Page 76 of Stealthy Seduction
His finger twitched toward the trigger.
“Stop! I know a number!”
“Better make it a good one.”
She slowly inched a numb fingertip toward the screen and punched in the only number she could remember in her moment of acute fear.
Alyssa’s voice projected through the speaker, sounding so close that Izzy’s eyes flooded with tears. “Izzy! Where are you? Are you okay?”
“Put the team leader on the phone.” She carefully avoided using Con’s name—he was already too close to Cipher’s radar for her comfort.
Not one more life for a life.
Only three heartbeats passed before Con’s voice filled the shipping container through the phone’s speaker.
“So we finally meet, Daniel Sheen.” His voice cut through the metallic space with deadly calm.
“Cipher to you.”
“I have to warn you, Cipher—you’re about to be killed by the best sniper I’ve ever seen in twenty years of special operations.”
Cipher’s laugh was genuinely amused. “No, I’m not. Because if he kills me, there will be mass destruction all over the globe.”
Izzy’s blood turned to ice water in her veins.
“I have associates in twelve major cities.” Cipher sounded like he was having a conversation with a dear friend. “London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, Mexico City and so many more—each one with a device that makes what happened at the former Echo team base look like a child’s fireworks show. My network has their orders—if I don’t check in every twenty-four hours, they detonate their packages.”
“For how long?” Izzy whispered, her mind racing through the outcomes.
Cipher’s smile was serene as he looked directly at her. “Until I feel like stopping.”
A contingency plan. Of course he had one. Men like Daniel Sheen didn’t operate without multiple layers of insurance against this situation.
“Warn Steele!” Con’s voice exploded through the speaker.
The gunshot came a split second later—a distant crack of thunder that shook the very walls of the container. Cipher jerked backward, his body spinning as he crumpled to the floor, dark blood already spreading across his shoulder and chest.
Izzy didn’t wait to see if he was dead. Her chair toppled as she threw her weight sideways, rolling away from Cipher’s motionless form and struggling to her feet with her hands still bound. She ran for the container’s exit, stumbling in her determination to reach daylight.
When she burst out of the shadows, she jerked her head left and right, searching for the fastest escape.
Hudson was close enough to take that shot. She had to find him.
She ran between a long alley formed by shipping containers. When she came face-to-face with a concrete wall, panic clawed at her throat. She spun, off-balance, her tied hands making every move she made clumsy.
She ran back toward where she came from and kept on running, gasping in the heavy air of the waterfront, frantically looking in all directions for any sign of Hudson.
In a dead panic now, she twisted her wrists and yanked in an attempt to free her hands. But the cord knotted around them was too tight.
Just then, she heard the light thud of boots on pavement, and he was there, emerging from between two shipping containers like a ghost made solid. His face was tight with concern as he ran toward her, rifle slung across his back and sidearm drawn.
“Are you hurt?” His hands moved over her, checking for wounds even as his gaze darted around them, on high alert.
“Oh my god! Hudson!” Every inch of her was shaking as she drank in the face of the man she loved. “I’m okay, but we have to see if he’s dead. We have to go back! He’s got bombs in twelve cities—if he doesn’t check in, they all detonate.”
Hudson’s expression darkened as he moved close to examine the cord binding her wrists. His tactical knife made short work of the restraints, but she could feel his strain in the careful way he worked.
“This knot,” he muttered, studying the intricate pattern of loops and securing points. “This isn’t standard restraint technique. This is art.”
