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Our victims fall to the ground, both of us making head shots. Jasper’s guy tumbles from a stool, an alarmed expression on his face. Where he was sitting are two beer bottles and an array of items set out for making a sandwich, along with his plate where he was compiling it. He didn’t even have time to spread his mustard where he squirted it on the bread.
My guy, on the other hand, drops a jar of pickles where he was taking them out of the fridge. The glass shatters on the ground with a loud crash a moment before his body joins it. I wince, but there’s nothing I could’ve done. We simply have to hope nobody heard it.
Cole joins me, the corners of his mouth heavy with a frown. “Well, that was anticlimactic.” It’s like he takes the thought right out of my head.
“It really was.”
“Did we get him?” Cole asks Jasper. He’s the only one who knows what the Tulip Broker looks like. I doubt we did, though. Both of these guys are dressed the same, black slacks and a black button down shirt. Off to the side there’s two suit jackets hanging on a coat rack which seems so out of place in a kitchen. It gives the impression they were guards, not the man we came to kill.
“No,” Jasper grunts, kicking the arm of the guy he killed.
Sure, we have the rest of the house to go through, but this first skirmish, if you will, was hella basic. I hope this isn’t an indication of how the rest of the day will go. I sigh, moving farther into the kitchen.
“Did you break another glass, Cooper?” a voice shouts through the door behind me. My eyes go wide, not having expected anyone to be in what I thought would be a pantry. Assuming definitely only made an ass out of me.
I twist around, raising my gun, but the man is already screaming, “Escapee,” at the top of his lungs. He got it wrong, thinking I was some kind of trafficked woman who got out, but the damage is already done. Anyone within hearing range will be alerted to our presence. His surmise of who I am did confirm a theory I was working with, though—there are captives being held here. Hopefully, Becca is one of them.
My bullet gets him between the eyes before he can do anything else, his body falling backward on a set of stairs. Moments later, there’s a scuffling of quickly moving feet and discreetly hidden lights start flashing in the room. Must be some kind of silent alarm they have. It’s slightly disorienting too, which must’ve been an added benefit.
“Get over here,” Jasper orders, his voice sounding stressed. I don’t hesitate to move across the room, where we crouch behind the island. It’s not the most protected position, but the best we have at the moment while we regroup.
“Wherever he came from isn’t on camera,” Grayson says in my ear.
“Guards are swarming out of a garden shed back here,” Vander adds. “I’ll take out as many as possible, but it’s too many to get them all. Get prepared to be surrounded.”
“What’s the plan?” Cole grunts, leaning on Jasper’s battle experience.
Jasper stares at the opening to the hallway we came in through. It’s easy to see he’s rapidly formulating and discarding idea after idea. “It would be best if we could get to a spot where there aren’t any cameras.”
“Actually,” Cole cuts in. “I’ve got them looped. They won’t know we’re here.”
“That’s something, I suppose,” Jasper says. He grunts, then continues. “The hallway will bottleneck us in, same with the stairway leading down. We could stay here, but it’s not very defensible, or we can move through the rooms clearing our way as we go.”
He stares at me, emotions crossing his gaze too quickly for me to track. “Let’s move. Follow me, same as before.”
I get the impression that he’s worried about me, but he shouldn’t be. I’ll be able to handle my own. I’ve got precision shooting down to an art, and on top of that, Vander was a good teacher on the hand to hand. I might not be an expert, but there’s time to work on that.
We crouch as we rush for an unknown doorway. If the blueprints are correct, it would be the dining room, but with the pantry having a stairwell to Hell, I’m not sure where it leads. Before we get there, a figure fills the doorway. Jasper rushes him before he can bring his gun into position. I watch the sure movements of my sexy as fuck man, defending the blows of the guard who is putting up a decent defense.
Jasper reaches for his knife on his thigh when I jump from the sound in my ear. “Remi, behind you!” Grayson shouts.
I’m unable to react in time. A vicious roar sounds somewhere behind me as an arm wraps around my chest, dragging me to the wall where he shifts his body and slams my back against it. The force drives the breath from my lungs, and before I can take a breath to replace it, a hand fists itself around my throat, squeezing like he’s trying to kill me. Which I guess he is.
The drills Vander beat into me instinctively kick in. I’m not able to complete them before Cole’s arm wraps around his throat in a chokehold. Serves the motherfucker right. I smirk at him as his eyes go round and I’m able to suck in a breath as he drops me to defend himself.
Cole’s gaze narrows in where I’m sure I have red handprints from the man choking me. His lips get dangerously close to touching the man’s ear and he says, “You touch my woman and you die. Ravenmaster’s rule.”
“Actually,” I wheeze. “It never became an official rule.”
“Impossible,” Cole objects, shoving his knife between the man’s ribs. The force of it lifts his body several inches. The blade must’ve nicked the heart—of course it did. It’s Cole—and his face drains of any signs of life.
“What was the number, Jasper?” Cole shouts as he turns to fend off another attacker.
“What?” Jasper sounds a little exasperated as he blocks a knife swipe from one attacker and kicks another. Close to the original guy who blocked our way, already dead on the ground. Vander wasn’t kidding when he said to be prepared.
“Which rule was it that no man could touch our woman?” Cole reiterates. He rolls his eyes like he expected Jasper to keep up with the conversation while fighting men off. I shouldn’t be attracted to the fact that he’s as self centered as I am, but here we are.
“We never gave it a number,” Jasper answers, thrusting his knife into the neck of one attacker and leaving it there to avoid being punched in the face. “But we should do it now. What would it be? Fourteen?”
