What if something happens to him? I’m not prepared to sit here in this chair and watch him bleed out all over the broken floor…
“Listen, Mr. Nyx,” Hunter says, and he has his hands up in surrender. “I don’t really give a fuck about the money anymore. If you want it, that’s fine. Why don’t you just let me come over there and untie Meg, get her out of here, and then you can do what you gotta do.”
“And let you go outside and call the cops?” Mr. Nyx asks, another chuckle rolling out of his mouth. “Fat chance.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?” Hunter asks. “You know me better than to think that I’d get the cops involved with anything either one of us do. No, my priority is the girl right now. Give her to me, and you can do whatever the fuck you want with everything else.”
“You want your woman more than you want the money?” Mr. Nyx asks, and Hunter’s eyes are boring into mine like we are the only two people in the universe, let alone the room.
Finally, he says, “Yeah, yeah, I do. I want my woman more than I want the money.”
My heart restricts slightly as I think about what he’s saying. Never mind the sillymy womancomment, the rest of it was really sweet. I don’t know how much money we’re talking about here, if it’s really a hundred million like Mr. Nyx said, but if I’m worth even a million dollars to him, that seems like a hell of a lot of money to me.
“Boss, we can’t trust him,” the tallest guy in the room says from his position near the door. “There ain’t no reason to think we can.”
“Will you let me be the one in charge here, Giovanni?” I can tell that Mr. Nyx and this Giovanni guy do not get along well. “Jesus fucking Christ!” Mr. Nyx says. “Fine, Hunter. You take the bitch and get the hell out of here, but don’t be coming back with your guns blazing because we will destroy you.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Hunter says. His eyes go to Giovanni, and the man still has his gun trained on Hunter. The other two have lowered their weapons, and I feel the cold steel leave the back of my head as Mr. Nyx takes his gun away. He has stepped back toward Giovanni a bit.
Hunter’s first steps are cautious as he comes near me, his hands still in the air. I want to rejoice in the fact that we have reached an agreement and I am about to be free, but I’m not so sure of the situation. Hunter is still being tentative, and I’m guessing it’s because of Giovanni. Any rejoicing I’m about to do has gone out the window.
“Boss, I’m telling you, this is bullshit!” Giovanni says. “We ain’t got that many men here, and half of them are busy babysitting the other prisoners! We can’t just assume he’s gonna cooperate.”
“Put your fucking gun down, boy!” Mr. Nyx shouts, and it seems clear to me that these two are not in agreement about who the boss really is. I wiggle my hands a bit, but it seems like I have zip ties around my wrists, and they are strung through the chair so that I can’t just stand up and pull my arms over the top. I really want to get out of here before Mr. Nyx loses this argument with his own crony.
“We have a deal, right?” Hunter asks, and he steps over a broken board to get a bit closer to me, but Giovanni doesn’t lower his weapon. I look around at the ground, wondering if there’s anything at all that I could use as a weapon nearby. If I tip my chair over, I could be close to the island, and I see a few pieces of broken trim there with nails sticking out. Maybe those will be sharp enough to free me if this all goes south.
“Yes, yes, we have a deal!” Mr. Nyx insists. He steps closer to Giovanni and pushes the muzzle of his gun down. “Don’t be a fucking idiot, Giovanni!” he says. “You know this is just business, and Hunter and I have been business partners for many, many years.”
Their conversation shifts to another language. I assume it’s Italian, but I’m not sure. Hunter looks at the other two men. One of them is standing near the wall that leads back to my bedroom, and the other is about halfway down the wall near the entryway, close to my couch. They both have guns in their hands, but neither of the weapons are raised.
Hunter takes another tentative step toward me, and I almost smile at him, thinking surely Mr. Nyx has better control of his fucked-up men than this. This Giovanni bastard can’t really think it’s okay to go against his boss, right? I see how Hunter controls his men, and they would never treat him that way.
“We have a deal!” Mr. Nyx yells in English, and with that, Hunter walks more briskly toward me.
“No, we don’t!” Giovanni says, and just as Hunter is about to reach my side, Giovanni raises his weapon and fires.
My cheers quickly become screams of terror as Hunter grabs me and pulls me out of the way, raising his own gun to point in the direction of the maniac by Mr. Nyx. I have no idea where the bullet went, but I do see that Mr. Nyx has his hand on Giovanni’s weapon. Did he push it away?
I don’t have time to think about it because now that one shot has been fired, everyone is shooting. All I can do is scream as I hit the ground hard, landing on my side behind the island. My head careens into the floorboards, and everything starts to go black again.
I guess we don’t have a fucking deal…
CHAPTER35
HUNTER
All hell breaks loose around us, and all I can do is try to keep Meg safe as I fight against Mr. Nyx and at least three of his men. Bullets are flying, and as I kneel beside her behind the kitchen island, all I can think to say is, “Hi, dear.”
“Hi, dear?” she repeats, already trying her best to get free from the chair. Her head is bleeding on both sides now. A glance at the floor tells me she gashed the other side when the chair tipped over. “Is that really all you have to say to me, Hunter Stone?”
I almost laugh. Whenever she is this upset, she is even more beautiful than usual, and I want her so fucking badly. But we are in a slightly precarious position at the moment, and all I can do is protect her and keep my lustful thoughts for later.
That and pray that Ethan got the message I sent to him earlier and is on his way. I fire another shot in the direction of Mr. Nyx, seeing as though he seems to have turned on me now, despite his agreement to go ahead and work with me earlier, but even though he mostly relies on a cane to get around these days, he’s faster than he looks. I hope the conversation we had earlier was enough to stall them so Ethan can get here as several more bullets come flying in my direction.
I can’t stay here if I’m going to take these bastards out. The island provides enough cover for me to think that Meg will probably be okay hunkered down here, but there’s no way to know for certain. I need to make a move.
Popping up behind the island, I fire a shot at the goon who started all of this mess by firing the first shots. Giovanni, I think his name is—wasis probably a more accurate word now as the bullet hits him right between his eyes. He drops backward, hitting one of the walls Meg painted only a matter of weeks ago, and leaves a fresh smear of blood all the way down it as his large body slumps to the floor.