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Kenz squeezed my hand, the action knocking loose that thought. There were four of us and six of them. I wasn’t armed, but clearly Hayden was. I didn’t see a weapon in Tor’s hand, but I also knew him well enough to suspect he had one.
Even if he didn’t, he didn’t really need one, given his career.
And Char? Who the fuck knew what the guy knew or had. He was a mystery, but if I had to guess, he could at least hold his own.
It meant we were outnumbered, but not horribly so.
Hayden slipped his hand into his pocket, the motion hidden as he shifted toward Tor. When he withdrew it, something silver sat in his palm. With a quick but hidden motion, he tossed the item back to me.
Keys.
They were the car keys. Was this his point? That if it came down to it, I was to get Kenz out of here?
“You think Lorien will be okay with that?” Char asked, his tone light and joking despite the serious moment. “I mean, he doesn’t strike me as the type who lets things like this go easily.” Char turned his head slightly, talking to me. “Remember like a year ago? When someone stole his car? I don’t think it was even his favorite car or anything.”
I forced myself to smile, to ignore the tension in the space. It was time to play the game, and I could do that for an audience after a life in the public eye. “Yeah. Did they ever find all the parts of that guy?”
“They found, like…sixty percent maybe? Enough to identify him, at least.” Char let out a soft laugh, as if it were the funniest thing. “If he does that over a car, I wonder what he’d do over a girl he says is his soulmate?”
“Oh, people won’t findanythingof someone dumb enough to hurt her,” I agreed, nodding.
The man who had spoken moved his gaze between Char and me as though considering that. He pressed his lips together, his bat hanging loose in his hand and tapping against his thigh. “You’re telling me thatthisone is really that important to him? She doesn’t look like much.”
I kept my mouth shut before I answered too honestly, telling that asshole that he’d be lucky if a girl like Kenz even looked his direction.
“You know rich folks—they’re eccentric,” Char said. “No accounting for taste in people like that.”
The man shrugged. “Well, I guess that doesn’t really matter. The thing is, if he’s really as attached as you say, don’t you think he’ll be pissed about what’s happened already?” He pointed toward Kenz’s arm with the end of his bat.
“We could just all walk away and pretend like this never happened,” Hayden said.
“Wecould,but that seems like putting me in a losing position yet again. I mean, I’ve lost out on the money Lorien was supposed to pay me, the reputation I lost by failing before and a few of my best guys.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think that makes any sense at all. How about instead, you hand her over and we don’t kill you?”
“Pass,” Hayden said.
“I figured as much. Well, the next best thing then is for us to take the girl, kill the rest of you and hand her over ourselves. I get the payment I deserved before, probably a nice bonus and you all are out of my way. I’d prefer to do it without having to deal with getting rid of bodies, but in our world, that just isn’t always possible.” The man took a few steps closer, his lips curled into a smirk that turned my stomach. “So last chance. You want to do the smart thing or make this harder on us all?”
Hayden glanced to the side, meeting Tor’s gaze. They seemed to exchange some conversation between them, as if they operated on the same wavelength and understoodexactlywhat to do.
It was a language I didn’t know, however. It meant the best I could do was hold the keys in my bad hand and clutch Kenz’s hand with my other as we waited.
The first to move was Tor, and it sure as hell startled me. He was silent usually, and even when he communicated, it was always careful. He wasn’t the type to threaten, to posture, not like the rest of us.
I played my games, and Char did his with ease. Hayden was less about posturing, but he was the first to use his size and strength when needed. Somehow, even knowing that Tor killed people for a living, it hadn’t ever sunk in entirely.
It sure as hell did now, though.
He moved with a fluidity that came from practice, from having done this so many times that it had become second nature. He flew forward without a hint of what he would do, ducking low to avoid getting hit when one of the men pulled his gun and fired without aiming well. Tor caught the man’s wrist and yanked forward, throwing him off balance and lifting his knee to catch the man in the face. He slid the gun from the man’s grasp, twisting and raising it, firing a single bullet to land between another man’s eyebrows.
Even when others reacted, it seemed no one could get ahead of Tor, could stop him, because he remained a few steps ahead.
Hayden pulled the trigger of his pistol, no hesitation in the action. While he might be a man who protected others for a living, he’d proven he had no problem killing to achieve that. The bullet struck a man near the back—the one who had fired at Kenz to start with.It made me wonder if he’d picked that target on purpose.
Of course, doing that gave the man at the front, who had done all the talking, the chance to swing his bat toward Hayden. Hayden raised his arm to block the hit, to prevent the bat from striking anything vital, but the crushing thud said it still hurt like a bitch.
And despite Char being smaller and thinner than the others, it only took a moment to see he was more than comfortable in a fight. One of the men grabbed the front of his shirt, no doubt expecting him to be easy prey. He proved them wrong when he jerked his hand up, striking the man in the chest.
The man fell forward, to his knees, and at first I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t believe he’d struck him hard enough for that reaction. It wasn’t until Char stepped to the side that I saw the handle of a blade sticking out of the man’s chest.
