

Is he mad?

What is he doing?

Dogfish and one of the other mercenaries laughed.

“Fucking French frog,” Dogfish said.

She looked back at Luc, but he wasn’t paying attention to them. His hands were behind his back. A moment later, he threw her handbag back in her lap. From the weight, she knew the gun wasn’t inside anymore.

Without breaking his stride, Dogfish kicked Jacques in the ribs. Jacques cried out and fell, curling up into a ball. That didn’t stop Dogfish from kicking him again with his thick army boots, even as the man lay defenseless on the ground.

“Stop your sniveling,” Dogfish said in a threatening voice, “sit back up against the wall, or I’ll give you a reason to snivel.”

Jacques held a hand against his injured ribs, but he’d gone quiet again, his momentary outburst forgotten.

Beside her, Luc inclined his head gently for a second. Jacques nodded tightly, then kept his eyes moving across the room, staring at everyone and everything except for them.

Kat felt tears spring to her eyes. Jacques had been trying to help her.

He might have saved your life.

When the blond mercenary with the ponytail, Mako, approached her, Kat looked down at her lap. She needed to cement her role as an escort, to have any chance of surviving this. If these men found out she and Damien were gendarmes―

Mako pushed an open dark green backpack towards her.

“ID and phone inside, now.”

Kat nodded quickly, opening her handbag and putting her phone into the bag.

“I don’t have any ID on me,” she whispered, showing him her empty handbag. Without the gun, there wasn’t anything in the bag that could identify her as a gendarme. She hoped Damien didn’t have anything on him either.

Mako lifted her by the top of her arms, hard enough that she knew she’d be bruised the next day.

If there is a next day.

“Where the fuck is your ID, beautiful?”

The pain made it easy to let her eyes fill with tears. She moaned softly, stalling for time.