Page 69 of Hunted

“Shit.”

He wrapped the little girl in a blanket, and then hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”

“I can’t leave Gunn.” And she didn’t mean just tonight.

He looked in her eyes for a moment, and then nodded. “Be careful,” he said.

“I always am.”

He grinned at her, and then he stepped through the door and was gone.

Michelangela went back to her phone and sent a message to Gunn’s crew, telling them to bring the helicopter. Then she pulled up the control screen for McIntyre’s security software on her phone and hit a button. Immediately, all signals in and out of the house were jammed.

The last thing she saw was McIntyre—in the midst of getting his payment—look up from his computer in consternation and say something to the buyer, sitting next to him.

A second later, the security feeds turned to static.

She straightened her hair, picked up her bundle and headed for the roof, hoping her torn skirt wasn’t showing, and that no one would notice her stocking feet. Or better still, that there was no guard on the roof. Her ribs were still aching from where Corliss had fallen on her.

Of course there was a guard on the roof.

She walked up to him unhurriedly, the bundle in her arms. “I have the package,” she said. “Is the helicopter on the way?”

He frowned at her. “I haven’t been notified that the auction is over.” He tapped his headset and tried to radio the auction room. He frowned again.

Michelangela let a hint of impatience come into her voice. “What’s the problem?”

“The comms are down.”

She shook her head. “First the problems last week in New York, and now this. I don’t believe I’ll be dealing with McIntyre in the future. Cut-rate security.”

To her relief, her wolf hearing picked up the faint throb of a helicopter in the distance. She hoped to hell Thanatos’s team had done its job, and they were the ones in the helo.

The guard was still trying to reach his superiors. He took out his phone. That was jammed too, of course. “What the hell…” he muttered.

The helicopter’s headlights burst through the night. Come on, she said in her head. Come on. The helicopter was on the approach. Where was Gunn?

She edged toward the security guard, vial hidden in her hand, but he backed away, drawing his gun. “You stay right there. Nobody leaves until I get to the bottom of this.”

She lunged at him, but she was hampered by the blanket-wrapped decoy, and he ducked away, hitting an alarm button near the roof door. She longed to drop the decoy, but she needed Thanatos’s team to think she had the child, or they might leave her behind.

Alarms started blaring. Michelangela ran across the roof to the far side of the helipad and ducked behind an HVAC vent. Come on. Be Gunn’s team.

From inside the helicopter she saw a light flash. Long, short short. Long, short short. It was their signal.

The security guard stiffened, and then fired a warning shot at the helicopter.

A barrage of shots came back, and the guard dove for cover.

Just as Michelangela was about to move, McIntyre burst out onto the roof, with three more security guards. The Outlaw Ridge team got one of the guards in the first wave, and McIntyre and the others took cover, firing back.

Two of them were edging their way around the rooftop, which held too much cover for her liking—lawn furniture, a stack of sandbags, a pile of lumber. Every time Michelangela tried to break for the helicopter, Trevor’s security guards pinned her down.

One of the Outlaw Ridge wolves took a bullet, and the others pulled him back inside.

For the moment, it was a standoff.

Then the roof door burst open and Gunn barreled through. He took down McIntyre in his first rush, rolled, and tackled the gunman near the door.