Page 51 of Rusty's Command

She kicked his ribs, but when he didn’t howl, she figured he was out cold.

Holy shit! I did it!

The fight was over in seconds.

Gasping for air and battling to comprehend that she’d taken out an armed guard, she spun toward the fight behind her. Rusty faced two men at once with his bare hands.

Every strike flowed into the next, beautiful and terrible. The violence was a show of strength and stamina like she’d never seen before.

A shadow detached from the chaos. Soda launched onto one of the guards. His scream of terror lasted only seconds before the dog cut off his cries.

Rusty’s fist made a crushing blow to the man’s neck. As the man bent over, clawing at his throat, he came face to face with Soda. Her growl rolled through the air like thunder, and the final guard’s eyes flew wide. He ran like a devil was on his ass.

Soda caught him in three strides, sinking her teeth into his hand. He yanked himself free and jumped over the balcony, screaming all the way down and ending with terrible silence.

Rusty whirled toward Sienna, battle-fierce and desperate all at once. Their eyes locked through the settling dust, and she sprinted to him, dodging around the bodies. Her heart hammered with leftover adrenaline and relief as her sneakers crunched over marble shards.

He opened his arms, and she slammed into his chest, feeling the hard ridge of the Kevlar vest and the rapid rise and fall of his breathing.

His arms locked around her like he would never let go.

In that moment, she fell for him all over again. Not for the charming young man who used to chase her into the tumbling waves, but for the man he was now—brave, protective, unstoppable. He was her real-life hero.

“You were amazing,” she breathed.

“Me?” He curled his hand over her hair. “You took down that man with one kick. That takes some?—”

“You have ten seconds to surrender,” Wang bellowed from below, his tone clear and calculated, “or I execute these women. One. By. One.”

Gasping, Sienna lifted her head from Rusty’s chest and found his eyes in the darkness. The steel in his gaze matched the ice in her veins.

Below them, the women whimpered. Pleaded.

“Ten.” Wang’s voice echoed off marble walls like a cannon shot as he began his countdown.

CHAPTER 17

Rusty

“Fuck.”Rusty dragged Sienna into a crouch, and they inched across the balcony to the railing. The metal was cold against his palms as he peered down at the stage. “Son of a bitch.”

Wang had the Vietnamese woman in a chokehold with the barrel of a handgun pressed to her temple.

Sienna gasped. “Oh my g?—”

Rusty clamped his hand over her mouth, and her pulse hammered through her skin. “Shh.”

She trembled against him, and with a white-knuckled grip on the railing, she eyeballed the gut-wrenching scene below. He gradually released her, and she didn’t make a sound. Soda settled beside them, a dark shadow with alert ears.

On the stage below, the other five women huddled around Wang like frightened birds as he used them for his shield. Gutless bastard.

“Nine.” Wang’s voice carried through the atrium.

Sienna’s shoulders jerked against his, and her lip quivered.

Wang’s grip was rock-steady, and his stance was as balanced as a boxer’s. No tremors, no tells, just the cold precision of a predator.

A memory slammed into Rusty like a gut punch . . . a tiny village in Kandahar, where the shooter had pressed his weapon against a young woman’s temple. But that guy had been all nerves and sweat, and his gun hand twitched like he was coming off a three-day bender. Rusty had known how to take down that asshole.

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