Chapter 13
Correction: “We’re trapped, and you’re making a cocktail?”
Waylon ignored her and poured two fingers of liquor into a chilled glass. In one smooth movement, he whipped a pair of tongs from the counter and dipped into the freezer for an ice cube the size of Fletcher’s fist.
“Now? You want to make a drink now?” Her whispers were growing angrier. Some of the strength had returned to her limbs, and she marched across the room to the bar. “What part of this sounds like a good idea?”
“The part where I’m thirsty, and you trust me.”
Fletcher didn’t have time to tell him that she’d sooner trust a middle schooler with heavy machinery than trust him because the door to the study slammed open.
With remarkably fast reflexes, Waylon flung the ice cube across the library.
It soared, smacking Brian in the chest as soon as he appeared in the doorway.
The lump of ice splattered, and Brian wheezed, a hand resting on the sore spot beneath his breastbone.
Waylon pivoted toward Fletcher, a well-worn look of wry entertainment befalling his features. “Like I was saying.”
Fletcher dove behind the bar as a silver bullet flew toward her. Through her teeth, she snarled, “If you get tranquilized, I’m drawing on your face in permanent marker.”
The Brians had them well and truly cornered.
Fletcher huddled next to the vodka and gin, working up the courage to sprint past Waylon, both Brians, and the tranquilizer gun.
She’d survived the last three years just fine without Waylon.
Forget their truce. The only thing he proved himself good for was a tension migraine.
Well, and he’d kept her from walking right into the Brians’ hands as they pillaged her bedroom.
And he’d made sure that she ate something so she didn’t go into a hanger-induced rage.
And, inexplicably, he hadn’t driven off without her when he could have easily stranded her in the homicide fun house.
Huh.
Before she could make up her mind about ditching him, Waylon sidestepped so that he straddled her as he plucked a paring knife from the counter. Trapping her. Lap to face.
“What are you—”
Not trapping. Protecting her?
Every time she moved, he adjusted his stance, and her face grew increasingly close to thighs tucked inside black denim that must have been specifically tailored to his muscle definition. To get to her, the Brians would have to go through him. And there was…a lot of him.
When she craned her neck up to look at him, there was a plain-as-day view of his abdomen beneath the thin hem of his shirt—not that she wanted to see it. It was just there. Past it, she glimpsed the lopsided smile that manifested on his face, ever the easygoing barkeep.
“You want something to drink?” he asked the Brians.
“Oh, is this a peanut-free bar?” Other Brian asked before Brian backhanded him in the belly to tell him to shut up.
“Let us have her,” Brian demanded. He stepped up to the bar, too close for Fletcher to see him, but she could hear the scrutinizing way his eyes narrowed. “Bertram isn’t worried about you.”
From this angle, Waylon’s smile twisted sideways. Arrogant as usual. “Flattered, truly.”
“But I am.”
The air in the room shifted so dramatically that Fletcher peeked around Waylon’s legs—and immediately wished she hadn’t. Brian’s ridiculous gun was inches away from Waylon’s chest.
And Waylon had never looked calmer. Did this dude ever break a sweat?
“I’m glad you turned your back on this company,” Brian spat. “You would have run the marketing program into the ground. I’m sure you’re used to everyone kissing your ass, but I refuse.”
“Unfortunate,” Waylon said. “My ass is highly kissable.”
The hand that wasn’t on the trigger reached across the bar and clenched a fistful of Waylon’s shirt. “You think I’m joking?”
At that, Waylon laughed. “No one would ever mistake you for funny, Russo.”
Brian thrust himself over the bar, hand reaching toward Waylon’s throat. Tranquilizer be damned. He moved like he wanted to watch the life sap from Waylon’s fully conscious eyes.
Fletcher was on her feet before she could talk herself out of saving Waylon. Without the machete that would have been really freaking handy right about now, she settled for the next best thing and snagged a bottle of rum off the shelf. It was vacation, after all.
She smashed the bottle against the countertop, little shards of spilled glass scattering. Maybe she shouldn’t have skipped the company outing to the Yankees game to make copies for the Qbr. Her swing could use some help.
Other Brian was behind her without a moment’s notice, his arms coiling around her center and dragging her away. Fletcher kicked, fighting for purchase.
“Hasn’t anyone told you not to bring Captain Morgan to a gunfight?” he asked, so Fletcher rammed the sharp edge of her bottle into his thigh. With a pained howl, his grip faltered, hands flattening against his leg.
Waylon’s skin grew increasingly red, but he landed a solid punch against Brian’s jaw, and that was enough to convince the marketer to release his choke hold. As Brian’s glasses soared off his face, Waylon made a fast break for the pool table, brandishing one of the cues like a naginata.
Too fast, Brian lunged toward Waylon. Fletcher couldn’t have stopped it, but she saw it coming.
The way Waylon had the cue reared, tip aimed too high.
How the fur rug scooched beneath Brian’s Corporate Hipster Reeboks, and he lost his footing.
When the arc of his trajectory misfired, and the cue speared toward his face.
An animalistic scream ripped through Brian as Waylon and the cue staggered backward. On the end of the cue, poked through the middle, with a little, wiggly tadpole tail hanging off it was Brian’s. Entire. Eyeball.
“See,” Waylon said, greener than usual, “that looks nothing like an olive.”
Fletcher gagged. Therapy was no longer going to be strong enough. She needed a lobotomy.
Blood gushed from Brian’s head, but there must have been so much epinephrine coursing through his body that he hadn’t seemed to notice yet. Through gritted teeth, he growled and pulled the tranquilizer’s scope up to his face, pinching his eye closed to take aim.
Which didn’t work. For obvious eyeless reasons.
Peeling his remaining eye back open, Brian bypassed the sight altogether and stalked across the room to press the gun against Fletcher’s chest this time. She was no expert, but a tranquilizer dart directly to the heart sounded a lot like sure and sudden death.
Also, this close, his oozing eye hole made her seriously want to vomit.
“Get away from her.” Waylon ditched the pool cue, squaring his shoulders for a fight.
Despite the blood pouring from his leg, Other Brian found the strength to waddle into Waylon’s path. “Stop right there. We’ve got direct orders from the boss. She comes with us.”
He pressed his hand against Waylon’s chest, but Waylon flexed his fingers back until Other Brian pleaded for mercy with shallow breaths.
Mercy Waylon gave him, whether he deserved it or not.
Other Brian wilted, cradling his hand, and Waylon stepped over him.
“Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I said, get away from her. ”
“Come any closer, and I shoot,” Brian seethed.
He pressed the gun tighter against Fletcher’s chest. It would have been plenty to make a girl nauseated on its own, but combining that with trying to avoid looking at the way his eyelid flopped around aimlessly without an eyeball to protect really put the whammy on Fletcher’s digestive system.
Thankfully, Waylon halted. She exhaled with gratitude. All he had to do was stop moving, and she was ready to sing his praises. The bar for men was so low.
“You really don’t have to do this,” Fletcher said to Brian’s forehead. She couldn’t convince herself to look into his eye. “You said it yourself. Bertram wanted me alive. If you kill me, why wouldn’t he kill you two right after?”
Brian glared, uncompromising. “Because the team would never hit our CTR goals without us.”
“News flash, buddy,” Waylon said. “If you’re gone, the company will just hire another naive new grad they can pay less and work more.”
Other Brian, from his heap on the floor, whined, “That’s not true. We’re supposed to scale our team soon. I talked to Molly about it already.”
“We came here to get promoted to hiring managers,” Brian said.
“And how’s that going for you?” Fletcher asked.
Brian crushed the tip of the gun against her sternum, hard enough to bruise. “That’s enough out of both of you.”
He was going to shoot her, that much was clear. Acting on instinct and shaky adrenaline, Fletcher pushed her palms flat against the barrel, straining against the metal to point it up and up and up. Brian’s finger, heavy on the trigger, pulled.
The shot zipped toward the ceiling. Speared through the chandelier. Glass shattered around them, raining sparkling crystals. Lights twinkled. The chandelier swayed uneasily—a creak, a groan.
Then she saw it: the link the dart broke on its way up. A sliver of delicate chain, precariously near the top, had been severed. The light fixture didn’t stand a chance.
Suddenly, something smacked into Fletcher’s chest. Not something.
Someone. Waylon. He tackled her, arms wrapping around her torso.
Her pith helmet flew off, somewhere in the vicinity of the fireplace.
But instead of slamming her head against the ground and smashing all of her bones beneath the wide expanse of his chest, Waylon pivoted mid-fall, rotating so that she landed on him.
For a second, maybe two, they stared at each other. Chests heaving. The smell of mint and tobacco on his breath, summer grape on hers. His eyes swirled the same shade as the seas around Lydell, like his birthright was etched into his DNA.
The kind of details a person noticed right before she got crushed to death by a light fixture. When time slowed down and your seconds stretched like saltwater taffy, capturing every last sweet memory.