Page 126 of Ready For His Rule

Hawkins ticked his head in a terse negative. “I almost shot her head off because of it too.”

“Fuck.”

“Believe you covered that one already.” The guy arched a meaningful glance at Tracy. “Likely in more ways than one tonight?”

He ignored that—also in more ways than one. First, no matter how many state secrets Garrett Hawkins would take to his grave, the guy didn’t need to know what his old CO and his new president had been up to a few rooms over. Second, Tracy wasn’t going to be anyone’s next president if they sat here like the stupid people in a horror movie, waiting for their friends to get back from “checking out what was in the woods”. Z didn’t ignore radio hails. Ever.

And with that, a new realization.

Silence really could be sickening.

“Tracy.” He skipped both the formal address and her nickname, in favor of snagging her attention as fast as possible. No time for anything else. If Z was holding off hostiles upstairs, whatever the hell that meant, they had a few minutes at most. If they’d already taken him out—Franz avoided even glancing at the guy’s pregnant wife while thinking it—then they had only seconds.

Thank God for the woman’s supernatural perception. All the apprehension he’d only sprinkled into the word was now on full display in her eyes, bright as quicksilver. “What is it?” she rasped.

“Tie them.” He jerked his head at the shoes she’d pushed her feet into. “Fast.”

Under any other circumstances, he’d have watched her do it with lingering pleasure. She was so damn cute, with that slinky cocktail dress now joined by the leggings and runners, he longed for even a second to watch her moving around in the funny outfit. Then another second more, to put his own brand on the look with a hot, deep kiss.

Seconds they didn’t have.

Another horror movie trope feeling the necessity to prove itself, the second she rose and he grabbed her hand—

And the world hit an insanity he never thought he’d experience this side of the Pacific.

Resolve fought reality. Adrenaline battled gelatin. And no matter how desperately he craved to hit the hidden transporter button, to materialize at Point B from this disgusting Point A, it wasn’t fucking happening.

The combat zone began now.

The ferocious face of his best friend, charging out of the connector tunnel at them, confirmed that fact with sickening surety.

“Z’s right behind me.” Max, looking every inch the Marine he used to be, sounded as if he’d swallowed half a bunker’s worth of dirt. Like Hawk, a gun holster bisected his torso—making Franz feel, for the first time all night, stark naked. Dilemma handled, as Max hefted over the MP5 hanging off his back.

Regrettably, it was a tiny umbrella in the shit storm he’d brought with him.

“And you’re telling me he’s not alone.” Not a question. Franz already knew the nerve-singing answer.

“It’s the whole goddamned Death Star,” Max growled back. “Whoever or whatever gave us away, did it really fucking well.”

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