Page 43 of The Bond

But it was no use. There were three men holding him down while I stood back to pull another gun on him.

“You’re done, Payton,” I said. “It’s over.”

As soon as I said those words, at least a dozen armed men rushed into the room.

Fuck.

They weren’t our men.

Then I spotted a familiar face.

As the newly arrived armed men jumped on Payton, I moved to help Valentina get to her feet. “We’re going to get you out of these cuffs.”

“You’re alive,” she said in disbelief. “I thought he was going to kill you.”

“We’re safe, Valentina,” I said.

“No, we’re not,” she said, her eyes glistening with tears as one of my men quickly removed her cuffs for me. “He’s rigged the place with explosives.”

“Agent Jasinski!” I shouted at the familiar face. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

The moment I informed the FBI agent, half of the armed agents hustled us the hell out of there. They closed off the area with agent Jasinski driving me and Valentina away from danger.

I held onto my wife as she wiped the blood coming out of my nose with a tissue in the backseat of agent Jasinski’s car. “I thought he was going to win.”

“No. Not against us,” I said, kissing the top of her head, my heart exploding in my chest with a mix of relief and rage at someone ever hurting her.

“How did you find me so quickly?” she asked.

“The tracker on your bike,” I explained while she patched me up. “The bike was in the trunk of the car and I got a notification.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” She kissed me gently on the lips. There was so much love and gratitude in that kiss, I thought I’d never let her go.

Up front, Jasinski cleared his throat. “I’m taking you to the nearest hospital.”

“Not the nearest police station?” Valentina asked, sounding shocked we weren’t going to be tossed in jail.

“No, your husband needs medical attention. Anyway, you handed over the bank bomber,” Jasinski said. “There’s no crime in that.”

“We’re getting our deal?” she asked in shock.

“It’s looking like it,” Jasinski said. “The bomb squad is headed to the site as we speak. Pretty sure the explosives they find will match what was used in the bank bombing. We’ve caught our guy.”

“Agent Jasinski, I think he killed someone,” Valentina said softly.

“We found a body on the premises,” the agent confirmed with a nod. “Really unfortunate.”

“What? He killed someone?” I asked her.

“He wanted to fake his own death,” she explained. “He killed someone to make it look like he would end up dead in the explosion.”

That hurt like hell. We had come too late to save them. I’d regret that for the rest of my life.

When she got the bleeding to stop, I held onto Valentina even tighter, grateful that she was still alive. Grateful that I hadn’t come too late for her.

“Thank you for coming to help, Agent Jasinski,” I said.

The agent gave a wordless nod.