Page 74 of Love Undercover
“Using me is a waste of time. Greg doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Especially me. Obviously.”
Chase turned his attention back to Santiago. “We don’t have the information you need anyway. Thinking she had anything to offer was a mistake on my part.”
Santiago gave one of his dark laughs, relaxing now. Something in what Chase said gave him a dose of confidence he’d been lacking.
“Then I don’t need to keep her around,” Santiago said, pressing the gun harder into the underside of her chin.
She sucked in a breath and stretched up on her toes to relieve the pressure.
Chase took one lurching step forward.
“Ah,” Santiago crooned. “Not so cocky now, are you?”
Chase’s jaw shifted just a smidge, eyes narrowing even further. A flash of rage ignited in his gaze.
“What a surprise that you’d fall for the pawn in this little game against Greg.”
“Quit with the charade, Santiago.” Chase shifted to the right, and Santiago took an equal step to his, keeping Sadie between them.
“What charade, Lundgren?”
“You think you’re so subtle. Getting the info to Zimmerman would’ve just been a bonus. This whole thing was a ploy to make me look bad. That’s why you jumped the gun and called him here, even though it’s all going to come back to bite you in the ass.”
Santiago stopped shifting like the process of understanding Chase’s words halted his ability to function.
But she didn’t understand any of what was happening or what they were saying, what it all meant.
“You think because you figured out my secret, and you know about my cabin that you’ve got this whole thing in the bag,” Chase continued, his tone deadly. “But something you don’t know about me is that I was top of my class in marksmanship.”
“Wha—“
The sound of the gunshot was like an explosion in the enclosed space, and Sadie screamed, dropping straight to the floor.
She didn’t know how tightly she’d curled in on herself until she felt fingers wrap around her wrists to move her hands away from her ears.
“Sadie.” Chase’s voice was soft, but she managed to hear it over the ringing when she lifted her head.
His face rippled before her, but she realized it was because tears had filled her eyes, obscuring her vision.
“We have to go. Now.”
She nodded. Or thought she did.
He moved back to the window and took something from around his chest, messing around with it, but she couldn’t make the pieces fit into any logical sequence.
He came back toward her and pulled her to her feet. “Take off your shirt.”
She blinked, not sure she’d heard him right. “Wh-what?”
“Take off your shirt. We have to slide down the rope to the ground outside, and I want you to use your shirt to protect your hands.”
She looked at Santiago’s prone form at her feet and felt Chase dragging her to the window.
“Sadie.”
She brought her gaze back to him, and a flash of lightning blazed behind his head.
“We don’t have time for hesitation. Zimmerman will be here in a few minutes. He’ll have a whole mess of firepower with him. We need to get out.”
