Page 16 of Fatal Love
“21 Pilots,” she countered. “But you can call me Red when we’re not on a mission.”
Her grin was a direct lightning strike to his heart.
He wanted to reach out and throw her arm over his shoulders so he could take her weight; the determined look in her eye said that would be exactly the wrong thing to do.
So he started walking, pretending he believed she was competent enough to judge her condition. God knew he hated it when people assumed they knew what was good for him. The last thing he was going to do was assume he knew anything about Sabrina Merinos.
Other than the fact that her father owned UConn, the cutting-edge telecom innovator Forbes claimed was worth six billion dollars. Leonardo was infamous for the think tank people he hired—DJs, rock stars, even a former US president—and apparently it paid off in spades.
The property at the end of the cul-de-sac came into view. A sweeping expanse with a five-foot high fence bordering it.
What do you want to bet they have a guard dog?
He was about to go up and over and find out when he heard Sabrina speak softly in his earbud.
“I’ll go southeast and skirt through the woods.”
After her tumble down the mountain, throwing herself over a fence probably wasn’t high on her list of fun. She was damn tough, but she wasn’t stupid.
He wasn’t either. The fastest way to his boss was over this fence.
And splitting up his ground forces had backfired on him once before.Backfiredwas putting it mildly.
No way in hell he was letting Sabrina go anywhere alone.
“I’m coming with you,” he said and diverted his forward motion to the east.
He’d gone two steps when the guard dog he’d suspected was on the other side of the fence went ballistic.
“CAN YOU TAKEany of them?” Cal said. Thank God he hadn’t finished the wood floors yet in the hallway. He ran full out from the living room and hit the floor on his ass, sliding down toward the bedroom door.
A grunt came over his comm. “On it,” Hunter responded.
One down. Three to go.
“Cal?” Beatrice’s voice came from inside the bedroom. “What’s going on out there?”
“Not a fuse,” he said, hearing the back door explode open. “Get in the closet and lock the door!”
He was already on his feet, grabbing the bedroom door, locking and pulling it shut behind him. In the next breath, he sprinted for the backside of the house, gun drawn and ready for the bastard that had broken down his back door.
Was it too much to hope Hunter had already nailed the guy?
His brain kept demanding an answer as to who these people were and what the hell they wanted. Knowing might help him figure out how to defeat them, but in the heat of the action, he couldn’t take time to analyze it.
At this point, it didn’t matter. They were here to do bodily harm to him and Beatrice, and he wasn’t going to let that happen.
He rounded the corner and pulled up short. A man in full tactical gear stood backlit in the busted doorway, a gas mask covering his face under his helmet. An H&K MP7 dangled from one hand and a small canister glinted in the moonlight in his other.
A flick of his arm and the canister sailed through the air, landing with a solidthunknot far from Cal’s feet.
He had less than a second to dive back the way he’d come, grabbing for the doorknob on the hidey-hole closet under the staircase. Behind him, the canister didn’t explode, but he heard the hiss of gas.
Smoke grenade or tear gas? Either way, he wasn’t taking chances. He threw himself into the closet.
The cramped, triangular closet held some out-of-season coats and a few pairs of Beatrice’s boots. When he didn’t hear any bang from the other room, he snatched one of the scarfs from a hangar and wound it around his face, covering his nose and mouth.
And then he set his ear against the door and listened.
