Page 21 of Like a Hurricane

“I’ve got you,” I soothe.

Her eyes widen, “Get away from me!” She slurs, eyes hooded as fatigue tries to claim her.

“Stay awake, little storm!” I demand, “The police are almost here.”

“I’ll t-tell them,” She stutters, “That you’re a lunatic stalker!”

“Hush, princess,” I apply pressure to the wound on her arm, gritting my teeth when she cries out against the pain. The police are loud when they storm the restaurant.

“In here!” I yell. “Someone help! Call an ambulance!”

“Sir, move away!” One of the officer’s orders.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Another says.

Arryn slumps against the wall, falling unconscious.

“Robbery,” I tell them, “I was in the bathroom and came out to this.” I lie.

“We have three dead,” I hear someone say, “One injured.”

I don’t follow them to the hospital, as much as I wanted to check on Arryn, I had to eliminate the threat to her first. Except when I arrive at the Ware’s address, it’s dark and empty. I pull up the tracking I’d placed on their vehicles, seeing where it’s currently located, and divert to their hotel a few blocks over from The Lauder hotel.

I locate the car, but my targets were nowhere to be found.

Shit. I try every tracker I have on them, but they all claim to be right here. If I couldn’t see the tracker still on the bottom of the car, I would believe they’d found them and removed them. They had no idea I was on their tail, but they’d gone underground.

I’d overheard the cops before I’d left the restaurant, and they’d claimed the cameras had been wiped but they had a witness. Arryn.

Which meant she was their next target. I back out of the parking lot, hitting the gas as I speed onto the road, barely missing oncoming traffic in my attempt to get to the hospital. They’re not going to wait around; they’ll want her gone before she can speak to the cops and make a statement. Driving with one hand, I grab my cell from my pocket and load up the page where jobs are posted, hastily typing in her name.

“Shit!” I roar when her name pops up. Posted five minutes ago and it’s already been claimed. The reward is half a million, which explains why it was accepted so quickly, but bywho, I didn’t know and couldn’t see.

Either way, they were now a dead man.

Practically abandoning the car in front of the hospital, I rush inside, searching for a nurse to manipulate into giving me Arryn’s room number. I find one and have the information in two minutes flat.

And it looks like I’m just in time. A dark figure is entering her room, cloaked in black, hands covered with leather gloves, he slips inside but I’m right behind him.

He’s hovering over Arryn, facing the door so he sees me as I enter. He has her IV in his hand, a syringe filled with a clear liquid in the other.

Motherfucker was about to overdose her.

“Drop it,” I warn, reaching back for my gun.

“You shoot, we both go down,” His eyes smile when his mouth doesn’t. I don’t recognize the hitman, though there had been an influx of new names suddenly available for hire and if this man was a rookie, scoring the kill on a name like Arryn Lauder would certainly boost his career.

“A chance I’m willing to take.” I growl, stepping closer, “Now I’ll give you two seconds to drop the fucking syringe and step away from my girl, before I put a bullet between your eyes and throw you out the goddamn window.”

“You’re Everett Avery,” The guy cocks his head, “Huh, I thought you’d be bigger.”

“One.”

“Look man,” the guy shrugs, “We all got to make a living.” He says as he goes to plunge the syringe and let whatever drug loose into the tube that goes into Arryn’s arm.

I lunge for him, managing to get him off before he’s even pressed the syringe, forcing him back towards the wall of windows. I smash his head against the glass, once, twice, fighting him as he claws at me to try and escape, but on the fourth smash of his head the glass cracks as blood splatters. I use the weakness there and give a hard shove, forcing his body through the window, stepping away from fumbling hands as he tries to make purchase with something before he plunges to his death waiting six stories down.

I didn’t have long now. Someone would have heard and if they hadn’t, they’d soon find his body and trace it back to this room.

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