Page 11 of Final Exit

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was truly shocked, that he hadn’t known her friends had been killed. But he’d fooled her once already tonight, and she wasn’t underestimating him again.

“Bailey, talk to me. I need to understand what you—”

She launched herself at him, focusing all of her body weight and muscle into slamming the heels of her tennis shoes against his left thigh. A guttural moan tore from his throat as his leg crumpled beneath him. He fell to the floor, his face a white mask of pain. Guilt swept through her as he clutched his leg, in obvious agony.

He killed Sebastian, Amber, maybe even Hawke by now, whether by his own hand or by giving orders to someone else. Remember that.

She dove across him for the gun that had fallen out of his hand. Just as she was about to grab the pistol, one of his hands clamped around her ankle.

“Oh no you don’t.” The gravelly words seemed torn from his throat, air wheezing between his clenched teeth.

She aimed a kick at his face. He jerked to the side, grabbed her other ankle and yanked her toward him. She slid across the polished wooden floor and he rolled on top of her—pinning her, just like he had in the woods. Her attempt to knee his vulnerable thigh again was met with a twist of his hips. Then he was pressing her down, crushing her into submission, both of her hands locked in his above her head. She glared up at him, making no attempt to hide her contempt.

“You’re a vicious little thing,” he accused. “Someone needs to teach you some manners.”

She arched a mocking brow. “And I suppose thatsomeoneis you? Don’t flatter yourself. You may have won the battle, but, yadda, yadda, yadda. I’m not defeated quite yet.”

The steel bands of his fingers around her wrists tightened even more. Good grief, he was strong. Her hands were going numb. And he’d learned from his previous mistakes, positioning his body so that she couldn’t knee his bad leg yet again.

“This ends here.” His voice carried the sharp bite of authority. “This ends tonight.”

Her hands jerked at the unexpected feel of cold steel circling her right wrist. Handcuffs. Panic surged through her. Trying to buck and twist beneath him, she desperately attempted to get free. But with him pressing her body down so tightly against the floor, her attempts seemed puny at best.

Click. The first cuff locked around her wrist. With ridiculous ease, he jerked her other hand close to the first and just like that, both wrists were cuffed together. But he’d moved a fraction sideways to do it, giving her the opening she needed.

She twisted violently and brought her hands up, swinging her clasped fists toward the side of his head.

He jerked back with surprising speed and she missed him completely. But he’d moved to avoid being hit. She took full advantage of the unexpected opening and rolled away from him. Bracing her cuffed hands on the floor, she lunged to her feet and sprinted for the archway.

“Bailey, damn it, stop!”

His command startled her and she fell against the side of the archway, hands scrabbling for purchase against the wall. Some kind of slick paper came off in her hands. Realizing what it was, she shoved it into her front pocket as she rushed through the opening into the other room. The Ghost’s limping gait thumped behind her on the wood floor.

“Bailey!”

He was close, too close. She put on a frantic burst of speed, whirling around the couch, swinging her closed fists against the bookshelf. Knickknacks went flying behind her. Renewed cursing told her at least one of the projectiles had hit her intended target.

She didn’t even slow down for the French doors, using her momentum to slam one of them open with her shoulder. It banged against the side of the house, glass exploding and pinging down onto the concrete porch like a bowlful of marbles spilling onto the floor. The force of the impact pulled her up short and she staggered for balance even as a blast of rain pummeled her and soaked her all over again.

“Don’t move.”

A man in black wearing a déjà-vu-inducing FBI flak jacket stood twenty feet away, pointing a pistol at her—one of the same men that she’d seen in her bedroom earlier tonight. She froze, then gasped in shock at the red laser light dancing across her chest, the unmistakable signature of a rifle aimed at her by some hidden sniper.

Wham!The Ghost tackled her from behind, throwing her to the ground a split second before a muffled cracking sound echoed through the yard. A gunshot. He rolled with her and immediately shoved to his feet, then cursed as his bad leg folded beneath him. He dropped to his knees, valiantly crouching in front of her, blocking anyone from getting a clear shot.

“Lower your weapons,” he shouted, holding up his hands to signal both the man in front of him and the hidden sniper. “She’s unarmed.”

Bailey pulled her arms in against her chest behind him, trying to make herself less of a target. The Ghost had surprised her, yet again. And she could tell that he was in terrible pain. He was barely able to crouch on his knees, and yet he did. Sacrificing his own body to keep her safe, even though she was the one who’d hurt him. Twice. Why would he do that? It made no sense.

She glanced back at the house, looking for an escape route, and saw an impressive bullet hole from the sniper’s rifle in the wood trim by the back doors—right where she’d been standing moments before. If the Ghost hadn’t tackled her, she’d be seriously injured, or dead right now.

“Bailey,” a man’s almost imperceptible whisper sounded behind her.From inside the house.

“I’m an Equalizer. I work with Buchanan,” the whisper continued. “Back up.”

She stiffened in shock. Buchanan. He had to mean Devlin Buchanan, the leader of the Equalizers. Had Buchanan sent this man to help her?

Damn it, Hawke. I told you not to call them.

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