I rammed the heel of my sneaker into the delicate bones of the guy’s foot. He growled as his hold faltered, but only the slightest fraction before he tightened it again, pulling even more terribly on my straining shoulder muscles.
“I said,submit,” he grunted from behind me.
Glass shattered like a crackling, tinkling rainstorm. One of the ample wall panels was largely missing, sharp, deadly shards lining what remained around the opening.
Charging at full speed, Griffin rammed a Magnum right through it, hastily grabbing onto a mullion to stop himself from catapulting after him.
The Magnum clutched at anything to halt his momentum, clasping a jagged piece of glass that rose thigh-high. It slashed his palm wide open and did nothing to keep him from falling backward, arms spinning, out the hole.
“Submit to me right now, or I’ll kill every single one of your friends while you watch.”
I stomped on his feet again. He grunted, absorbing the pain, but didn’t loosen his grip even the fraction from before.
I slammed my butt into his groin, pushing him back a foot, but I didn’t hurt him and his hold remained.
“Keep this up and I’ll make it really painful for your friends before they die.”
I stopped resisting, mostly because I had to come up with a better plan to get away.
“Believe me,” he whispered into my ear with the familiarity of a lover.
His voice dragged along my skin, leaving smeared filth in its wake.
“I can make it really, really,reallybad for your friends before they go.”
I shouted into our link.
Magnums closed in around me, so tight all I could see was them.
No flashes of those I loved.
I wasn’t claustrophobic, but my chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. The Magnums crowded, denser and denser.
I yelled again, louder into our connection, trying to get them to hear me over the chaos.
Hunt shouted back. He grunted with effort.
Layla said, her admission faint over the nearly incessantpops, the rumbling and shaking of the building, and gunfire, much closer than before.
“Submit to me or youwillregret it.”
The Magnum holding me was too loud in my ear when I was straining to hear Layla.
I asked.
was all she said.
Brady demanded.
she said, softer still. Then, more terrifying still,
Brady said. But panic rode his words.
Onlypops and guttural grunts and thetat-a-tat-tatof nearing gunfire.
Brady yelled.
He waited. With my heart in my throat, I waited too.
