Breathing evenly to mitigate the blind red-hot fury, she worked at clearing her head. Anger wouldn’t serve her now; detachment, coolness, and no emotion were what she needed.
She slipped to the back door and checked it. It was locked. That wasn’t a problem. She looked up at the sloping roof. She pulled herself up on the fence and walked along the narrow top to reach her intended destination. The tiles were slippery from the rain, but her built-in boots were specifically designed for traction, and she made no noise traversing them.
It was child’s play to flip the latch on the window with one of her concealed knives and climb inside. She found herself on a staircase, a set leading up and a set leading down. She figured the biggest threat would be on the lower level. She knew what that weasel looked like, but he would be hindered since with her hood it would be hard for him to identify her.
She heard a soft cry upstairs and every fiber of her being wanted to go up there and release the people he’d imprisoned, but she had to neutralize the threat, or those victims would be going nowhere fast.
She slipped down the stairs and heard voices in the front of the shop. Remaining in the shadows, she surveyed the back room. There was stuff stored in it on shelves for show, but she knew a layover house when she saw one. It had a small restroom with the door closed. She heard movement inside and a small kitchenette nestled into one of the corners.
Her senses on high alert, she stepped away from the darkness and crept to the back door. Unlocking it, for an easy way out. She then plastered herself near the entrance to the bathroom. The moment the door opened, she heard the water come on in the sink. When she peeked in, his back was to the door.
Without making a sound, she was on him, the knife she held slipped into the base of his skull and did the job for her.
He slumped over the sink.
She left and closed the door, moving carefully toward the front of the room. There was a patron in the shop and the woman tattoo artist was getting ready to tat him. Karasu frowned. He had a beautiful body. He was stripped to the waist, his heavy back muscles gleaming in the overhead lights. She trailed her eyes down over his broad shoulders slowly to the waistband of his damp jeans to his sexy butt. His face was turned away from her, showing her nothing but his dark shock of hair. She had the overwhelming sense that she knew him.
She wasn’t keen on hurting a patron, but she also didn’t have the time to wait until he got his tattoo. Then, luckily, the woman said, “I’m out of black ink. Could you get me some from the back?”
As soon as Sergei entered, Karasu grabbed him from behind and placed a knife against his throat. “If you make a sound I don’t like, you’re dead.” He stiffened but didn’t fight, which was a good thing for him. She had the blade hard against his carotid artery and one wrong move would be his last.
“Who are you?”
“I’m asking the questions,” she growled. She only had so much time before the tat woman got to wondering why Sergei was taking so long. “How many upstairs?”
“There’s no one upstairs. This is a business—” he hissed.
His words cut off as she nicked his skin and blood welled at the sight. “Stop stalling. We both know who you have upstairs. How many?”
“Two,” he ground out.
“You better not be lying to me,” she said, her tone indicating that it wouldn’t be good for his health. “How are they armed?”
“AKs and sidearms.”
She turned him and pushed him up against the wall. But before she could flex cuff him, the woman from the front came through the door. “What the hell are you—” She reeled back and pulled a handgun from the back of her pants. “What is going on here?”
Suddenly, the patron showed up and in the dim light, he stepped up to the woman. “You’ve got a Glock 19 right against your spinal column. I would suggest if you want to continue to live and walk, you hand that weapon over to me.” His tone was all business, the sound of it wrapping around her like an invisible hand. Karasu would know that voice anywhere. Shock coursed through her. The woman didn’t do anything. She was frozen in place, her mind probably going a mile a minute. He jabbed forward and growled. “I’m losing my patience.”
The woman sighed, her jaw clenching, and let go of the grip of the gun as it rotated away from Karasu. She then lifted it by the trigger grip. The man grabbed it, clipped her on the back of the head with the butt and she went down like a stone.
He stepped into the full light as Karasu knocked her knife against the back of Sergei’s head. He didn’t acknowledge her, but she couldn’t draw her eyes away from him. Bulging biceps in well-defined arms, his chest wide with thick muscle, tapering down to his lean ridged belly and the jeans that rode low on his hips. Even with danger all around them, it was difficult to focus on anything but the dark hair that fell over his brow, the strong length of his jaw, and that beautiful mouth that had given her immeasurable guilty pleasure.
Preacher.
It was only then she saw he had nothing in his bare hand. He’d bluffed.
God help her. She wanted to fuck this man senseless.
Or, so help her God, kill him.
“What are you doing here?”
They spoke at the same time and Preacher took a hard breath. She watched as he crossed the room, her gaze glued to every step he took, the ease in which he moved. He was beautiful, his black hair tousled and damp, curling on the ends, his face exotic and deliciously angled, his bare chest starkly chiseled. “Karasu.”
“It’ll take too much time to explain right now.” She wanted to dodge this conversation, oh, like forever. She wasn’t some superhero and had no intentions of letting this man into her origin story. “There are trafficking victims upstairs. Two hostiles. I’m here for them and for him.” She looked down at Sergei. “He knows where the leader is going.”
“The car you were chasing down?”