Page 86 of Too Lethal to Love

“Can you take the cameras out?”Linc asked.

“Don’t.”Kane patted the weapon strapped to his chest. New protocols required them to carry backup in the unlikely event their V-Strike weaponry failed. “Let’s use good old-fashioned firepower to draw out as many assholes as possible.”He’d given the Diablos a taste of what a super soldier could do. Now, he’d demonstrate the lengths a desperate, lethal man in love would go to rescue his woman.“Before we go high tech on their asses, let’s light the fucking place up.”

A minute later, they had a plan.

“Ready to do this?”Chris raised his weapon.

Kane pulled out his own gun, aimed, and wrapped his finger around the trigger.

Beth pulled back from her stalker’s clammy lips. “I swear, I’ll go with you wherever you want and give you the information. Just please get me away from your brother before he?—”

Gunshots erupted outside. Her stalker pushed her to the floor. A moment later, shots rang from inside the building in rapid succession as she landed on her knees and pitched forward onto her hands. Pain lanced up her injured arm and she screamed.

The door to Evangeline’s torture chamber swung open. Biceps barreled past her. Steroids followed and slammed the door behind him.

“Kane,” she whispered. Dread flooded her system as she cradled her arm against her stomach and shook. He was here, but something was wrong. She stopped breathing as more gunshots pealed from the front of the building. Why were Kane and his team using guns instead of voodoo magic? Ryan and Scarlett wouldn’t let them come into battle without their superpowers unless…

Voices shouted in the hallway. She strained her ears for Kane’s. More shots boomed closer and closer and drowned out every other noise but the pounding of her heart.

The enforcer pulled her by the hair and shoved her to his brother. “Head to the airfield. Once you’re on the plane, use your gun to control your woman and make her give up the formula.”

The firefight intensified as the enforcer ran into the hall. She spun to her stalker. “Did you mess with VIPER’s network?” If anyone could compromise it, he could.

He grabbed her injured wrist and tugged. “Come.”

Pain so intense she couldn’t even scream doubled her over. She had to think. Giving up the formula wouldn’t protect Kane any longer. He could be dead by the time she divulged it at the airfield. He’d said he was protected from head to toe, but every part of him couldn’t be bulletproof.And Chris was out there. And Nic and Linc. All the gunshots could only mean that VIPER’s technology had been compromised and they were fighting superpowerless to save her.

She couldn’t let them be numbers four through seven. Not because she thought she was a black widow but because they were her family.

If she could get her hands free…

Her stalker tugged her toward the room where Evangeline hung unconscious.

“I’m sorry.” His yell carried over the shots still pounding from the front of the building. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but when my brother gets angry, I get angry too.”

She caught the exasperation in his pitch and dug in her heels. She almost pitied him for having a big bully as a brother. Almost. “Do you always let him make your decisions?”

Anger and embarrassment flashed in his muddled eyes as he wobbled.

She ignored the battle raging down the hall and steadied her shoulders. “Stand up to your brother.” She stepped closer, her throat raw from puking and yelling over the raucous and held out her wrists. “Take these off and let me leave here as your bride, not your prisoner.”

She held her breath, praying he’d grow a pair of balls and accept the challenge.

He touched his bandaged face. “I’ve endured so much for you. Do you love me,querida?”

She touched his cheek as tenderly as he touched his broken nose instead of punching it. “No, but I can learn to.” The words felt as wrong on her tongue as having a conversation about love with her stalker in the middle of a gunfight. Her next words felt even more wrong. “Kane is going to die out there. He wasn’t just my boyfriend. He was mybodyguard. You can’t leave me unprotected and helpless until we’re safe at your house in Mexico.”

The tears coursing down her cheeks weren’t forced for his benefit. She clamped her teeth together to stop her jaw from shaking as he retrieved his brother’s knife from the floor and placed his gun on the desk. The zip ties rubbed against her bloody skin as he slid the blade under her bonds.

Unbearable seconds passed until the last piece of unforgiving plastic broke free. She lifted her hands to her face. Blood dripped from her angry flesh. She forced a choking sound from her throat and clutched her stomach. “I’m going to barf.”

As she clamped a hand over her mouth, she doubled over beside the laptop. From the corner of her eye, she caught the gleam of his gun on the edge of the desk. Pain ricocheted up her injured arm as she gripped the weapon. Slowly, she tucked it against her belly.

“All clear in back,”Ryan said over the mind comms.

“Roger that.”Kane stole from the shadows of the neighboring building to the rear door of the warehouse. Their simple plan to draw the Diablos out with gunfire proved to be a success. One by one, the hostiles positioned at the back had abandoned their positions to join the fight up front, leaving an unguarded infiltration point.

“The rear room you are entering has one heat signature. The room it leads into has two.”

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