Page 10 of Liam
She nodded and closed the door, taking a single step toward the ballroom when the door suddenly opened.
She wasn’t sure why—maybe gut instinct, maybe because anyone could be a threat right now—but she threw herself behind a tall stack of chairs, peeking through the holes in the back.
The man who stepped in wore a crisp white shirt, black pants, gloves, and a balaclava.
Her heart jumped into her throat.
He tugged the door closed and engaged the lock.
“Everyone get the fuck out,” he growled into what must’ve been a communications device of some kind. “We were compromised.”
When he moved toward the outer door, Nylah’s throat closed. She couldn’t let the guy go out there so soon after the woman and child!
Desperately, she looked around, spotting some cleaning spray. Without thinking, she grabbed it and popped up—spraying the guy in the face just as he passed.
He cursed, the gun dropping from his hands as he reached for his eyes.
Nylah lunged for the weapon. She’d just wrapped her fingers around the grip when he grabbed her around the waist and threw her to the side. She didn’t have time to scream before her head hit the wall, hard, her teeth clattering against each other. Her knee slammed into the floor, and pain spidered up her thigh.
She ignored the pain, gaze sweeping across the floor, searching.
Shit! Where did the gun go?
But then the man was on top of her, a thigh on either side of her body. He flipped her to her back. His fist flew toward her face, but she dodged it, immediately reaching up and going for the closest soft points—the eyes. He growled as her fingers dug into his eyes like claws, and he yanked away, his balaclava coming off in the process.
Dark brown eyes. Short brown hair with a few grays. Late thirties…and nothing like the thug she’d expected to see.
She was so busy casting every detail to memory that she didn’t have time to avoid the next blow.
His big fist hit her hard and fast, causing pain to explode through her skull and darkness to hedge her vision.
His arm was lifting again when the door handle rattled.
The guy looked up, cursing, before his weight suddenly lifted off her. Then he was gone.
* * *
Before Liam had even leftthe van, he spotted two shooters exiting the kitchen door. They spun and took up positions, obviously tasked with making sure no one came out.
He fired two kill shots to the back of their heads, then crossed the distance back to the French doors off the deck and stepped inside.
Guest were on the floor, hiding. Some crawled toward exits. Both his team and the Marble Protection men were taking cover and firing. Luca shot a man in the chest by the door, while Logan put a round in the throat of another.
Fuck, how many of these assholes were there?
A man took aim at Callum from behind. Liam fired before the guy could get his shot off, getting him between the eyes.
To the right, Asher and Flynn were going hand-to-hand with a couple of men. Liam barely spared them a glance—no one stood a chance against his team when it came to close-quarters combat. When he saw a man slip into the kitchen, Liam followed, sticking close to the wall and running, Glock raised.
If the assholes thought they were getting away, they were dead wrong.
He burst through the kitchen doors to find two men in chef uniforms bleeding on the floor, while a couple of servers were hiding behind a counter. One of the servers glanced toward the large commercial fridge in fear. Liam turned toward it just as a bullet flew from behind the refrigerator, narrowly missing his head.
He dropped and rolled, using the work counter that centered the room for cover as he inched closer. He focused on listening to the guy’s breaths. His heartbeats.
“Your time is limited, asshole,” he yelled. “Come out and I just might let you live.” At least until he had answers as to why the fuck they were being attacked.
There was a shuffling sound, and the second an arm poked out from the fridge, Liam fired, getting the asshole in the hand. The gunman screamed and dropped the gun, and Liam ran out from behind the counter before shoving the guy to the floor and pressing the muzzle of his Glock to his head.
