Page 27 of My Bodyguard Neighbor
A man filled the doorway, backlit by the hallway light.Tall, broad, holding a gun.He smiled at her.
Then Jonah appeared behind him, moving like death itself.
What happened next took seconds, but it felt like it was happening in slow motion.Jonah's arm around the man's throat.The gun falling from nerveless fingers.The Russian's face going red, then purple.The wet crack as his neck broke.
The body hit the floor and didn't move.
Jonah stepped over it and into the safe room.Blood spattered his face and shirt, but he seemed uninjured.His gaze raked over Holly, checking for wounds.
"Are you hurt?"
Holly shook her head.She tried to speak but no words came out.
"Come on.We need to move."
He held out his hand.Holly took it, let him pull her to her feet.Her legs were like jelly, but she forced them to work.Jonah kept himself between her and the body as they left the room.
The cabin looked like a war zone.Bullet holes in the walls.Broken glass.Dark stains on the floor that Holly tried not to look at too closely.Vincent was binding a wound on Ellen's arm.Blake was on his phone, speaking in terse sentences.
"Three attackers dead, one captured and restrained," Blake said as they entered."The local police are ten minutes out."
"We need to be gone before they get here," Jonah said."The Popovs will have people in the department.We get processed, we're sitting ducks."
"What about Vincent?"Ellen's face was pale beneath her tan.
"The field dressing is good enough for now."Jonah's voice was flat, emotionless."Grab essentials only.Five minutes."
Everyone moved at once.Holly stood frozen in the middle of the chaos, her mind struggling to process what had just happened.Someone had tried to kill her.Multiple someones.Jonah had killed a man right in front of her.Had broken his neck with his bare hands like it was nothing.
"Holly."Jonah was back, a duffel bag in one hand."I need you to pack."
She nodded mutely and went to the bedroom.Her clothes were scattered across the floor, mixed with Jonah's.She grabbed what she could, shoving it into a bag without thought or organization.Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely work the zipper.
When she came back out, Vincent was waiting by the door, his weapon drawn. Blake was dragging an unconscious man out of the house.
“What’s going on?”
“Blake is going to question our friend before turning him over to the police.”
They piled into two SUVs, engines already running.Jonah drove.He looked hard and focused.Holly sat in the passenger seat, her bag clutched in her lap like a shield.
As they pulled away from the cabin, she looked back.In the darkness, she could see shapes sprawled in the driveway.Bodies.People who had come to kill her and had died instead.
She turned forward and didn't look back again.
They drove for two hours, taking back roads and changing direction multiple times.Holly didn't ask where they were going.She just stared at the trees blurring past her window and tried not to think about the sound of that man's neck breaking.
Eventually, they pulled into a cheap motel on the outskirts of a town Holly didn't recognize.Vincent went in to secure the rooms. When he came back he and Ellen took one room.Blake stayed in the vehicle with their prisoner.Jonah led Holly to a room at the far end of the building.
The door closed behind them, and the silence was crushing.
Holly set her bag down.Turned to face Jonah.He was cleaning his weapon with mechanical movements, his face blank.
"Jonah."
He didn't look up.
"Jonah, look at me."
