With her captor still working to regain his vision, Quinn took off in a dead sprint. When she got out into the hall, her hair flung painfully against her cheeks as she looked for a clear direction she should take.
As if God himself were listening to her thoughts, a round of gunfire came from somewhere to her left. Not one to typically runtowardthat sort of thing, she took off down the hall to her right.
“Fucking bitch!” Victor yelled after her.
She could hear the man’s heavy footfalls as he began to give chase.
Quinn pushed her legs to move faster. Forced her muscles to work harder. And she was only a few yards away from the door at the very end of the hall when she was slammed into from behind.
“Ah!” She cried out, her body landing with a loud thud beneath Victor’s.
Quinn hit and kicked and twisted as hard as she could, but the asshole was too big. Too strong.
Her attacker flipped her over onto her back, his eyes and face red from the second-degree burns her little gift had given him.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” He raised a fist, preparing to punch her in the face.
She flinched, doing her best to brace for the pain she knew was coming. Only it never did because at the last second someone yelled…
“Let her go, McMahon!”
Quinn froze. That hadn’t been Parker’s voice, but it was one she recognized. One that sent a rush of relief flowing through her.
“Asher!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
She was in the middle of thinking how thankful she was that he hadn’t been killed protecting her when Victor’s lightning-fast move took her completely off guard.
Yanking her up off the floor, he pulled her body in front of his. With a painful arm across her chest and a gun to her head, he began walking them backward.
“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll shoot!” he warned Parker’s friend.
His friend who looked like a deadly killer with his all-black combat gear—including a protective vest, thigh holster, and a very large automatic rifle pointed straight in her direction.
He’s not aiming at you.
“You shoot me, you can kiss your plan goodbye,” Quinn reminded Victor. A second later, she heard…
“Listen to her, McMahon! You hurt her; you lose the only leverage you have!”
“Leverage that won’t do me a damn bit of good if I’m dead!”
“So let’s talk about this!” Asher yelled back.
But he was wasting his breath…
Victor had already reached the door she’d so desperately been trying to get to. In an awkward fumble of moves, he transferred his pistol into the other hand, held her close, and opened the door.
Quinn felt herself being pulled back again, and just before that door snicked closed, she thought she heard Parker shouting her name.
17
“Quinn!”Parker took off in a dead sprint down the hall.
His legs burned with his efforts, working harder and faster than he could ever remember as he ran toward the woman he loved…and Victor McMahon.
That’s right, asshole. I know who you are.
Thanks to a last-minute call he’d received just before take-off. In the interest of full-disclosure—a.k.a., in the interest of covering his own ass— Warden Pollard had called with a bit of interesting news where Reynolds was concerned.