Page 34 of Beyond Reason

Blood.

Fuck.

“If you start talking now, I’ll kill your friend quickly.”

The asshole in front of me said it like there was any chance I’d believe him. I knew better.

I’d been on his end of the fight before—you promised whatever you could, but you never trusted a person to tell you the complete truth. If I were in his shoes, I’d have to make sure that the lover didn’t know anything, whether my target said they were innocent or not.

Lover.

Fuck… my lover.

“He doesn’t know shit. Leave him the fuck out of this.” I took a few steps back. Maybe I could get around him? Maybe I could make a run for it.

Maybe…

He raised his gun and leveled it at my face again. Too close for me to get away, not close enough for me to take it.

I fucking hated dealing with professionals.

“I don’t have the drive on me.” That was the truth, at least. But what was I supposed to do? Lead him straight back to Axel’s house? No. “I don’t even have it at the place where I’m staying.” At least I still had the ability to sound honest while lying. “It’s back at my condo.”

There. Hopefully that would buy me some time until I could figure out how to get the upper hand.

Hopefully—

He swung out again, and this time the hit took me along my other jaw. My vision blurred, and by the time it cleared, his hand was around my throat and the other had his gun pressed to my temple.

“Good. My bosses still want to have a word with you, but they didn’t say you had to be in one piece.” His meaty fingers started to squeeze, and I felt something in my chest tighten.

I couldn’t die like this.

I couldn’t leave Axel again.

“Ax…”

“What was that?” The man’s hand clenched tighter. “Couldn’t hear you.”

I needed…

I needed to tell him…

The hard metal of the gun hit my temple and my world went black.

Chapter 10

Axel

It took me too long to get dressed, and entirely too long to figure out which way he’d run. I didn’t know what the burning sensation of dread in my stomach was, but I was going to chase that instinct down like my world was on fire until I found Xavier again.

It was the sound of his voice that made me turn down the alleyway, but it was the sound of something smacking against flesh that made me take off at a run. This time, I was dressed.

This time, I was prepared.

The man holding Xavier wasn’t though, or maybe he was so focused on the limp body in his arms that he didn’t realize someone was coming up behind him. Which meant he was either extremely task oriented, or very, very fucking stupid.

I was voting on the latter, because it took him a full two seconds to realize someone had stuck a knife into his side before he finally started to scream.

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