I leapt onto the counter without breaking stride and flipped over to slam both my heels into the glass. It didn’t budge. Come on. I whipped my feet toward it even harder, and with a cracking sound, a line formed down the middle of the pane.
Before I could shatter the glass completely, two pairs of hands clamped on my body and dragged me off the counter.
I flailed out with my good hand, my elbows, my knees, and my feet, all seeking the most vulnerable spots I could strike. The throbbing in my side expanded into a piercing agony that made my breath catch, but I couldn’t afford to stop. In my line of work, stopping usually meant dying.
My knuckles caught Talon in the throat. One of my knees clocked Julius across the cheek so hard he grunted, and his hands shifted. I tried to squirm free, intent on making it back to the window and the small hope of freedom it offered.
But the stomp of my foot into Talon’s calf, hard enough to fracture bone on a good day, landed weaker because of the pain searing through my torso. I had an opening when I could have gotten a stranglehold on Julius and maybe even broken his neck—but on my bad side, where my wrist screamed the second I swung it into action.
I let out a grunt of my own, my focus wavering, and Talon slammed his taut arms around me from behind. He pinned both of my arms to my sides in an iron grip. I pushed and flailed against him, but he managed to hold me so my heels only clipped his legs without doing any real damage while my ribs felt as if they were stabbing right into my lungs.
“Nice try,” he grumbled in my ear, “but you’re not going anywhere.”
He swiveled me to the side just as Garrison shoved a wooden chair with wide arms into place next to us. Talon shoved me into it, using his knee to hold my legs down, bracing my forearms against the arms of the chair. All I could move was my head, and his was too far away for me to butt it, as much as I’d have liked to right now.
He wasn’t just strong. This asshole knew how to fight—really fight. But if I hadn’t been injured…
I met his eyes with a glare, and he gazed back at me with no sign of anger or even irritation. Suddenly I was sure even his supposed frustration with me this morning had been as much an act as Garrison’s kindness. His pale blue irises held nothing but cool indifference, like this was just a job to him rather than a matter of survival like it was for me.
I should have been chilled, but the sight woke up something else inside me. I was abruptly hyperaware of the flexing of his hands against the bare skin of my arms, of all the power emanating from his pose over me. Of how close he was leaning—not close enough for me to launch another attack, no, but enough that his breath grazed my face with each exhale.
He was breathing a little raggedly. As strong as he was, I’d given him a challenge even with my injuries. And he’d given me a hell of a challenge too.
An unexpected heat pooled between my legs, a sensation I’d never felt before except when I touched myself there. The image passed through my mind of him leaning even closer, pressing all of that sculpted power right against me, and I didn’t shy away from it. If anything, my body welcomed the idea.
I’d never wanted a man before. Except maybe that one—for the short time before I’d realized the poison that lay behind his sweet words. Talon wasn’t like that at all. He was pure, brutal strength, on display without excuses or any kind of veneer, and something about that called to the deepest part of me.
As Talon stared down at me, I thought something shifted in his gaze—a flash of what I almost imagined was his own arousal. Then Julius strode into view, holding several plastic ties in his hands, and I jolted back to my horrifying reality. I was a captive here, way more so than I’d been a few minutes ago.
The leader of the group wrapped the ties around my wrists and then my ankles, binding me to the chair. He tugged the plastic strands tight enough that they bit into my skin—or in the case of my wrist in the brace, enough to make the sprain ache. He wasn’t going easy on me, that was for sure.
As soon as the restraints were in place, Talon stepped back—and pulled out a pistol. I hadn’t even been able to tell he was wearing one. He pointed it at me, aimed straight at my forehead, his expression back to its impervious blankness.
No matter what other feelings I might have briefly stirred in him, I had no doubt that he’d put a bullet in my brain without a second’s hesitation.
Garrison stood next to him, his arms folded over his chest. Blaze came up at Talon’s other side, his laptop still open, clutched in his hands, carrying the evidence I’d inadvertently provided him with.
Julius stepped back from the chair, swiping his hand across his cheek. A bruise was already purpling the skin there. I held in a smile of satisfaction. If I was going to go down, at least I’d left a mark on these pricks.
When he spoke, Julius’s voice was hard and unrelenting. “It’s time that you tell us exactly what you were doing last night.”