They were all listening to him now, and Lewis was scowling. He shifted Mary in his grasp, effectively keeping her between Neal and himself.
Lewis’ phone gave a sudden blurble, and he carefully reached down to check it. A toothy smile spread across his face. “Speaking of turncoats,” he said cheerfully. “I guess your team is on its way now. Cleverly done, Byrne. Too bad that they won’t get here in time.”
Mary gave a squeak as Lewis tightened his grip on her.
Neal fought down his urge to act and reminded himself to be patient, to wait. “You don’t need Plan B if Plan A is still going well,” he bluffed cheerfully. He pitched his voice to the mercenaries. “We won’t hurt anyone who surrenders. You have to ask yourself which party you think is going to end up treating you with more humanity—the resort staff of animal shifters, or the turncoat who relies on people betraying their friends and hides behind women and children when things get tough.”
Mercenaries tended to have a code of honor, and it often excluded using civilians as hostages – especially children. The fact that Lewis was using a defenseless woman now played well into Neal's speech.
Behind Lewis, the dragon shifted his wings and growled, and Lewis turned to glance at him, finally offering the shot that Neal had been waiting for as his finger relaxed from the trigger of the gun at Mary’s head.
As tempting as it was to put a bullet in Lewis’ forehead, Neal took the harder, more humane shot, right through the arm holding the gun.
Lewis howled, dropping the gun as Mary spun out of his grasp and sensibly dropped to the ground with her hands over her head.
Neal heard his own shot in that crazy moment, and Bastian’s dragon roar, and another several rounds being fired. He didn’t see what happened to Scarlet, but heard a crunch of breaking bones and glanced to find the guard falling away from her, shrieking in pain and cradling his gun arm.
Then Neal was driving forward, leaping over Mary to tackle Lewis and bring him to the ground. He heard howls and grunts and more ear-splitting shots as the rest of the staff took on the remaining mercenaries who hadn’t been swayed by his speech, but he focused on Lewis, who was reaching with his off hand for his dropped gun.
“I don’t think so,” Neal said firmly, and smashed him in the face with the butt of the assault rifle he was still holding, taking cathartic delight in watching Lewis’ eyes roll up in his head.
The sounds of fighting died out quickly, and Neal looked around to find Tex relieving the last guard of his weapons. Graham’s mercenary was on the ground, whimpering and holding his hands up for mercy. Bastian was human again, looking disappointed at not having anyone left to fight, and Benedict was cowering against the car with his hands over his ears being completely ignored. Magnolia was back in her human form, brushing her flowered dress back into shape as Chef picked up her wide white hat.
Graham had been grazed with one of the wild shots, and Bastian offered to clean it up. Graham looked down at the blood oozing down his shoulder and shrugged, wincing. “It’ll heal,” he said.
“You all right, Scarlet?” Travis asked.
“He missed,” she answered calmly, smoothing her blouse and tucking a strand of artistically loose hair back.
Neal wasn’t sure if he believed her or not.
“Oh, Neal,” Mary said, uncovering her ears. “You saved us!”
Neal gathered her up into his arms, holding her tight. “I owed you one.”
She wrapped her arms around him, and Neal could have sat there and held onto her forever.
Tex cleared his throat. “What do you want us to do with these guys?” he asked.
Neal reluctantly let go of Mary and helped her to her feet.
Scarlet was scowling at Benedict. “You’ve certainly laid a mess of trouble at our door,” she said coldly. “I presume that the sale is off and you’ll be cleaning this up?”
Benedict opened one eye and looked up at her. “Oh. Um, yes. I’ll be calling my lawyer immediately and canceling the whole thing. I didn’t know he was a… a… drug lord or whatever.”
Neal snapped his fingers at Benedict. “I need to make a phonecall first.”
Benedict obediently handed it over.
“Are you getting any bars of data?” Mary asked merrily.
Neal had to stop laughing before he could dial the phone to warn Judy about Remmy.
Chapter Thirty-Five
While Neal stepped away to make his phone call, Mary felt like the weight of the past few days was suddenly upon her. She became intensely aware of how dirty and tired and hungry she felt, and how ragged and stained her clothing was.
Scarlet, by comparison, still looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon.