Page 102 of Javier

“Artemis Astor.” The gruff voice came again, stern even though it was smothered behind the knitted mask. “We need to get going. You must really enjoy playing hide and seek, Baby Princess. No wonder they call you Mousy Missy.”

I bit down on my lips and ignored the provocation.

“Come on.” A note of frustration filtered through his mumbled words, but he was near now, very close to my corner. “I don’t want to—”

The floor shook beneath me and Javier’s voice cracked in the room. “Drop your weapon.Now.”

The clatter of metal on wood announced that Javier had duly persuaded the intruder to give up his weapon. The command in his voice carried an assurance of violence and death. It wasn’t the kind of order that anyone in their right mind would disobey.

“Hands up,” Javier barked. “I suggest you move slowly.”

I dared another glance and caught a glimpse of the intruder’s shadow. He was now disarmed and raising his arms in the air. Javier stood behind him with his carbine perched on the back of the masked assailant’s head.

I fought to slow down my pulse and worked on my breaths. The plan that Javier had shared with me in detail before he set his own trap had succeeded. He’d stolen out of the treehouse, assessed the potential number of foes we faced, and found that it was likely one merc. He’d then pretended to fall into the trap the merc had set for him. He’d follow the tracks into the jungle and made the intruder believe he was gone and I was alone.

This wasn’t true.

Instead, within minutes, Javier had circled around in stealth and sneaked back into the suite using the front door even before the merc reached the back deck. At that point, he gave me a thumb’s up, climbed to the ceiling rafters, and concealed himself behind one of them. He waited in the shadows like a mountain lion stalking his prey. The merc never knew he was there until Javier ambushed him.

A daring move. A brilliant strategy that had left me alone less than three minutes total. And now that he had the merc in his sights, a perfectly executed plan.

I ventured another look.

“Lay down. On the floor. Spread out,” Javier ordered, his feet braced apart, his weapon aimed, and his finger on the trigger. There was a pause and a grunt as the intruder obeyed. “If you move, I’ll shoot.”

My heart throbbed in my throat.No to fainting. Yes to breathing.

“Are you alone?” Javier demanded.

“Yes,” the thug mumbled from behind his mask.

“You better be telling the truth,” Javier warned, his voice edged with violence.

“Let me up and I’ll explain,” the intruder muttered in his mask-smothered voice.

“If you move, if you try anything, if you breathe wrong, you will die. Clear?”

A muffled squeak. “Crystal.”

“Missy,” Javier called out. “You can come out now.”

It took all I had to stand up, lock my shaky knees, and keep oblivion at bay. I stepped out from behind the curtains, picked up the merc’s discarded weapon on the ground, and threw it into a drawer as Javier had instructed. Then I pointed my gun at the invader sprawling on the floor, pinned in place byJavier’s weapon.

“Shoot if he tries anything,” Javier ordered, before he shouldered his carbine.

I tightened my hold on the gun and kept it on the thug, ignoring my dry throat and my breaths’ rough heaves. I was determined to protect Javier but…Please God, don’t let me faint and don’t make me shoot the merc, even if he’s a terrible person.

Javier pulled several sets of zip ties from his pocket. Moving cautiously but quickly, he fastened the man’s wrists behind his back then tied his ankles together. He checked his work then did a thorough pat down. He rolled the merc over and did the same to the front of his body. He found no other weapons but his eyebrows clashed together, as if realizing something.

“What the fuck?”

Javier hauled the intruder to his feet, dragged him across the room, and hurled him onto the couch. The merc was short but compact and muscled. He managed to sit up on the couch. I followed with my weapon still up. Javier unhooked his carbine from his shoulder and cased the masked assailant blinking at us from behind the mask. A feral glint flashed in Javier’s eyes and warped his lips into a vicious sneer. Was the war machine standing before me the same gentle lover who’d been doing sweet, wondrous things to my body not long ago?

“You’ve got some fucking nerve.” Keeping his weapon aimed, Javier stepped up to the couch and wrenched off the merc’s mask.

I gasped, inhaling all the air in the room.

“Isn’t she—?”

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