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Three men approached the fence. The gate squeaked.
Shit. Maybe it was stupid, but Knox wasn’t here to scold me. I turned off the ignition and held the gun in my lap. Breathe. Focus. I remembered my training. I needed to be invisible to my opponent.
“Call it in,” the man inspecting the gate said.
“I’ll check the door.” The third guy pulled his gun and slipped into the darkness.
Making a split-second decision, I shoved the bottle of liquid into my pocket and exited the car. With the knife from my thigh in one hand and my gun tucked in the back of my jeans, I jogged up to the two men. “Excuse me.”
They both jerked in my direction, guns in their hand.
I feigned a startled gasp. “I’m sorry. I..I just need help. My car won’t start.”
“Call in the breach while I help her,” the bigger man on the left said, tucking his gun into his holster. A scar stretched from his eyebrow to his ear.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said now that their guns were holstered.
“What the fuck?” The other man went for his weapon again.
Light glinted off the polished steel as I acted on instinct, trusting my training, and threw my knife, embedding the blade into the soft tissue where his arm met his shoulder.
A guttural moan burst from his mouth. The gun fell from his hand and clattered on the ground. He dropped his phone and grasped the hilt of the knife.
In the confusion of the moment, I pulled my gun from my waistband and leveled it at the head of Scar. “If I sliced your axillary artery,” I said to the bleeding man, “you’ll spurt blood like a broken pipe.”
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked.
“The bitch with the gun. Drink this.” I tossed Scar the bottle of dog tranquilizer.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but it didn’t kill your dogs, so it shouldn’t kill you.”
Scar looked over his shoulder at the drooling beasts rolling around in the cool soil. He twisted off the lid, tipped the bottle to his lips, and swallowed several mouthfuls.
“Save some for you friend,” I said.
He handed the bottle to the other man. He shook his head. Blood coated his fingers as he protected the knife protruding out of his shoulder.
“Just fucking drink it,” Scar demanded. His gaze shifted around us. “She’s a dead bitch with a gun once the boss sees her.”
The bleeding man took the bottle and drank the rest.
Scar leaned against the fence and slid to his ass. “What the fuck is this shit?” He slowly waved his hand in front of his face. Drool trickled onto his chin.
“Sit,” I said to the bleeding man, like he was a dog.
Protecting his arm, he lowered to the ground. I didn’t like leaving them here, but there was a third man. Knox would be vulnerable. “Give me your weapons.”
Both reached into their pockets and handed me their guns. On my way toward the house, I tossed them into the bushes. My hands shook, and my pulse pounded hard enough to hurt.
Training hadn’t prepared me for the lethal dose of adrenaline frying every nerve in my body and firing every synapse in my brain.
I relaxed, inhaled, exhaled, and slipped into the huge house through the side door. Knox had said she’d be on the second floor. Did he pick this door because of proximity or ease of access? My footfalls were whisper-quiet, but my ears were screaming from the silence.
I jolted. My heartbeat spiked. A man crumpled in the corner of the room. I didn’t see any blood, but he was dead. His open eyes seemed to stare through me.
In a house this size, thestairs would most likely be in the center of the house off the main room.
