He was also aware that I cared about Patrena and teasing was his way of distracting me from stressing about the deadly situation she was currently in. I ignored his teasing comments, but I didn’t discount that he was right.
“Rhi, will you do something useful and see if you can figure out who’s the dick stalking her and if he has company?”
“Already on it,” he replied. “But, like I was saying, she looks like she is waaaay below your age range.”
He wasn’t done by a long shot. I shoved my phone into my pocket and ran across the busy road to the taxi pick-up and drop-off lane where eager shoppers were as energetic as the flow of traffic. Trekking down the stairs, I entered the basement level with my head on a constant swivel.
Reaching behind me, I gripped the cold metal of my weapon, but I didn’t draw it because people were already walking by and glaring with questions pouring from their exploring eyes and pensive stares.
“Black Jeep Grand Vangoneer. Row E-22,” Rhi rattled off. “He’s attempting to shove her into the vehicle, but she’s fighting him.”
“I can hear them,” I replied, glad that I was close.
The sound of Patrena’s distressed voice did something to me. The first sight of them showed her struggling to fight a man twice her size, and as small as she was, she was giving him hell.
The man was so busy trying to shove her into the back of the vehicle that he didn’t hear my rapid approach. Based on the way he froze and his back stiffened, I bet the sound of the metallic click of my pistol aimed at his head had gotten his attention.
“Let her go and you get to keep your brains inside your head,” I barked at the man through seething anger.
At the sound of my voice, Patrena froze, stopping her attempt to claw his eyes out. The man’s hands lifted with caution before he twisted his head around and his wide eyes landed on my pistol and not on me.
Patrena peeked around the man’s broad shoulder to stare at me. I waved her over and didn’t stifle my smile when she pushed the man away with a hard shove, growling, “Asshole!” before she stepped away to stand beside me.
“There is another one that will be approaching at your ten o’clock in about three, maybe four minutes.” Rhi’s voice was breaking up, but I’d caught enough to heed his warning.
I took a step closer to the man, snatched his weapon from the back of his pants and handed it to Patrena. I didn’t have any knowledge about her skills with a weapon, but I wasn’t going to deny her the right to protect herself.
Anyone who broke into houses to rescue women and children from dangerous and abusive men had nerves of steel. I had also seen the footage from the spa several times, and the way Patrena had handled being stuck in a live action-packed murder sequence with my cousin, Khane was proof that she wasn’t going to allow herself to become a victim.
She took the pistol without protest, cocked it, and aimed like an expert, answering my silent reservations about who she was with her actions. Shit! She was a fucking sweet distraction. The sight of her with that pistol in her hand was hot as fuck, but I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I reached out, spun the man around to face me, and captured a photo of his distressed face.
I shoved him into the side of the SUV using his head as a squeegee by swiping it along the side. My booted foot slammed into the back of his knees, landing him on the hard concrete floor and kneeling before the open door he’d been attempting to force Patrena into.
“Place your head on the floor,” I instructed.
He added up the dangerous situation I wanted him in, eyeing the open sliding door and being told to lay in the path of it. Fucking right, I was about to use the vehicle to do some fucked-up shit to him.
Vehicular homicide was about to get a new definition because he had put his hands on the wrong woman. Although slamming his head in the doorway was an option, I had something better planned for this woman-snatching asshole.
Hands lifted, he turned back to face me. “Look man, you—”
Crack!
The butt of my weapon meeting the top of his skull produced a sound similar to the crunch of an apple that echoed through the dim parking basement. Blood gushed from the open wound in the dead center of the top of his head. His groans were guttural, the kind that let you know you’d sent jolts of electricity through his pain sensors.
“Lay your head on the floor,” I ordered in a voice as deadly as skin dissolving in acid.
I was acutely aware that Patrena was likely wondering why I hadn’t put a quick bullet in him. She would find out sooner or later that the Vallin men didn’t hold back on their crazy, especially when it concerned protecting family and anyone we cared about.
Holding a trembling hand to his bleeding skull, the man finally complied laying his head on the floor of the SUV while the rest of his body remained kneeling on the ground outside the vehicle.
As he had suspected, I slid the door close, sandwiching his neck between the door and frame with a hard slam. The action caused his loud cry to flow through the space like a siren’s call.
I reached back and handed my pistol to Patrena, noticing the tight expression she maintained while watching the squirming man with wide eyes. She took my weapon, adding it to hers and aimed them at the man although there wasn’t a chance in hell that he would escape his situation.
He wiggled and fought to pull his head free, but I kept the door pinned against his neck. The first hard downward kick I delivered to his back created a thumping impact that rivaled the sound of distant thunder. A soul-reaching groan was the sound he released from the impacting blow.
The second hard kick made him squeal; the sound more internal than external. His neck was now stretched unnaturally from his body being forced down while his head remained pinned tight between the door and frame.