Page 109 of Under His Guard

I don’t want him finding them, so I put them into the washing machine, placing them in the metal bin gently.

More footsteps, and not just one person; I’m going to have a lot more company soon.

I swing myself on the doorframe, plastering my back against the wall of the bathroom across the hall.

I don’t want to stick to one location. It’s too easy to get pinned down like that.

“This way! Rodrigo and Marks aren’t answering their coms. Must be down.”

The man calling out orders doesn’t seem as concerned as I’d like. When you’re worried about your crew, it’s something to use as leverage.

This is just a job to these fuckers. If any one of them dies, it’ll be no skin off their noses.

“Get that fucker over here.” The deep, angry voice that rattles through the air next is one I recognize.

“You.”

My voice is a whisper in the darkness as more feet come down the hallway and toward my bedroom.

It’s the Cobra from the hospital, the one who fucking threatened Clara.

Anger roars through my gut like acid, burning and sapping my brain of any reason.

That piece of shit needs to go down. I’m chomping at the bit to move, to attack these guys, but I’m woefully outnumbered.

They aren’t coming down the hall one at a time. I can’t pick them off. This is going to be ugly.

But I’m going down swinging, if anything. A fucking bat, to be exact.

I can’t stay here in the bathroom. The group is circling around to go back down the hall.

Waiting until the last one goes by, I slip out from behind the open door and yank him into the room.

His head meets the sink with good force, and I’m able to knock him out quickly. But these guys are more professional, it would seem, and I hear their footsteps stop.

“Where’s Benny?”

Whoever this one is comes in my direction, and I slip behind the door again, but as I go to yank him into the room, he elbows me hard in the gut.

Pain flares through my still recovering side, and I’m down on my knee in a flash.

This guy has a gun, and the weapon gets pointed in my direction.

“Get up! You’re going with us.”

I slowly stagger up, exaggerating the look of my injury. When the guy takes a step forward to grab my outstretched arm, I freeze.

Grabbing his hand, I twist backward, smashing his fist into his own face. He stumbles backward, and I snag the gun, knocking him in the head with the butt.

I’m doing good, but then there are three more, and while I know they’re not truly looking to kill me—at least not yet—the fuckers have no problem opening fire to injure me.

Narrowly missing two shots as I shove them down the hall, knocking a guy over by launching his buddy into him, I’m back on my feet only to have the butt of a different gun smashed down on my spine.

It’s sharp and strong enough to knock me down, dazing me. My vision is a little fuzzy as I realize that one of the shots clipped my leg.

Blood oozes down my sweats. Fuck. That’s not good.

Too many are on me after that, and then I hear that asshole from the warehouse.

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