Page 86 of Bared

He was not finished before Brickham aimed the gun at his other knee.

“No!” Jayd whipped around to directly face him, twisting fists into his shirt. Her lungs pumped with air that felt like flames.

“Jesus fucking—” He bit off the end, his chest pumping madly beneath her grip. “Goddammit, Jayd. Do you know what I could’ve just done to you?”

“Or him?” she spewed.

“Oh, yes,” Trystan crowed. “Do it! Do it!”

“No, Brickham! Do you not comprehend? This is what he wants!” She sprawled her fingers along his jawline. “Please. Please, Sir. We must get out of here. We must do it now!”

She added to the effort by stabbing her fingernails into his stubble too. At least that jolted his focus directly back at her. She did not waste the opportunity.

“If they find you, they will arrest you. And if you are gone, guess what license that gives him again?”

Beneath her grip, Brickham’s jaw went rigid. Creator be thanked.

“You’re right,” he gritted.

Creator be praised.

Without a word, he stuffed the firearm into his waistband, flush to his lower spine. With his free arm, he secured her firmly against his side. As soon as his other hand was clear, he grabbed the side of the driver’s cabin. After one powerful swing, they were both down on the pavement.

“You okay?” They asked it in tandem, turning and checking each other for dangerous damage. Jayd swallowed hard, determined not to let the sting behind her eyes become the hindrance to their escape. All she yearned to do was kiss the gigantic lump on his crown and wipe the sweat and strain from his face. Brickham’s gaze was doused in a similar kind of concern, especially as he curled a fingernail under the lock of her zip ties, freeing her with a quick but sharp snap.

“Shit. Did I hurt you, sweetheart?”

“I will be fine,” she muttered, wasting no time to let him examine her. The bruises were not going anywhere, but the police obviously were. The tumult up on the main road got louder every second. The matching alarms through her senses wailed just as horribly.

“We have to get out of here, Brickham. Now!”

“Hey! Over here! He is over here!” Trystan’s shout overlapped with hers. Instantly her chest clutched. Her pulse rate tripled.

“Rahmie Creacu,” she gasped out—but Brick got to the point much better.

“Fuck,” he muttered, clamping her hand tight in his. With another powerful swoop of motion, he yanked her into a full run. Jayd was more than ready to keep up.

Heading toward Clichy was out of the question, so they sprinted toward the darker end of Avenue Rachel. With all the quaint shops closed up by now, the little lane seemed ominous to her. When they got to the end, she swiftly learned why.

The end of the avenue was not actually an end.

It was the entrance to Montmartre Cemetery.

“By every saint that ever shit.”

As she added to the burst by wheeling around, Brickham stopped to scrape a hand over his head. It did not escape her attention that his hand barely faltered.

“Well, here’s what you really call a dead-end mission.”

By the Creator. Was he truly adding sarcasm to the mix too? She was baffled about whether to laugh or cry—or to just ask him for her own head contusion. At least she could join him in his bizarre reality warp.

But there was no time for her induction.

Not a second’s worth.

Not as they ducked into a moldy corner, behind a parked moped, and watched half a dozen gendarmes swarm over Trystan and the truck. At the same time, a white-and-blue van raced up onto the bridge up to their left, screeching to a stop at the top of the stone staircase that would have been their only viable escape.

No. Not their only one.