Page 334 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

“You’ll be dead long before you lay so much as a finger on her,” Reid predicted, hardly aware of the bullets still chipping away at the stone corner at his back. “If you’re trying to propose a trade, you don’t know me half as well as you think you do.”

“If you think I would stoop to negotiate with a traitor, you don’t know me, either. Come to think of it, I don’t think either one of us has anything of further import to say to one another. I’ll give both our sisters your best, shall I?”

“You don’t have them.” Aliya was with NATO… she had to be. She was safe. He’d made sure of it. There was no way Fariq could have Finn, either. He barely knew her anymore, knew even less about Croft except what he’d come to know of the man as an adversary, but there were telling things in that kind of relationship. He’d bet everything he had on the certainty Croft was a protective, caring, cautious man. He wouldn’t leave Finn undefended, and if by some miracle Fariq did, in truth, send men to kidnap her immediately after they’d taken Thom, the Mustangs really would come raining down on him with all the fury and firepower they could muster. “You’re an idiot if you do.”

“We’ll see,” Fariq scoffed. “Or at least, I’ll see. You, on the other hand, have reached the end of what you’re going to do.”

“You really don’t know me as well as you think,” he said, the hot bud of anger igniting through the dreaded cold that had taken hold of him. The phone clicked, and the call disconnected.

He had to get to that boat before Fariq abandoned the fortress. He was running out of time, and all he could feel right now was the impending consequences descending on him.

No way did Fariq have either Aliya or his sister. He’d said that to rattle him.

It worked.

Erupting off the floor, Reid whipped around the corner, shooting the gun out of the wounded man’s hand, and hitting the other square in the chest. His successful advance didn’t make it farther than the end of the hall. He rounded the corner and very nearly collided with a small squadron of Fariq’s mercenaries. He had a half-second to recognize the guy in the lead before he—and all of them, for that matter—jumped back around the corner. It was the same one he’d chatted with back in the security room, waiting for Avery to attack.

“Fancy that,” the man cautiously called around the corner. “We were just on our way to find you.”

“Yeah, fancy that.” Quickly reloading his gun with a fresh clip, Reid looked up and down the hall. It was a good forty feet to the nearest doorway deep enough to provide him with any kind of protection.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider not shooting us?” the other asked.

Reid laughed, mentally calculating his odds. Six of them, one of him. If they came charging around the corner after him, there was no way he could shoot them all faster than they could kill him. He’d get a few, but they’d definitely get him.

“No,” the man tried again. “I’m serious, actually. We know you’re good with a gun, and we stand a very good chance of being killed. Especially if we have to go head-to-head with you, but ifyou don’t mind, we’d really appreciate it if you’d give us half a minute just to talk.”

If they had to go head-to-head?If?

“All right,” he just as cautiously agreed. “What, in particular, are you in the mood to talk about?”

“Fariq,” was the blunt reply. “He sent us to kill you.”

Reid chambered a new round.

“We’d really rather not,” the other quickly added, obviously having heard that ominous click. “Frankly, we like you better than we like him.”

That stopped him again. Expecting they might be trying to lull him into enough complacency to make killing him easier, he said, “Excuse me?”

“The thing is, see… Can I inch around the corner? I feel silly talking to a wall.”

“Only if you want to get shot,” Reid replied.

“Fair enough. The thing is, you hired me a few months back to be extra security detail. I guard things, which is what I prefer. Now, I can kill things if I have to, but I really don’t like doing it. Neither does Brody. In fact, none of us—with the possible exception of Alex, who robbed a bank once—has any particular desire to use the gun that came with the uniform, if you know what I mean. And none of us—including Alex—has any desire to shoot, much less kill, well… you.”

He had allies in this fortress? Reid stared at the corner, afraid to believe it, knowing there was only one way to test it. He’d have to walk around the corner and hope they didn’t shoot first and laugh later over his gullibility.

“That’s a lot to take on faith,” Reid said, startling himself because he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“For us, too,” came the reply. “I mean, I walk around that corner, and you’ve got me.”

“There’s five more of you who won’t make that same mistake.”

“Fat lot of good that does me. I’ll still be dead.”

True.

“On three?” the other man asked.

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