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“Cannon.” The panic in my voice resonates through the night.
He shoves me to the side. The gunshot makes me yelp as I stumble. It pings off one of the posts.
My ankle wobbles to the side, and I drop to a knee. “Ow.”
Another man shouts at the shooter. I can’t make out what he says, but he sounds angry about the gunfire.
“You gotta get up, swan.” Cannon tugs on my arm. I rise and am pulled into an immediate run. “How bad is it?”
Pain flares through my ankle, but it’s not broken. There’s no time for the rest, ice, elevation, and compression I normally do. “Sprained,” I pant. Which is better than being shot.
He knows the way, so I quit worrying about losing my step. Right now I’d run with every bone in my leg broken. There’s no time to worry about the repercussions. The consequences will be worse if I’m caught.
Grunts and shouts behind us fuel my panic. Have the men cleared the fence? Are there more in the trees? How many people were willing to help Roman keep me captive?
Cannon’s saying words but I can’t hear them.
“What?”
He ignores me. A few more murmurs and he takes a sharp left.
I let out another yelp as the torsion tweaks my ankle. I swallow bile. I’ve never continued to use a sprained limb before. How privileged it now seems that I was able to instantly and properly care for it.
My limping slows me down. My arm stretches out as Cannon’s lead overtakes me. I can’t maintain my balance. My hand yanks out of his grip as I slam face-first into the ground.
I tense as I try to right myself and spit out the dirt that got into my mouth. Cannon stoops in front of me. I brace myself for his anger. He’s supposedly rescuing me and I can’t even stay upright. But he grabs my arm and stuffs a shoulder into my gut. He lifts me like I’m an unwieldy sack of flour. And he runs.
I cling to him and try to keep my limbs from turning into obstacles that’ll catch on foliage.
His breathing is heavier than when he was running without me, and he’s slightly slower, but not as ragged or slow as I’d expect from someone carrying another adult.
I manage to control the bouncing of my head enough to see the trees are thinning. There’s a private drive in front of us. I never got to know my neighbors. They’re acres away and not interested in me, but we all have long, secluded drives, and the roads around our homes have little traffic.
A black van brakes in front of us and pulls a K-turn. Cannon runs straight to them. Cannon’s voice drifts to me again, and I’m about to ask what he’s saying when I realize he’s not talking to me. He must have an earpiece or a radio somewhere on his body.
Another guy dressed all in black hops out of the driver’s seat and opens the back door. Something about him is familiar, but I can’t see his face with his black ball cap pulled down low and the collar of a black jacket flipped up.
Cannon beelines for the van. He and the man say nothing, and I can’t make out who it is while I’m tipped sideways.
I’m gently lowered into the back of the van. I crawl farther into the vehicle, and Cannon jumps in behind me. The doors are shut, and the other man gets behind the wheel. The engine doesn’t roar, and we don’t race off. He calmly drives away, but I’m tensing, expecting him to get stopped, for us to be surrounded, like in an action movie.
I try to sit up, but Cannon puts a hand on my back. “Relax. Catch your breath.”
I could tell him that I’d rather watch what’s going on. It’d take my mind off my throbbing ankle, my scratched-up knees, and the fat lip I probably have. I could get suspicious about why he doesn’t want me to get up, but I don’t have it in me. I’ve decided to trust Cannon, and I’ll have to learn firsthand whether that’s a mistake.
Cannon
Penelope’s quiet.After the things she heard on the phone, she shouldn’t trust me. If Roman hadn’t locked her up, she might not have gone with me. She might’ve been terrified of me. But he didn’t think I’d come after her, and he fucked up.
She’s mine now.
Kase drives through the security gate of the property we’re on and heads in the opposite direction of the Hughes’s property. I wouldn’t have been able to outrun Roman’s hired men if it weren’t for that fence. Penelope was athletic enough to get over with my help, and I knew those guys couldn’t jump as high as me. I’ve stayed in shape since I left the military, but some skills are so ingrained in me they’ll never go away.
Penelope’s breathing is even. She’s lying on the rubber mat in the back of the van with her face in her arms. I didn’t ask Kase how he procured this vehicle so quickly. I don’t want to know.
His speed remains steady. We’re not being pursued. For sixteen hours, Kase, Jacobi, and I planned this rescue. It’s the quickest I’ve ever done a mission, but the knowledge and efficiency Kase brought was humbling. It would be alarming to someone who gives a shit.
I don’t know how I would’ve done this without him. In the military, I was a Ranger. I did my share of raids and assault missions, but it was with a team, and we had more resources. As a contractor, my job was the opposite. I kept others from raiding the place of the person I was protecting. I thwarted assault missions. There was no forcible entry on my watch. But nothing I worked on was a mansion in Bel Air.
