Page 5 of Garrison's Creed

As she half-limped, half-ran, she tried to assess her injuries. Nothing broken. Definitely going to have to make a chiropractor appointment. Blood had ruined her gorgeous dress, thanks to the window exit. Definitely a sprained elbow and wrist.

The thicket of the woods loomed ahead, and she closed in on it, praying she’d reach the dense cover. Only then did she realize that she still gripped the subcompact gun but had lost her purse, and with it her untraceable cell phone. How the shit was she going to call Beth?

First plan of action: get far away from this mansion. Maybe stumble all the way to another mansion, break in, and use their phone. She jammed her bare foot against the sharp side of a downed branch.

“Son of a bitch!” It hurt like an ice pick stab, shooting straight from her heel to her hip bone. She lost her balance, tumbling down the hill, head first, sprained arm next. Her throbbing foot screamed in pain.

Nicola came to rest at the bottom of the hill. Dress thoroughly ruined. Bleeding top to bottom.

“Get up, girl,” she told herself.

Nothing moved except for her lips. No, she’d worked too hard, had too much to prove. A little thing like this wasn’t going to take her down. She was too freakin’ smart to stumble like a newbie recruit fresh off the Farm.

“Nothing that can’t heal. Get up. Now.”

Her skin prickled. She wasn’t alone. In a heartbeat, she was on her busted feet, gun drawn, pivoting intuitively. She spun twice, focused her hearing, and took one step forward, her foot touching the gravel side of a rural road. A dozen yards up, an SUV idled in the dark. Three men the size of NFL linebackers stood frozen like oversized yard gnomes.

And they weren’t the men who chased her.

She readied her Beretta. The slide echoed in the moonless night.

One man put his hands up. The two others straightened as if they’d been hunched, ready to throw down on a Maine backwoods road.

She took a step forward. Damn this pitch-black night. She couldn’t see anything more than male outlines. After her run-in with Cash Garrison and then the men who’d shot at her… Lord only knew who else was in on this game.

“Turn around. Move away from the car. Now!” She needed their set of wheels. Maybe she’d strike spy gold and find a charged cell phone.

The man with his hands up took two strides back. Without communicating, the two other men took two steps forward. She did not have time for this. The men from the mansion might be driving this same road or trailing her through the woods. She limped forward, trying not to groan when her injured foot hit gravel again.

“I said move it.” She shuffled toward the driver’s door.

“Nicola?”

Not Cash.

Not Cash by a million years. Far worse. Far more confusing. She couldn’t handle this. Nicola leaped toward the idling car.

***

David leaned against the wall as he heard the pop of gunfire in the bathroom. He loosened the god-awful uniform tie he wore in his role as a butler. Hopefully, Nicola was taken out in one shot, no need for it to get messy.

Tonight had been unexpected. The assassination caused several problems, but most importantly, it affected his retire-from-the-CIA plan. Smooth had paid David handsomely to keep him in the know about investigations into the gun lord’s illegal activities and terrorist connections.

Evidently, David missed a memo. With Smooth and Nicola dead, his backup plan formed. He’d check in with his handler at the CIA, get his marching orders, and, until he could find another buyer of CIA secrets, he’d lift enough ammo and arms to pad his retirement account, and go back to his pain in the ass day job as a CIA operative.

And in the unlikely event that Nicola escaped, he would finish her off later. She hadn’t figured out the central piece of information that could topple Smooth Enterprises, but why chance the risk? That one secret he’d kept from the CIA secured his future.

CHAPTER THREE

The woman ran to the open driver’s door, actively ignoring the men, hiding her face. Too damn late. Cash and Roman sprang for the open rear door, pancaking one on top of the other on the backseat as the woman slammed the driver’s door.

Pulling off of Roman, Cash slapped his hand around the car ceiling, searching for the dome light switch.

Click.Dull light illuminated the truth.

The gun pointed toward the backseat, but the woman still didn’t look at them, avoiding their stares. He could easily disarm her. Roman could too. Neither did.

“Nicola?” Roman rasped again.

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