Page 72 of Dirty Gambit

The choking pressure around Jaxon’s throat relaxed with the slip of Travis’s fingers. He had just enough time to suck in a gulp of air when Travis’s boot slammed into his side, pitching him over across the carpet. What oxygen he’d pulled in burst out in a rush of bruising pain.

“Jaxon!”

Lena made to dive for him only to have her arm snatched and wrenched backwards. Her cry was silenced by the violent tug that sent her crashing into Travis’s thin chest. His arms snaked around her waist, pinning her in place as one hand lifted to twist in her beautiful hair. Lena whimpered with the wrenching of her neck back. The arm around her middle lifted and he pressed the gun into her cheek.

“Why don’t you and I leave this little party, hm?”

Lena nodded the best she could with his hand still bunched in her mane.

“As for the rest of you,” Travis announced. “Remember what I told you. Trust me when I say she’s not worth your lives. Consider yourselves lucky that I am in a giving mood today.” He shoved Lena forward, marching her to the doorway.

Along the way, he paused at the duffle of money. He released her just long enough to let her reach down for the straps. Once the bands were wound around her hand, He took her elbow once more.

Jaxon pushed to his knees, gauging the distance and the probability that he could take Travis down before he shot Lena. The gun was aimed straight at her side, finger never lifting off the trigger. Any sudden impact could set it off.

Cold, unforgiving panic seized him as he realized just how helpless he was. In less than a minute, Lena would step out the door and he would never see her again. Worse still was the future she’d sealed herself into. The thought of his Lena with another man against her will chased away the chill with a wave of molten rage. It propelled him to do something desperate and reckless to save her. He just needed an opening.

It lay nestled half hidden beneath the sectional, a heavy, black hunk of deadly metal urging him to act. He barely registered the fact that it was the gun one of Travis’s guards had been wielding when he scooped it up with his uninjured hand. In the same motion, he leaped to his feet, arm extended, weapon ready to blow the fucker’s skull apart.

“Let her go,” he commanded with a composure he did not feel.

Both he and Lena whirled. Her eyes widened, but Travis reacted first; he grabbed Lena and yanked her in front of him. The bag of money slipped from her grip with the unexpected jerk and hit the floor once more with a thud.

“Put it down, Jaxon,” he warned. “The only way to get me is to shoot her and I’m starting to think maybe she means a lot more to you than she does to me.”

“I’m not letting you leave with her,” he said, tightening his hold on the HK45.

“Don’t be stupid, Jaxon. Think of your family.”

Jaxon knew he was right. He was putting his family on the line for a girl he’d only known for four days. It was reckless and stupid, and dangerous. He knew what other people would tell him; he should let her go. She wasn’t his problem. She had brought this on herself and dragged him and his family into it. Jessie was safe. His family was safe. He should let Travis take her.

Then his eyes locked with hers and he knew there was no way. It wasn’t love, but it was close enough that he knew letting her go wasn’t an option. Not anymore. He didn’t know when it all changed or when his brain decided he couldn’t imagine his future without her, but the fact remained: he wasn’t letting Travis walk away with her.

“I am,” he stated with a conviction that ran through his very core. “I’m not letting you leave with her.”

A gleam formed in Travis’s glossy stare, a knowing glint that tightened Jaxon’s grip on his weapon. “Just how good is your pussy?” He cocked his head in Lena’s direction but kept his eyes on Jaxon. “He’s ready to die to get back in there.”

Lena kept all her focus on Jaxon, on the gun aimed just over her right shoulder. “Put it down, Jaxon. You’re not him. You’re not a killer.”

A tense moment of silence descended over the room, a silence broken only by the soft, unnaturally normal click of the grandfather clock in the hallway behind Travis. Jaxon tried not to think how he would never be able to hear that sound again without thinking of that moment.

“Step aside, Lena,” he whispered. “I just need one clear shot.”

“I can’t do that,” she said quietly. “I’m not letting you give up your soul for me. I’m not worth it.”

“You’re worth it to me, and my soul means nothing without you.”

Her broken smile would have shattered his heart if he weren’t busy trying to keep it together. “This is how it was always supposed to end. I told you that.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I will fight for you. I will keep you safe. Just let me.”

A tear sliced down her cheek, wiping away what remained of her smile. “I don’t belong here, handsome. I don’t belong in this perfect world of yours. I know you know that. Your parents know that. Even if I hadn’t done what I did, they know better than to have someone like me at their table. I’m a curse. I only know how to destroy things and I would rather die than hurt you.”

“If you leave with him,” he whispered slowly, annunciating every word carefully, “I will tear this planet apart looking for you. I will not stop until I get you back. I swear it.”

Her bottom lip quivered, and Jaxon felt his own eyes burn. “Don’t say that.”

“He means it,” Travis mused flippantly from over Lena’s shoulder. “That is the face of a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. But I don’t have time for this.”

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