Really, Mercer had stooped to this level? Sending a new babysitter after her? He’d promised the last agent was it. It looked like he’d broken another promise.
Same story, different day. She should have expected this from him.
“You think I work for something called the EOD,” the man told her. She pulled back, staring up at him. His hair was dark, thick, and her fingers were brushing against the nape of his neck.
Why were her fingers doing that? She immediately flattened them against the back of his tux.
“Shouldn’t you at least tell me what the EOD is?” he pressed.
Cassidy sighed. “Cut the act, okay? I’ve seen your dossier picture. I know you’re an agent.” That was how she’d first recognized him at the other party. She had a thing about faces. Once she saw one, she never forgot it.
Actually, there were quite a few things that she couldn’t forget.
His jaw hardened just a bit. “Well, I’m at a disadvantage—”
“Yes, you are,” she interrupted him, making sure that her voice stayed low so that none of the other dancers would overhear. “Because you’ve been sent down here for no reason. I don’t need you.”
The song ended. Thankfully. Blessedly.
She tried to pull away from him.
He didn’t let her go.
“Are you sure about that?” he asked.
“Yes,” she hissed. “I’m sure. I’m perfectly fine. This place is safe—”
A scream cut through the ballroom. At the high-pitched, desperate sound, everyone froze.
Cassidy’s blood iced. Genevieve. That had been her scream. She knew Genevieve’s scream.
Cassidy’s gaze flew to the right as she looked for her friend. There, near the staircase. One glance and Cassidy knew why her friend had screamed. Men in black—men wearing ski masks and armed with handguns—surrounded Genevieve. One man had a gun to her side. The other three men were fanning out, advancing toward the unarmed guests.
“Anyone moves,” the man holding Genevieve shouted, “I kill her.” No accent covered his words.
Cassidy’s breath heaved in her lungs. No, no, this could not be happening now. It shouldn’t be happening—not to Genevieve!
But it was happening. She was staring at a nightmare straight from her past. The armed men swept into the crowd.
And—
“Cassidy Sherridan!” the man holding Genevieve shouted. “We want her.”
Cassidy took a step forward.
Only to be halted by the man who was quickly becoming the bane of her existence.
“Too bad,” the EOD agent whispered—a whisper that reached only Cassidy’s ears. “Because I’m not letting them get you.”
He didn’t understand what was happening. She did. She was also more than ready to trade herself for Genevieve.
So while everyone else was frozen, she jerked away from the agent and called out, “You want me? I’m right here.”
The agent swore.
The masked man shoved Genevieve away and began closing in on Cassidy. His gun was aimed dead center at her chest.
Cassidy lifted her chin and waited.