Chapter 4
Declan
Iheardawoman scream, and for a moment I thought I was back in Afghanistan. Snapping out of that nightmare, I followed the shrieks and saw three men in a dark alley dragging a woman to a door.
“Hey,” I yelled as I ran towards them.
Wearing nothing but a corset, the woman thrashed about in the heavyset man’s arms, crying out.
I charged in, knocking out a guy in a suit and elbowing another at the same time. A technique I’d learnt in the army when faced with multiple assailants.
“Put her down,” I yelled.
The heavyset guy in black released the girl from his grip, but then brandished a gun.
“Run,” I yelled, but she stood as though blinded by light.
The gun fired, missing me, just as I kicked it out of his hand. I then slammed into him laying him flat.
The man in the suit came back with another heavy, and before I knew it, three men were on top of me.
The girl screamed as he tried to drag her off. As I took one down, a pair of stocky men pounced on me.
Blow after blow, I eventually fought them off.
One of the thugs scrambled off the ground and came towards us clutching a gun. I grabbed the girl by the waist. She was drugged and her legs had gone all floppy. I had to carry her.
With her panting breath in my face, I ran as fast as I could while pursued by the gun-wielding bully.
Here I was back home and still running from the enemy. The city proving as dangerous as some hidden village in Afghanistan.
The girl’s long dark hair whipped my face as she wiggled in my arms trying to get down. Her bag dragged along the ground. “Just hold on, will you.” For someone drugged, she was a tiger.
I ran into the back of a restaurant and slipped into a kitchen, where a chef and his assistant looked up at us and went for their phones.
“It’s a long story. I just saved her from some nasty pricks.”
I put her down and, despite her being light, her doped state made her heavy. Drugged to the eyeballs, she wobbled on her unsupportive legs and was about to crash to the floor when I gently helped her to a sitting position on the floor against the wall.
I took out ten fifty-pound notes from my wallet and popped them on the counter. “Here, for your trouble. Just let us wait here for a few minutes.”
Staring wide-eyed at the cash, the pair nodded in unison.
I would have called the cops, but I didn’t know this girl’s story.
I helped her onto a chair, having to hold her up, because she would have gone down like a sack of potatoes. Her arms were bruised, and she had dark streaks down her cheeks where her makeup had run. She closed her eyes and rubbed her head.
“She looks like she’s had a big night,” the chef said with a raised eyebrow.
I threw him a dirty look. “Get on with your work.”
I removed my jacket and wrapped it around her. Her bag fell off her shoulder, and I noticed an envelope with cash in it. As I zipped the bag, I wondered if someone had paid for her services, and she was doing a runner. With that corset revealing a good part of her voluptuous figure, you didn’t need to be a genius to guess her line of work.
I wasn’t there to judge. I was there to help her get away. I’d done that.
So why was I still standing there trying to figure out what to do next?
Helping her up, I said, “We should be safe to leave now.”