Chapter 11 #2
Nash kicked the guy in the dick. “And you sure as hell don’t break into her bedroom in the middle of the night!”
Footsteps thundered outside of her bedroom.
Then Ryan appeared in the doorway, a gun in his hand and his face twisted in fury.
“What the hell?” His gaze took in the scene, fast. The man writhing in pain on the floor.
Nash’s enraged form. Delaney crouched nearby.
The rumpled bedding. The shattered window.
Ryan did a double take. “What did I just miss?”
“Get downstairs,” Nash ordered him. “See if a dead man is outside.”
Ryan blinked at him.
“About seventy percent sure I just killed the bastard,” Nash snarled.
Ryan shook his head. “Bro, that is not sweet. That is not gentle. That is not soothing.”
Nash glanced toward Delaney.
No, there had been nothing gentle about Nash. He’d flown into her room like an avenging angel. He’d kicked ass and taken names and been awesome.
She staggered to her feet and rushed to him.
“Delaney, go to my room. It’s the one right next to this one. Get the handcuffs out of the black bag at the foot of my bed.”
She paused, mid-rush. “You have handcuffs in your bedroom?”
The man on the floor tried to lunge at Nash.
Nash knocked him back down with a fast upper-cut. “In the black bag at the foot of my bed.”
Right. Right. Right. She spun and ran into his bedroom. After a frantic glance, she saw the black duffel bag at the foot of his bed. Her hands grabbed for it, she unzipped it and…Wow.
Guns in holsters. Knives. Rope. Duct tape.
And, yes, sure enough, handcuffs. Swallowing, she reached for the handcuffs and tried to ignore the fact that it looked as if the man had some sort of kidnapping or murder bag at the ready.
A bag that also contained at least three passports and an extremely thick, curled-up wad of cash.
“Delaney!” Nash shouted.
Her fingers tightened around the handcuffs as she raced back to him. As soon as she entered her bedroom, the horror scene was the same. A masked man writhing in agony. Nash glaring down at his prey. Broken glass from the window scattered on the floor.
Nash took the handcuffs from her. He rolled the intruder over and slapped the cuffs on him with fast and brutal movements. “You made the worst mistake of your life,” Nash told him. “You should have never come for her.”
Her breath sawed in and out. “Did Kurt send you?” she asked the intruder.
Nash yanked the guy to face him.
“I’ll never tell you, bitch!” the man spat. His hands were cuffed behind his back.
Nash yanked off the ski mask that had been over the guy’s head.
Delaney nodded. “Hello, Jacob.” She’d thought that she recognized that screeching voice.
“You know him?” Nash demanded.
“Yes. Jacob works for Kurt. I’d often see him around, skulking in the shadows.”
“Well, well…” Nash began.
“I’m not saying a fucking word!” Jacob blasted. “And you’re both dead! Dead! Do you hear me? Dead!”
“Those were actually quite a few words that you just said.” Nash yanked Jacob up and brought him in so that they were nose to nose.
Nash had to lean down toward Jacob, though, because the other man didn’t match his height.
“And those were the wrong words to say. Because I get deeply pissed off when someone threatens the woman I love.”
The woman I love.
She shook her head. An instinctive denial. Nash didn’t love her. He did not.
Get a grip, woman. The declaration isn’t for you. He’s playing a role. This is the cover story for this insane mission. Now suck it up and stop freaking out.
“Delaney!” A thunderous roar of her name. Coming from outside. Outside as in—outside of the cabin. “Delaney!”
She hurried toward the window, dodging the broken glass. Most of the glass had flown outside of the window, but there were still quite a few chunks on the bedroom floor, and her feet were bare. Not like she wanted to get sliced.
Carefully, she poked her head out of that window just a bit.
She could see two shadowy forms on the ground. One standing. One crouching. The standing one had a gun pointed at the crouching figure.
“Good news!” Ryan called to her. “He’s still alive.”
Ryan was the one with the gun.
“Alive,” Ryan continued in his loud and chipper tone. “For the moment. But pretty soon, I’m thinking the idiot will be wishing that he hadn’t survived the fall.” Ryan shook his head and told the man, “You have no idea who you just fucked with.”
A shiver slid over her. Delaney eased away from the window.
She wore only a thin t-shirt, panties, and a pair of cotton shorts.
All of the clothes had been waiting in the room for her.
The clothes had been fine while she was sleeping, but now Delaney felt way too exposed.
She glanced back over her shoulder at Nash.
His face was locked into tight, angry lines.
His stare blazed with fury. And he had a knife to Jacob’s throat.
So, important point to fully understand—the Quinn brothers were decidedly dangerous and not afraid to kill. At all.
“You came for her?” Nash barked at his prey. “You broke into her bedroom? You were trying to hurt her?”
Jacob’s eyes had swollen to the size of saucers. “Who…the hell…are you?”
Nash smiled, and it was the coldest, scariest smile she’d ever seen in her life. “I’m the man who is going to marry Delaney.”
Another shiver shook her body. She grabbed a nearby robe and jerked it on.
“And I am the man who will kill anyone who tries to hurt her. So guess what’s about to happen to you?”
She wasn’t the only one shaking. Trembles ran over Jacob’s body, too.
“You stalked the wrong woman,” Nash informed him. “You stalked my Delaney.”
Her arms curled around her stomach. She’d never, ever seen Nash this way. Cold and terrifying. Deadly and intense. The CIA operative.
Not the boy who’d loved her. The young man with the dreams of being a trauma surgeon. This man…this man…
“Are you ready to die?” Nash asked Jacob.
A sob broke from her.
At the sound, Nash’s head whipped toward her. His gaze collided with hers. And whatever he saw on her face made his jaw go even tighter.
“Get out of the room, Delaney. Now. You don’t want to watch this.”
This? Was he about to kill Jacob? No, Jacob was cuffed. He wasn’t attacking any longer. She scrambled forward and grabbed Nash’s arm. “Don’t kill him.” His muscles were rock hard beneath her touch.
“He would have killed you. In a heartbeat. He deserves exactly what he gets.” Brutal, arctic words. No give at all in his fierce expression.
“No!” An impassioned cry from Jacob. “I wasn’t gonna kill her!
The orders were to retrieve Delaney! Kurt wants her back.
He is desperate to get her back. I was never gonna kill her.
” His gaze swung to Delaney. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t gonna kill you, I swear.
I just—you want to do what Kurt orders, understand?
If you don’t, bad things happen. He gave the order, and I had to follow. It wasn’t personal.”
When a hard hand had slapped over her mouth and terror had threatened to rip her apart, it had certainly felt personal.
“The order was to retrieve you. I-I got lucky. Talked to a guy who’d had his car stolen at a rest stop, and he had a tracker on it that led here.
I was just gonna take you back!” His words tumbled out, one after the other, in a frenzy.
“I was just gonna bring you back to him. I wasn’t gonna kill you! I swear it!”
Fear nearly swallowed her whole. “Did you tell Kurt that I was here?” The last car they’d stolen had been at the rest stop. So that one had gone straight to the cabin. She’d been so tired then that she barely even remembered what the car looked like.
“Told the boss…told him I was following a lead. Didn’t want you to escape and th-then have to explain to Kurt when I didn’t have you.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “He d-doesn’t like f-failure. You don’t want to disappoint the boss.”
“Too fucking bad,” Nash snapped. “Because he’s about to be getting a whole lot of bad news.
The man is going to have a life of disappointment waiting.
” His head cocked to the right. “You weren’t supposed to kill Delaney.
Kurt gave that order. Got it. Good to know. ” Flat. “But what did he say about me?”
Jacob licked at the blood dripping from his lips. “I-I…don’t kill me!”
That hadn’t been an answer. Delaney’s stomach twisted.
“What did Kurt Wellington say about me?” Nash repeated, tone ominous.
“You’re an…open target.” Squeaking words. “The sooner y-you’re in the ground, the better.”
Delaney shook her head. Hard. “No.”
But Nash laughed. “If he wants me in the ground, Kurt’s gonna have to come and do the job himself.”
That was exactly what the CIA wanted. The whole reason Jezebel had instituted her big scheme. They wanted to catch Kurt in the act. Not just of trying to abduct Delaney and get her back. They want Kurt to try and kill Nash. To go after an operative.
Ice poured through her veins.
“For someone who wasn’t gonna say a word, you sure as hell just spoke plenty,” Nash added.
Jacob’s breath shuddered in and out. “Don’t kill me!”
Nash smiled at him.
Ice poured through Delaney’s veins. That smile chilled her to the core. Who is this man?
“I’ve got big plans for you, Jacob.” Nash’s flat response. “Very, very big plans.”
Jacob whimpered.