Page 100 of Marrying the Savage

He’s distracted for half a second, but that’s enough for me. I close the distance before he can reset his aim.

He swings the rifle toward me. I catch the barrel with my left hand, ignoring the pain in my palm, and drive my right fist into his throat. He grunts, staggers back, but doesn’t drop. He’s too experienced for that. His knee comes up toward my ribs; I twist, take it against my hip instead of my stomach, and slam him into the railing. The metal groans.

Below us, gunfire erupts again near the office.

The captain reaches for the blade at his belt. I grab his wrist. For one second, we strain against each other, close enough that I can see the pale scar running from his ear into his beard. His eyes are flat, not afraid or angry.

He’s not here for revenge.

He’s here for a job.

“Who hired you?” I ask.

He smiles through his teeth. Wrong answer.

I headbutt him. His nose breaks with a wet crack. Blood runs over his mouth. He tries to bring the blade up anyway, so I twist his wrist until the knife drops through the railing and falls to the floor below.

Then I hook my hand into the front of his vest and slam him against the rail again. This time, the old metal gives. For a moment, his weight hangs backward over open air, one boot scraping uselessly on the grated floor.

His first real flicker of fear appears.

There. Finally.

“Name,” I say.

His lips move. Gunfire below swallows the word.

I pull him forward just enough that he thinks I may let him live. “Again.”

His eyes cut past my shoulder.

That saves my life.

I drop as a bullet tears through the space where my head was.

The captain uses the moment to wrench free and throw himself sideways. I roll behind a stack of metal drums as another attacker fires from the far end of the passage. This one is young, nervous now, his rifle kicking too high.

I shoot him in the chest, and he falls backward through the open door behind him. When I turn again, the captain is gone. A trail of blood leads toward the back stairs. I go after it.

Mikhail’s voice comes over the comm in my ear, rough with exertion. “Office secure. One dead, one breathing.”

“What did they take?”

“Nothing. We stopped them at the cabinets.”

“Check the safe.”

A pause.

Then, “Safe intact.”

“Then why breach the office?”

“I’m asking the one breathing.”

A scream follows faintly through the comm.

I reach the back stairs in time to see the captain limp down toward the loading bay. He moves well even injured, one hand pressed to his ribs, blood marking the railing where he touches it.