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“Fuck!” he shouts, his grip loosening just enough for me to free myself and spin around, my fist connecting with his nose. Now there’s blood pouring from two spots on his face, and he raises the ski mask over his face to cover his wounds with one hand. Like that will do anything.
I’m ready to make a run for it again, but there are more of them running at me, backing me against the wall. “Dallas!” I scream before one of them lunges forward. A hand clamps over my mouth, and I’m lifted off my feet, an arm wrapped around my midsection.
“Stop fighting!” the man growls in my ear as I twist and thrash. His urging somehow filters through the haze of panic in my head, and I know my instincts were right. This is all a set-up. I want nothing to do with it.
Twisting my body, I kick off the wall as hard as I can, knocking my captor on his ass and rolling away from him once we hit the floor. He grabs hold of my wrist at the last second,and I can’t hold back a cry of pain as electric heat sizzles up my arm. The pain only sharpens me, focuses my energy. I kick out blindly and make contact with something that snaps under my foot. Like magic, I’m free, while Dallas continues his gunfight with the pair of men waiting by the van. They aren’t here to kill anybody. They’re only a distraction, a way of splitting us apart, so I’m more easily captured and taken. It’s not going to happen. Not so long as I’m conscious and able to fight.
The stairwell door flies open, and there’s never been a sweeter sight than the hotel security team pouring out and fanning over the area. My attackers shout to each other before fleeing to their van, but the one I most recently kicked is slow moving, staggering to his feet with a hand pressed to his side. There’s too much shouting, too much confusion, and soon he’s surrounded by our men with their guns drawn. The rest of the attackers jump into the van, which starts moving before they’ve all climbed in. The door is still open as it careens away, and Dallas takes a few shots before it disappears.
“Hands!” the men on the security team bark as they circle their wounded prey. “Show your hands!”
All I can see thanks to the ski mask is his eyes darting around. He knows it’s over; he has to. He’s surrounded. He’ll be questioned at best, tortured at worst. And I doubt Mason will take it easy on him.
Nor would my mother, since he failed his mission.
He knows it. That’s why he reaches for the pistol in his waistband, raises it to the side of his head, and pulls the trigger before anybody has the chance to put a hand on him. I watch in silent horror as he hits the ground.
“Are you all right?” Dallas takes my face in his hands and turns my head until I’m gazing up into his eyes. Eyes that are now wide, almost frantic as he searches me for injuries.
“Fine,” I grunt, though the throbbing in my wrist tells another story. “Asshole twisted my wrist. It might be sprained—I don’t think it’s a break.” There’s something else, something I’m only now realizing. When the now dead man grabbed my wrist, he forced something into my clenched fist. Something my hand is still closed around, gripping tight.
“I’ll take you to medical, get you checked out.” Dallas glances around, surveying the aftermath, and I use his distraction as an opportunity to pull what I now see is a folded slip of paper from my fist and shove it into the back pocket of my ruined slacks. He shows no sign of having noticed once he’s turned back to me, his steely gaze softening with concern once he finds me wincing. “They’ll give you something for the pain.”
“I fucking hope so,” I grit out. It seems the elevator is still out of commission, but the medical wing is only on the first floor, above the lobby. We take the stairs, neither of us saying anything about what we went through down there. How sudden it was. How easily we were duped.
He finally brings it up once we reach the first floor landing, and he opens the door to usher me through. “How the fuck did they make it look like the messages came from Griffin?”
“I have no idea.” And I don’t. I don’t have a clue. I’ve come to understand the depth and breadth of my mother’s ability to deceive even the most experienced veterans, people trained to see through the sort of deception she’s so skilled at. That doesn’t mean I know how she does it.
“It could mean he’s been captured, out there doing whatever it is he’s doing,” Dallas continues once we’ve passed through the double doors leading into the medical ward. He drops the subject, waving to the attending nurse. “She’s injured and needs an x-ray.”
“I doubt that,” I offer. “It’s just a sprain. I can still move it.”
“We can’t be too sure,” he insists, hovering over me once I take a seat on one of the handful of beds lined up along the wall. I’d be touched and even flattered if there wasn’t so much going on in my head. So many questions.
“I’ve broken bones before.” It’s almost enough to make me want to shove him away when he opens his mouth like he’s ready to argue. “This isn’t my first fight, soldier. I can handle it.”
“Fine. Have it your way.” He huffs and grumbles but doesn’t leave, sitting in a chair too small for his large body while the nurse conducts an exam. I grit my teeth to bear the pain of being poked and prodded, but in the end, I know I got off lucky.
They were here to kidnap me. I know it. My brother will know it, too, once he’s got the facts of the situation straight. And here I am, with a slip of paper practically burning a hole in my pocket. What does it say? Is it a message from her? Was that the fallback plan in case the extraction didn’t go as they hoped?
Thinking it all over is a distraction from the pain, anyway. I’m going to need to defend myself to my brother—I’m not a fool, I know he’ll be suspicious. Did they plan on infiltrating the entire hotel once they got to me? I can only imagine that was the idea. All Mason has to do is look at my wrist and the scrapes on my knees to know I fought. I didn’t go along with them. That has to count for something, right?
“Yes, this looks like a sprain.” The nurse is soft-spoken, sympathetic. “We’ll get a brace on it, and I’ll give you a bottle of pills for the pain if it gets to be too much, especially overnight.”
“Thank you.” I’m glad to know I won’t lose any sleep over this. There’s already so much for me to lose sleep over as it is.
14
DALLAS
As soon as they release Natalie from medical, we head upstairs to Mason’s office, where everyone is gathering. Mason, Teagan, and surprisingly, Trent are sitting around the conference table. Griffin is still absent, sent on some mission by Mason.
“What are you doing here?” I question as soon as we walk in.
“Mason asked for all hands on deck,” Trent explains, “so here I am.” He leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest. He clearly hates being here. I don’t remember the last time he actually came in to work with us.
“Griffin is on his way back as well,” Teagan chimes in. “Like Trent said, we need everyone here.” There is an odd tone in her normally cheerful voice, something that sounds a lot like anger. But why is Teagan angry, or should I say with whom?
