Page 56 of Guarding Rory

I heard Seamus fumble the items in his hands, heard his stilted footsteps as he tried to chase after me. I passed by him easily, juking his outstretched hands and causing him to stumble as I kept running toward my escape.

The sprinting I’d done to escape my bodyguards finally felt like it had a purpose. It had all led to this moment, my feet moving me much faster than I knew Seamus could move. He was only in his mid-sixties, much younger than his brother, who had run the McLoughlin family - and its mafia business - for thirty-plus years before he passed the torch onto my father.

The house was surprisingly large on the inside, and I counted down the feet as I made my way to the door. Sixty…fifty…forty.

I knew I would make it, the door only a few dozen feet from me now. All I needed to do was balance-beam my way across the porch and I’d be home free, escaping through the tall grasses and into the trees. Dev would find me, or my father, or Callan. Between the three of them, dozens of men would be combing the forest, looking for me.

And I wasn’t worried. I was confident I’d be fine.

I heard the snap before I felt it, one of the floorboards caving underneath me when I was only a few strides from the front door. Pain tore through my ankle, a scream catching in my throat as I landed heavily on my hands and knees. But the pain wasn’t enough to stop me, and I pulled my foot from the floorboards, ignoring the throbbing in my ankle as I tried to get to my feet.

But even if I could still run on my sprained - possibly broken - ankle, the misstep gave Seamus enough time to catch up. He tackled me to the ground, my ankle screaming in protest as he pressed his bulk against me. I struggled against him, bucking my hips and twisting my arms, trying to dislodge him like Dev had taught me.

But he was too heavy, his weight knocking the air from my lungs, and my vision swam from the pain in my ankle as whatever was wrong with it worsened in my fight.

It was the kind of thing Dev and I had distinctly avoided talking about in each of our training sessions. How a few weeks of training couldn’t make me a pro fighter, how some additional strength in my muscles wasn’t a match for a man twice my size. How anyone with a modicum of skill was aware of the self-defense tactics we were practicing and could use counter-techniques to prevent my escape.

How someone coming after me likely worked in the same business as my father, and had skills I wouldn’t be able to match. How I’d been lucky both times before, Dev coming to my rescue before I inevitably lost the fight. How the next time I might not be so lucky. Like now.

“You fucking bitch,” he sneered, fumbling in his pocket as he kept me pinned me to the ground. “You might have more backbone than I remembered, but you’re still weak. What did your husband teach you, anyway?”

He laughed as I continued to implement every maneuver Dev had taught me. I sobbed when I realized it wouldn’t be enough, that my injury, his upper hand, his size and experience were too much for me.

I didn’t cry for my life, the freedom I was about to lose, but because of the disappointment in myself, the failure after all the training Dev taught me. How it ended up being for nothing, allthe days he’d spent running me through drills, practicing how to escape these exact positions.

So I kept fighting, digging my heels into the floorboards despite the pain in my ankle, my nails scratching at the wood underneath where my hands were pinned beneath Seamus’s thighs. Whenever Dev found this farmhouse, when he eventually tracked me down here, he’d know I’d fought until the last second. He’d see the evidence of it.

Seamus freed the filled syringe from his pocket, my scrambling increasing in intensity as he tapped out the air bubbles with an egotistical grin. A sharp pain radiated through my left hip, and I finally remembered my paranoid move from earlier, the kitchen knife I’d shoved into the waistband of my pants before I opened the door.

I bucked my hips harder, wiggling one hand free just as the syringe touched the soft skin of my neck.

And then the door burst in and all hell broke loose.

Chapter 29

Dev

I’ve always beena talkative guy, one to whom words came easily. I knew it was a rare trait in our line of work, especially surrounded by the stoic Alex and the acerbic Bex, who’d rather sit in silence than share an emotion out loud. But it had always been a skill of mine.

I’d gotten into my position in the military thanks to my prowess with languages, and I was often the man in charge of extracting secrets or infiltrating social gatherings, thanks to the ease with which I fit in. I’d always been able to put on whatever mask suited me, find the words needed for that exact situation, to put others at ease, catch them off guard, put them on edge.

But given a hundred years and infinite words, I wasn’t sure I could ever adequately describe how I felt finding Rory struggling underneath Seamus as he held a syringe to her throat. She’d clearly fought back, and relief that she was okay overwhelmed me even as the anger had me moving to tackle Seamus off of her.

His position on top of her and his weight and size put him at a distinct advantage over Rory, and I worried for her safety as I sprinted in their direction. But Rory was two steps ahead of me, using Seamus’s distraction to her advantage as she thrust one of our kitchen knives up between his ribs.

The attack caught him off guard, causing him to loosen his grip and sit back enough that she was able to use her training to force him off of her. The grunt of pain coupled with the surprised look on his face had my cock hard, even as my heart grew with pride. We’d practiced that move quite a bit in our sparring and self-defense lessons, where exactly to slip a knife to do the most damage with the least amount of effort.

Seamus wouldn’t die from the wound, but it would hurt enough to make him falter, which was the goal. Besides, Rory didn’t need to kill him. There were plenty of us who’d be willing to take that burden off her hands, that would revel in the opportunity.

By the time she scrambled out from underneath him, I was there, pushing her behind me before Seamus could get off his back. I had him pinned in moments, his struggling weak and pathetic due to the knife wound Rory had inflicted. He was like a stuck pig, bleeding and snorting with effort underneath me.

“Not so easy when you don’t have size on your side, is it?” I asked with a savage smile before kneeing him in the balls. He immediately curled into the fetal position, and I didn’t waste time getting to my feet and laying into him.

“Don’t. Touch. My. Fucking. Wife.” I punctuated each word with a kick to Seamus’s ribs, a grin spreading over my face when I heard an audible crack somewhere in his chest.

I left him to Alex, who efficiently zip tied his wrists together before chaining him to a defunct radiator in the corner. Content that he wouldn’t escape the further punishment I planned to exact on him, I finally turned toward my wife.

I rushed toward her, helping her balance as she stood shakily, favoring one foot over the other.

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