A View to a Thrill (Masters and Mercenaries Book 7) (10 page)

Not that it had mattered. Simon had caught the dude squarely in the chest twice. He should have been dead from the loss of his lungs, but he just kept on talking because The Collective was nothing if not on the cutting edge of technology.

“My team represents a group of businessmen who have a vested interest in the package that was sent to you. It’s very important that we have that package returned to us. Miss Dennis, if you’ll come with me, we’ll allow Weston to live. If not, we’ll simply kill him and take you anyway.”

Simon’s eyes met hers, narrowing, his voice low. “Don’t you listen to him.”

“Have you thought about what we could do for you?” The man’s voice had taken on a soothing quality. “We have medical equipment and therapies that are years away from becoming public. If you worked for us, you would have doctors at your disposal who could not only fix your legs, but make them better than before. And the tech…oh, you have no idea what’s coming.”

She had no doubt any deal she made with them would be a deal with the devil. “I bet Al didn’t know what was coming either.”

“That was unfortunate, but I think you’ll be smarter than Mr. Krum, won’t you? You won’t snap at the hand that feeds you. You would be grateful to someone who could fix your legs, wouldn’t you?”

The thought of standing tall and straight and pain free whispered through her soul. Wasn’t that what she’d always wanted? A way to erase what her father had done to her? A way to be whole again?

“How good are you, love?” Simon whispered the question in her ear, dragging her out of her very tempting thoughts.

Fuck. There was no doubt about what he was asking. She was an excellent shot. Charlotte had made sure of it. Sometimes the only place Chelsea had gone to outside of her apartment was the gun range. But she’d never had to do it while cuddled up in a man’s arms and she’d absolutely never had to do it when she was protecting a man. She simply nodded and prayed she could make the shot when the time came.

Simon’s body pressed against hers.

“You’re not going to make the same mistakes.” Asshole One seemed to really like the sound of his own voice. “Mr. Krum decided he no longer wished to be employed by my boss.”

“So you killed him. I think that will get you a severe talking to from the HR department.” She kept talking. He had to show his face sometime. He was two flights up. Chelsea gripped the SIG. The safety was already off. She lined up her shot using Simon’s broad shoulder to rest her arm.

A chuckle wound its way down the stairwell. “Even your sarcasm would be welcomed, Miss Dennis. We like smart people where I work. So I’m giving you the choice. Come with me or I’ll kill your companion and take you anyway.”

“They’ll kill me no matter what you do,” Simon said, his body tensed as though just waiting for that bullet to hit.

Then he would be as dead as Al was and she would feel that ache forever. Life had been so much easier before Charlotte decided to force her into the real world.

“I think I’ll take a hard pass on the employment offer.” She spoke but she was really thinking about the job ahead of her. He would show himself and Chelsea had to be ready. She had one chance and only one chance because if she missed and he got a shot off, Simon’s back was a far bigger target than what she would have to aim at. Simon would go down and Chelsea would be taken in.

Any minute. Any second. Breathe. Focus. Let the world narrow to a tiny pinpoint.
That target was all that mattered. It wasn’t a human being. It was a target to hit. Chelsea prided herself on always hitting her mark.

“That is unfortunate.”

And there he was. She heard him step forward, her entire being focused on one thing and one thing only. There was the light sound of his shoes squeaking across the concrete floor and then his face came into view.

Chelsea pulled the trigger.

Apparently The Collective hadn’t prepared the dude for a headshot.

She watched as his gun fell, passing her by on its way to the bottom of the stairwell. The body slumped back, disappearing from view again.

Simon took off running for the door. God. She’d killed a man. She’d done it again. She’d put a bullet in his face and he wouldn’t move or walk or talk again. If he’d had a family, he wouldn’t see them again. She didn’t know anything about him, didn’t know if someone would miss him.

She’d only known that it was him or Simon, and there was no choice between them.

“How much time do we have? Is he behind us already?” Simon asked as he raced down the hall.

He hadn’t seen what she’d done. He thought she’d just fired and bought them a moment or two. “He’s not going to follow us.”

Simon turned and Chelsea couldn’t help but continue to watch over his shoulder. “Where did you hit him?”

“Headshot. He’s gone.”

He stopped in front of the elevator doors at the end of a long hallway. He set her down and took the gun back. Pushing the button to call the elevator, he took a long breath and settled his bag over his arm again. It struck her quite forcibly that everything they had in the world was in that bag. She had to hope Simon packed properly.

She hated being out of control. It made her feel small, insignificant—like the child she’d been.

“You had to do it.” Simon was staring down at her.

She nodded. It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d killed a man. It was just the first time she’d done it with a gun. Her bucket list was getting smaller and smaller.

The bell dinged and the doors opened. Simon was ready this time. He was prepared to shoot anyone in the elevator.

Blissful silence met them.

“Come on.” He hauled her in with him and the doors closed again.

“Do you think he was lying?” Asshole Number One likely hadn’t gotten his job because he was such a stand-up guy.

“About there being others?” Simon shook his head, his eyes watching the floors tick away. This elevator was large and industrial, unlike the serene beauty of the ones meant for the residents. The floor beneath her feet was plain metal. “No. I’m certain he wasn’t lying about that. The good news is there’s no possible way the police aren’t coming.”

The elevator continued its smooth descent. “Do we want the police involved?”

She had a pretty shady past. Pretty? Try totally awful and dark past. She’d hidden it under various layers of security, but there was always the off chance that someone at DPD would be on top of things and start asking questions she didn’t want to answer.

How involved in the Deep Web are you, Ms. Dennis?

Up to my nose, Mr. Cop. I’m so far in that sometimes I can’t breathe. Sometimes I’m sure I’ll drown in there and no one will know where to look for me. I’ll disappear into the code like I never existed at all.

Yep. She didn’t want to get hauled to jail. She wasn’t completely certain Satan wouldn’t leave her there to rot. After some of the things she’d done, she wasn’t sure that wasn’t where she belonged.

Maybe she should have taken Asshole up on his offer. Maybe she really was one of the bad guys.

The ultimate good guy in her life took her hand again. God, the minute he touched her, she felt warm and stupidly fuzzy. “Stay behind me. I’ll pick you up again if we need to.”

“I’ll try to move as fast as I can.” Her weight couldn’t be great for his back.

“We’re going out the rear entrance. Let me go first and then I’ll give you the go-ahead.” The doors opened and it was like time slowed down.

Her heart threatened to pound out of her chest. At this time of night no one was in the hallways, but she could hear sirens in the distance.

Simon stepped out, looking one way and then the other before his hand came back, waving her out. She could see the back entrance up ahead. Just another hundred yards or so and they would be out of the building and hopefully Jesse would be waiting for them.

Chelsea stepped out as Simon moved down the hall.

And then she felt something move behind her. Someone had been waiting, hiding. A hard hand clamped onto her throat and an arm snaked around her waist. There was the cold press of metal to her head.

“Don’t move a muscle.” She could smell cigarette smoke on his breath as he spoke against her ear. “I already called it in. We’ve got a car on the way so there’s no point in trying to get away. Where is Carlson?”

Simon seemed frozen in place. Very slowly he turned, his SIG at his side. “If you’re referring to the man who came up to my flat, we lost him in the stairwell.”

Chelsea kept her mouth shut. If Simon didn’t want him to know she’d killed this Carlson dude, then she wasn’t about to tell him. She had to follow his lead. This was his area of expertise but it was hard when all she wanted to do was kick and wail and scream. She hated being held tight, hated the feeling. Her vision started to lose focus and she could smell sweat and the aroma of cigars. Just like that night. He’d wrapped his arms around her and she hadn’t been able to breathe.

Not like when Simon held her. She forced herself to fight back. Simon would never smell like days-old T-shirts and the cheap cigars her father’s men bought in the bars in Moscow. Simon smelled like sandalwood. Clean. Masculine. Simon needed her to not go all crazy PTSD on him.

Chelsea’s brain turned to mush but at least she was still in the here and now. The gun was pointed at her head but the man who held her could easily turn it on Simon and she would be forced to watch him go down.

She’d been selfish. She shouldn’t have come here. She should have gone to the police and taken her damn punishment like a woman. She’d done the crime, but no, she wasn’t about to do the time. Not her. She would rather drag the best man she knew into it. It was what she did. She dragged people down. She’d dragged her sister down for years.

“I’ll go with you if you leave him alone.” The words came out of her mouth in a little sputter.

“You’ll go with me, little girl, no matter what I do.”

“The police are almost here,” Simon pointed out.

She could practically feel the satisfaction oozing from her captor’s pores. His hold tightened around her waist. “I think you’ll find we have ways to deal with the locals, Mr. Weston. Or should I call you milord? Yes, we know all of you and we have ways to deal with all of you. I would greatly prefer to not piss off the Malones. Malone Oil is affiliated with our organization after all.”

“I don’t believe you.” But Simon had blanched, his face a chalky white.

“Then you’re naïve. Why don’t we all go back to my hotel and talk this out? I could get your uncle on the line. You’ll see for yourself.”

“Just let Simon go and I won’t give you any trouble.”

There was a low chuckle behind her. “I don’t think you’ll give me trouble. I’ll just break your fucking legs again and see that the job is done properly this time. If you give me a moment’s trouble, I’ll have someone cut them off.”

Just the thought made her fight. She struggled in his arms.

There was a loud bang and then the man behind her stiffened and slumped to the ground.

Chelsea shook a little. What the hell had just happened?

Simon stared at the man who had so recently been holding her. He was a heap on the carpet now, his vacant eyes staring up at her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get you with the spray, but I had to take him out.”

“Spray?” Something wet slipped down her cheek.

Simon frowned. “Yes, I was hoping the blood would go another way.” He pulled a handkerchief from his slack’s pocket and passed it her way.

Who the hell had handkerchiefs these days? Simon really was stuck in another time. She scrubbed at her cheek and sure enough, there was bright blood there. Not once in all her time as a hacker had her computer spat blood her way. It had been so much safer when she was happily behind locked doors.

“Come on. We need to leave.” Simon’s face had gone completely stony.

“Simon, you can’t really think your cousins are involved in this.” She’d heard the name Malone Oil come up more than once during missions involving The Collective.

He stared at the man a moment more before straightening his jacket. He strode to the exit and withdrew a card. He slid it through the key reader.

“How do you have a keycard to the service entrance?” She hustled to catch up to him.

“Because I own the building, of course.”

Of course. It made perfect sense that he just owned a building in the middle of one of the ritzier parts of the city. Didn’t everyone?

Chelsea stopped and stared back. Two down and they would just keep coming. “Simon, maybe you should…”

His hand found hers, pulling her outside and into the gloomy shadows of the trash bins. He tugged her close, dragging her into the dark with him. “Don’t finish that sentence unless you want the punishment to start now. If you think for a second I won’t discipline you in the backseat of Jesse’s vehicle, you’re wrong. I will have your pants down and I will tear into your backside if you even contemplate finishing that sentence.”

She huddled close, turning her face up to stare at him. “How do you even know what I was going to say?”

“Because I know you. A couple of people are dead and now it’s real. You feel guilty and you’re going into the martyr phase of your cycle.”

She could hear the sirens getting close, very close. Where the hell was Jesse? Knowing him he could have gotten lost. Or found some shiny object and chased after it for a while. “I have a cycle?”

Red and blue lights streamed from the other side of the building. “Oh, yes, you do, love. It’s a never-ending pain in my arse, and the part of the cycle I like the least is the martyrdom followed by the self-pitying cursed one you like to play.”

She frowned his way. “Is there anything you do like?”

His lips curled up just the tiniest bit. “Sometimes you forget to hate everything and you flirt a bit. I do like that part.” He reached down, brushing his thumb over her cheek. “You missed a spot.”

Of dead man’s blood. She tried not to think about how utterly pathetic she must look. She was dressed in an XL T-shirt with a snarky saying about T-rexes hating push-ups and a pair of PJ pants covered in puppies. Now she had blood all over her.