AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay, okay,” she huffed, crunching through the dead vines behind me. “When it comes to asshole enemies, you win. You get the grand prize. Happy now?”
“No! I won’t be happy until you’re home, wearing satin pajamas and drinking a glass of red wine! In my bed!”
“Hmm,” she murmured. “Sounds nice, but save the fantasies for later.”
“I want you in my corner, Kat.” I cleared the brambles out of my path with savage kicks, and spun around to face her. “I want you on my team! We are stronger together, understand?” I was being stupidly loud, since we had no idea where Nicole was, but I couldn’t seem to shut up.
She gave me an oddly gentle smile, reached out, and delicately patted my cheek.
“Yes,” she said softly. “You’ve convinced me, Ethan. I’m on totally board, okay? Let’s run like hell! Go!”
I turned to attack the thorn bushes again, hoping desperately that she was telling me the truth.
CHAPTER29
Nicole
Nicole retreated, stealing very quietly, trying to keep a line of sight open so she could watch Masters thrash noisily through flesh-tearing thorns to get to his lady love. The spectacle was very entertaining. He thought she’d been shot to death. That she was bleeding out pathetically in the thorns, staring up at the sky, like the finale of some tear-jerking movie. Oh, so sad and tragic, boo-hoo.
But no. Kat Banner had been left in beautiful working condition. She had to serve as the linchpin for Nicole’s huge and glorious death-and-money machine. It would have been sweet to have her in the bag now, and Nicole could have bagged them both, but not yet. Not quite yet. If she brought them in now, Vincent would fuck it up.
She was after a bigger prize now.
Mick Drummond’s information had taken root, grown, and flowered. The idea was taking shape in her mind like magic. Complex, detailed, perfect in every particular. All she had to do was watch, and enjoy, and rejoice in the huge, colossal inevitability of it.
Ethan Masters would be betrayed by his lover. His heart, ripped to bloody shreds. She would settle for nothing less than that outcome. And he was so ripe for it, too. Just look at the dumb fuck, sloppy in love, howling Kat’s name as he blundered across the brambles, lacerating himself. He had it bad.
And Nicole was going to make him regret it. Like he’d never regretted before.
She hoped she’d get to see the look in his eyes when he realized what a fool he’d been, how badly he’d fucked up. The moment his heart froze, his guts twisted.
Yes, Kat Banner would cut him to the bone. It was going to be beautiful.
It was going to be a challenge to sell the idea to Vincent, since he was tripping out on being the big boss right now. Tiresome, but she was already coming up with ways to spin it. Vincent wasn’t hard to manipulate.
She watched through the screen of leaves as Masters and Kat Banner clutched each other in the bramble patch. Masters snatched a quick kiss, Banner stiffened, then patted him briskly on the back, saying something businesslike. Probably about the foolishness of emoting while they should be running for their lives. She wasn’t wrong.
Masters looked over his shoulder, scanning the trees for Nicole. His gaze fastened right onto the spot where she huddled behind a canopy of ivy or kudzu or some botanical shit. He could feel her presence. They were connected, on a deep, primal level, and they had been ever since that night when he’d taken her to bed, in that hotel room in Vegas. He was the only man smart enough, strong enough, to be worthy of her, but he was too stupid to see it. He’d been dazzled by that snotty blonde whore.
Watching Kat Banner betray and destroy him was going to feel wonderful.
She crept back through the trees, staying out of sight until she was over the rise. Then she sprinted back down through the trees, and saw Maynard, on the ground.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. The tit-squeezer was a fucking mess. That leg, bent strangely, his face streaked with blood. This was inconvenient and stupid. But not unexpected…or even all that unwelcome, now that she thought about it.
She kicked his shoulder with her foot. “Hey. Maynard. What happened to you?”
His eyes opened a slit, squinting until he focused on her.
“Fucking asshole,” he croaked. “Got me from behind.”
“Dumb shit. You didn’t hear him coming?”
“How could I? I was listening to you, yapping in the com,” he snarled.
“Ah, yes. Of course. So it’s my fault.”
“Yeah! It is your fault, you stupid cow! Did you get him? Are they tranqed?” He pulled out his phone. “We need emergency back-up, to get them loaded up. And me.”
