Page 88 of Extracted

Holy shit. He’d waited all day to hear from his cocksucker of a brother and now he got back to him? He read the text.

Shit’s hitting the fan. You need to get out.

His pulse skittered against his throat. What was he talking about? Cole couldn’t possibly know he was in danger. He needed to call him, but doing so in the middle of the deal would look sketchy.

“Everything okay?” Silas piped up.

Dallas placed the phone’s screen down again. “You bet. That was my contact. He said he’ll have the goods there tomorrow by 6:00 p.m.” The lie rolled off his tongue. At this stage of the game, he didn’t have much to lose.

Silas’s mouth stretched into a grin. “Good.” His fingers moved over the keyboard and a few minutes later he shut the lid. “Done. You and your contact should receive the funds in a matter of hours—hopefully the wire goes through sooner.”

Dallas leaned forward extending his hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“And you. How about a drink?”

Dallas sat back. “I’d like that. Think we can lose the bodyguards for a bit and get some women?”

Silas let out a roar of laughter. “I said women first, my man.”

“Now that our deal’s done, I can enjoy it more.” The words burned his tongue. He didn’t want another woman. Didn’t want to even look at someone of the opposite sex right now unless it was Gemma, but he also needed to keep up the charade with Silas until he could kill him.

Silas signaled to his men, and they exited the room. “They’ll bring back nice choices for both of us,” he said, with a salacious glimmer in his eyes.

* * *

Gemma ducked through the crowd to call Charlene. A chill still coated her skin from her encounter with Dallas’s brother. He wasn’t just intimidating. In his stony eyes was . . . a coldness that only a killer could possess.

Once again, she bumped her way through the crowd. The bar area was too loud to handle such a delicate conversation. Not that the bathroom was a whole lot quieter, but it was better than being in the thick of the music and chaos. Shoulders collided with her, and she teetered as she exited the crowd and reached the hallway that would take her to the ladies’ room. She replayed Cole’s instructions over and over in her head. She couldn’t drop the ball. There was too much riding on this conversation.

Her heels clacked down the empty hallway. Footsteps scuffed behind her, and she wheeled around. A hand clamped over her mouth, shoving her back against the wall. A panicked scream caught in her throat—not that anyone would hear her. A knife hovered near her windpipe. The blood drained from her head, leaving her face frozen in its wake.

Her chest rose and fell in hurried pants. She needed to do something. To fight. But fear kept her paralyzed.

Her gaze moved shakily from the weapon to the holder’s face—not Cory’s, as she’d half-expected. Her captor wore dress pants and a short-sleeved dress shirt, like the guards who’d been near Silas.

Her stomach bottomed out.

They caught me.

“You’re coming with me,” he snarled in her face.

Gemma swallowed. The hand on her mouth moved to her bicep, and he towed her roughly down the hall toward the exit. No. Charlene was waiting for her call. Cole was waiting for her signal. Their whole plan was screwed if she didn’t get out of this.

The man shoved open the fire exit, and the warm night air surrounded her. Pushing her back against the exterior wall of the bar, the guard put the knife away. She wet her lips as she watched him dig into his pocket. Now was the time to make a move, while he wasn’t armed.

Summoning all her strength, she pulled back her arm and jabbed him in the face with her fist.

“Ah, fuck!” he bellowed, but his grip remained steadfast. His fingertips bit into her flesh as she tried to wrestle away.

Blood trickled from his nose, and violent eyes turned to her. “You’re going to regret that.”

He closed his hand around her neck, forcing the back of her head to grind against the concrete building.

She squirmed as the breath leaked from her lungs. Her chest ached with the need to breathe, but she couldn’t so much as get a puff of air.

The door next to them opened.

“The fuck you think you’re doing, Perry?” A man approached, shoving the guy away from her. She greedily sucked in air and bent forward at her waist, coughing. Relief washed over her—someone had come to her aid. It might not be too late to call Charlene. She straightened from the wall, but the guy blocked her escape.

---