Page 118 of When He Protects

Surely the hitman wasn’t going to believe that line? “You’re dead,” Esme informed him, probably a bit too gleefully. “You were dead the minute you walked in here. There is no way Jorlan ever lets you walk out.”

Now he did glance back at her. “Worried, are you? That’s sweet.”

You shot Tyler.“He could slice the skin from your body, and I wouldn’t be worried.” She did need the two men to fight soon so that she could have the chance to get to whatever computer was inside, grab some evidence, then burn the world down around Jorlan. She needed?—

“Help!” A sharp, desperate cry. A cry that came from the room behind Jorlan.“Help!”

Her head craned around the hitman. Jorlan was smiling. Again. A terrible sign.

“Didn’t I mention that I had company?” Jorlan scratched his jaw. “No? Sorry. I do. A certain upright FBI agent wouldn’t give up Tyler and Esme’s location, so Thaddeus sent him my way. The guy thought I could work my magic on him. Turns out, Grayson Stone can withstand a surprising amount of pain.”

Esme shook her head. “What have you done?”

“You’re torturing an FBI agent?”A snarl from the hitman. He raced forward. A wild, desperate move. The kind of move that Esme had hoped he would make.

The hitman rushed right past Jorlan, apparently intending to find the FBI agent—an odd move for a hitman—so he didn’t see when Jorlan slowly spun after him and raised his gun. Esme realized that Jorlan was going to fire and shoot the hitman in the back.

She should give zero fucks. But….

Friends turned enemies.

Something nagged at her.

And…

The hitman bellowed,“Grayson!”Bellowed with real worry.

Oh, dammit.

This time, someone else was working a scheme.The hitman isn’t what he appears to be.So she had to try and save the day. As usual. She swung out with the loose cuff on her wrist, and Esme rammed it into Jorlan’s head even as she screamed. “He’s got a gun!”

The hitman spun around.

She hit again. The cuff slammed into Jorlan’s temple. Jorlan staggered back. The gun fell from his fingers and clattered to the floor. She hit him once more. Harder. And again. The metal cuff slashed into his skin, and blood flew onto the slimy brick wall near him. “Get Grayson and get out!”

She heard the thud of steps. She’d better not be wrong about that hitman guy.

But Tyler can’t be dead. He can’t have killed Tyler.So the scene had to have all been wrong and…You’re smart if you believe absolutely nothing that you hear and only about half of what your eyes can see..How could she have forgotten her own words to live by?

If she believed half of what she’d seen…

Tyler had been shot.

But not killed.

The stage had been set. A scene played out.Tyler isn’t dead.

Jorlan caught her hand. He jerked her toward him, and their bodies pressed together. “Esme,” he said with a kind of feverish delight. “You won’t get away.”

“Jorlan,” she said with disgust and hate. “That hitman just recorded everything you said.” He’d deliberately gotten a confession, so that must mean he’d been wired. “You’re going to jail. You’ll be behind bars for the rest of your miserable life.”

His eyes widened. He looked over to the left.

She turned her head to peer in that direction, too. The hitman had a bleeding and limp Grayson thrown over one shoulder. “That strike you as someone who is the bad guy?” she taunted.

Wrong thing to say.

Jorlan spun her around so that her back was to him. One arm locked brutally around her throat. He began to squeeze.

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