Page 20 of Nuclear Option (Owens Protective Services)

“I’m just going to call for Cash,” he answered, keeping his hands out. I could see the gun just inside his jacket. They were all armed. Fuck, I was so screwed.

“Don’t,” I bit out. “Don’t move.”

“You need to sit down,” the first one said. “How about you take a seat and we’ll stay over here until Cash gets back?”

I shook my head wildly as tears filled my eyes. How did I land in this again? “No, if I sit down, I’ll never get out of here alive.”

“Eva…”

I frowned, wondering how he knew my name. I was pretty sure I hadn’t said it when I came down the stairs. “How do you know my name?” My whole body shook with tremors. “Was it you?”

“What are you talking about?”

I saw the house where my aunt was supposed to be. I saw a man walking out from the shadows. “At the house!” I shouted. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were there to take her!”

“Take who?”

“Did you kill her?”

“Eva, I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Bullshit!” I knew he was lying. I could read it in his eyes. I just didn’t know what exactly he was lying about. “You were there when we arrived. It was a setup. You were there waiting for me.”

“At your aunt’s house?” He took another step forward. “I wasn’t there. After you got away, you were in an accident. I came after that, and I’ve been with you ever since.”

I was exhausted and my head was pounding. I wanted to believe him, but my head was a mess and I couldn’t think straight.

“Put the gun down.”

I shook my head. “So you can kill me?”

“Eva, if I was going to kill you, I would have done it already. There are four of us, and only one of you. Think about this. I have two guns on me. Both of my friends do also, not to mention a few very sharp knives. If we were going to kill you, you wouldn’t have been sleeping upstairs. You never would have woken up. We would have dumped your body a long time ago.”

“Way to be reassuring,” one of them muttered.

“I’m using logic,” he retorted.

“Hey, maybe we should give her a reenactment,” the one by the door said. “You know, with the whole…pwwh,” he said, making a motion of something blowing up.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, see, it was this really awesome car chase. I took out two of them—”

“That was me,” the other man cut in. “All you did was hand me an umbrella. An umbrella! Seriously, who does that shit?”

“Shut up!” I shouted, the gun shaking in my hand.

The door swung open and I quickly pivoted, holding my gun steady on the door. But when I saw Cash, I wilted, nearly in tears from what was happening.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked, stalking forward without any concern that I might shoot him. “Why does she have a gun?”

“She took it from him,” the first one said, jerking his head toward the one by the door.

Cash took the gun from me and shoved it in the back of his jeans, then carefully wrapped me up in his arms. I tried to be strong, but just the smell of him had me melting into him. I buried my head in the crook of his neck and took deep breaths, trying to calm down.

“What the fuck did you guys do?”

“She got skittish.”

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