Page 55 of Swallow Your Fear
“What do you want?” I barked. I was done playing fucking games.
He dropped the gun back to his side, his finger on the trigger as he looked at me. “What I’m owed.”
“You’re not owed shit.”
He tilted his head. “I’m not? Far as I know, Chase won a prize, and that prize was mine. Now it’s gone. Pay up, and I might consider giving your little girlfriend back.”
My jaw ached with how hard it was clenched. “Chase cheated.”
The man’s brows rose. “Is that so?”
“Everyone in that room can attest to it, so my deed isn’t his, and it sure as hell isn’t yours.”Neither is my Brynne.
In my peripheral, Austin stepped out of the bushes, approaching the driver’s side of the vehicle. I kept my eyes forward, not wanting to give away his position with their backs to him.
The boss shrugged. “He won it fair and square.”
“That how you play, Lance?”
He tried to hide it, but I didn’t miss the slight shock in his eyes at the use of his real name. He wasn’t the only one who did his research.
“Fair and square?” I added, then tipped my chin up in Brynne’s direction. “Doesn’t look like you gave my girl much of a fair chance here, did you?”
Lance swallowed. I’d taken him off guard, just like I’d wanted. A smart man never left paperwork lying around with his name on it, but when we were digging through his house, I’d found an old letter from someone addressed to him, with his full name. It hadn’t been hard to find every little thing out about him from there. How he ran away from home as a kid, or how his father was arrested for drunk driving. That his mother was a prostitute, and he hadno records in terms of renting or jobs past the age of eighteen.
“Someone has to be the bad guy,” Lance said as the tall guy took a step toward me. The old swing set behind them creaked as it swung in the wind while the dry leaves rustled above us.
I needed to keep stalling them. Keep him talking. I wouldn’t be able to get Brynne away unharmed without Austin and Henley. Not with a trigger-happy man holding her.
Austin had disappeared inside the van without a sound, and I could only hope he’d taken care of his part of the plan.
I rubbed at a callus on my hand, inspecting it like it hadn’t been there for the last thirty or so years. “See, that’s the problem, Lance. You’re playing a part in being a bad guy.” I looked up again, meeting his gaze. “But I’m not acting.” I moved a hand to my shirt as if I was simply rubbing an itch. “Iamthe fucking villain.” In one swift motion, the pistol was in my hand, and I was taking aim at Lance.
One after the other, Henley put a bullet in the two guys’ skulls after emerging from the brush. They both fell to the ground with a thud, and then Austin was swinging open the doors to the van. One hit Lance in the back, causing him to lose balance, but he held tight to Brynne in return, keeping himself upright. My bullet flew past him, right at the fucking taillight as I shifted my aim at the last second. It wasn’t worth accidentally hitting Brynne.
Brynne’s scream rang through the air, and panic seized me with the thought that I may have hit her instead, butthen the glass shattered to pieces with a pop, and the tiniest bit of relief hit me. But it came all too soon as Lance backed up with Brynne’s back now pressed to his chest. He had the muzzle of his gun pressed to the side of her head, staining the tip with her blood.
“I’ll kill her right fucking here if you don’t back the fuck off!” Lance yelled, backing up another few steps.
Austin hopped down from the van with his gun still gripped in his hands. He glanced at me, as if I knew what to fucking do. Whatever we did, it had to end in Brynne getting out of here alive. If anyone was getting a fucking bullet in their head tonight, it was Lance.
“Let her go, Lance,” I warned, keeping my gun trained on him. I couldn’t shoot, though. Not with Brynne being used as a shield.
Tears streamed down her face, and one glance at her exposed neck sent blackness careening into my line of vision. Her fragile skin was bruised a gruesome shade of purple, and she’d barely been with them for half an hour.
“I want what’s mine!” he barked.
“Then we’ll trade,” I said.
He shook his head. “I have no fucking reason to trust you.”
“And neither do I. But she means a hell of a lot more to me than some fucking piece of property.” Just saying the words out loud felt odd. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d think so highly of a woman to give up everything for her, but for Brynne, I would. I’d grown attached too damn fast, but I didn’t regret a thing.
“How do I know you have it with you?” Lance asked.
“Austin will get it from my truck.” He was the oneclosest to the two of them, but it’d drop Lance’s guard down enough for me to take him by surprise.
“Booker,” Austin protested at the same time Henley sent me a questioning glance.
