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Panic roared through Ace as the loan shark pulled out a thin knife, the blade’s razor edge glinting in the yellow security light. Still on her knees, Sierra jerked her head back as he raised its point to hover above her face, an inch or so beneath her eye.
“Yeah, it is bad business,” the loan shark said, “messing up such a pretty lady. Don’t think I enjoy it. But you were warned, and I won’t have it said that I’m a man who goes around making idle threats—especially after the way you did my favorite nephew.”
“Your nephew—” Sierra’s voice hardened into pure defiance “—is a piece of human garbage.”
The loan shark said nothing in reply, but Ace saw the swift pivot of his body, the flash of steel as he drew back the weapon.
Ace shouted, “No!” emerging from the shadows.
Sierra, who’d clearly tracked the movement, too, threw herself to her side as the knife slashed the air an inch above her head.
“Stop!” Ace yelled, his shaking hands raised. “I’ve got the money. I can pay you. Everything she owes. Every penny of it.”
“Hold it! You?” The big, bald man spun around, the hand cannon’s muzzle traveling in a swift arc to aim at Ace’s chest.
“Don’t shoot him,” ordered Ice Veins. “At least not until I’ve heard him out.”
Vibrating with fury, the human ox ground out through clenched jaws, “But he was the one who killed my partner!”
“In the business of enforcement—” Ice Veins shrugged “—these misunderstandings sometimes happen.”
“But we’re talkin’ Choke here, boss. We worked together for nine, ten years, and this dude—”
Ice Veins’s tone went glacial. “But when it comes to my final payment, which I’ve doubled to fifty thousand, I will tolerate no more misunderstandings—or any more delays.”
Unlacing her hands to glare a challenge, Sierra shook her head. “You and I both know it’s twenty-five, and I’m not about to pay a penny more.”
The small man in the oversize coat, which Ace realized was a rich shade of deep purple, scowled down at her. “I’ll tell you what the debt is...and the interest once you miss a payment and defy me.”
Agile as a soccer pro, he landed a vicious kick against Sierra’s side, one hard enough that Ace could hear the thud—and possibly a crack.
At her cry of pain, Ace yelled, “Stop!” boiling over with a homicidal fury he never would have guessed that he possessed.
But as Sierra moaned, he was drawn up short by the bald thug’s sneer as he sighted along the length of his gun barrel.
“Go on,” the huge man taunted. “Give me an excuse to pull the trigger. Then my boss’ll take your money and sit back and watch while I kick the legs off this little deadbeat so he won’t have to dirty up his fancy boots.”
Ignoring the oversize threat for the moment, Ace focused on Ice Veins—and on controlling his own desire to grab hold of that red beard and jerk the loan shark’s sadistic head off his shoulders. Ace reminded himself he had to play this smart, to draw things out until help arrived. The help that was his only chance of saving both his and Sierra’s lives. “Kill me, and you won’t see a penny. I’m not a man who troubles with cash dealings—” jerking his chin toward Sierra, who was struggling to make it to her hands and knees, he added “—or a man who ever pays full price for damaged goods.”
Shaking his head, Ice Veins spared him a perplexed look and pointed his knife in Ace’s direction. “Just who the devil are you—and what do you want with the bounty hunter?”
“He’s gotta be working with her,” the bald goon said, “the way he took up for her before.”
“The hell I am,” Ace ventured, deciding to try an unexpected tack. One that might just appeal to the man’s desire to avenge his family member, along with his avarice. “The truth is, she came to bring me in, just the way she did your nephew. She packs a hell of a punch, too.” He gestured toward his swelling temple. “She’d just hammered me when your boys interrupted the proceedings—and I’m willing to pay to have a little private time with this lovely lady by myself. This lady...in my own lair, with my own weapons of choice.”
“What?” Brows rising, Ice Veins shook his head and asked uneasily, “That makes no—what exactly are you wanted for?”
Ace caught Sierra’s glance, a spark of comprehension in it, before she turned a seemingly desperate gaze back toward Ice Veins. One hand cradling her injured ribs, she begged, “Please don’t take this monster’s money. Let me zip-tie his hands and take him in, collect the reward and—then I promise you I’ll pay you every penny. The twenty-five thousand can just be a down payment.”
“Or we can do an electronic transfer,” Ace said. “Have that money in your account in five, ten minutes, tops.”
“No!” she cried. “Don’t you get it? This man’s a stone-cold killer. A sick sadist. Surely, you’ve read about his victims in the papers. The things this creep will do to me—” She threw in a shudder so convincing that Ace was almost disgusted with himself.
“They’re lyin’,” the bald ox insisted. “He shot Choke, I’m telling you.”
“What’s done is done,” Ice Veins told him before Ace could offer up some explanation. “All I really care about is how fast you can drop that cash, all fifty thousand, into my account.”
When the bald thug kept muttering under his breath, Ice Veins ordered him to pipe down. “And while you’re at it, shut her up, too. You got a handkerchief for a gag, don’t you? And tie her hands, too. I don’t need her arguments while I’m trying to do business.”
