Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rage churned through Logan. It obliterated all rational thought. “Time for your heart to stop. Time for you to piss yourself. Time for you to die.”
Carmichael jerked and shuddered and fell to the floor. Logan had just tossed the bastard against the cage. He’d heard Charlotte’s words and known what he had to do.
Freaking electrified caging? What fresh hell was this?
So he’d tossed Carmichael into the fencing, and the bastard had jolted as if he’d been tased times twenty. Now Carmichael was on the floor, not moving, and Logan yanked out the knife Ares had brought to him back at the hotel.
Charlotte’s favorite knife. Seemed fitting that he would use it to end Carmichael’s life. He brought that knife down in a pounding slice right toward the bastard’s heart.
“No!” A bellow. And the knife was knocked out of Logan’s grip. “You can’t! Shit! He’s down. Stop! He’s down!”
Logan found himself glaring right at Sebastian Shay. Fucking true-blue types. “I told you to stay the hell out of my way!” Hadn’t he told the man that very specific thing at least four times during the frantic race to this location?
“Yeah, well, someone has to stop you from killing the guy! He’s under arrest! We’ve got him. He’s out of commission.” Sebastian glared at Logan. “Go get your wife and Harper. I have him.”
It would be so easy to kill Carmichael. Didn’t Sebastian get that? Had the man never seen a single scary movie in his life? You didn’t stop when the monster was down. You annihilated the fucker then and there.
“Logan!”
His head whipped toward the cage. Toward Charlotte. The absolute love of his life.
Who was in a cage. Who had been electrocuted. A growl built in his throat.
“I knew you weren’t dead!” Charlotte shouted to him. “I knew you were coming!”
“Get her out,” Sebastian snapped. “I have him.”
“It’s locked!” Charlotte pointed to the cage door. And the padlock. “Check him for the key. I bet it’s on him!”
Sebastian began patting down the unconscious Carmichael.
“You have to turn off the fencing before you open the door,” Charlotte added in a rush. “Or else you’ll get voltage pumping through you. There has to be a breaker somewhere. A control panel. Something.”
“Go find it,” Sebastian told Logan.
What the hell? Since when was this dick giving orders? “You go find it,” Logan shot right back. “I’ll stay with Charlotte.” And he would—
Sebastian rolled his eyes. “I leave you, and you’ll kill him. You think I don’t know that?”
Logan would not deny the charge. It was his plan.
“Go find the breaker,” Sebastian gritted out. “I have him. Charlotte and Harper are safe. I’ll get the padlock key off him while you’re gone.”
“Logan, please.” From Charlotte. “I want out of here!”
His head turned toward her. The bright lights shone down on the freaking cage, revealing his Charlotte perfectly. His beautiful Charlotte.
“Turn off the electricity to the cage. Get me out.”
Harper curled over in a chair beyond Charlotte. She seemed to be working feverishly to untie ropes around her ankles.
“Please,” Charlotte said again.
The woman knew she wasn’t supposed to plead for anything.
“Get me out of here, Logan.” Her golden eyes were all big and deep and desperate. “I need you to get me out.”
Fuck. Fine. He’d leave the bastard with Sebastian, but Logan was not happy about the situation. He would not be happy until Carmichael was dead. Logan returned his glare to Sebastian. “If this prick wakes up, be smart. Kill him. Brutally. Savagely. In the most painful way you can imagine.”
“I—”
“Though the smarter thing to do would just be to annihilate his ass right now.”
“I have a badge,” Sebastian reminded him. “I’m a US marshal. That means something to me.”
“Fantastic. But here’s the point you need to understand.
Charlotte means the world to me. She is my world.
So keep my wife safe, or I’ll obliterate you.
That good? Cool? Cool.” A final, fast glance toward Charlotte.
“I’m getting you out, baby. Be right back.
” He knew where the control room was in this building.
He’d made a point to look at the schematics back when he’d come days before in order to kick Morris’s ass.
Now…
He rushed back through the darkness. Though he did haul out his phone and shine the light so he wouldn’t trip and slam face-first into the floor. He’d flashed his light earlier, just for a moment, so that Charlotte would know he was there.
I have your back, sweetheart.
His steps rushed faster. He wanted her out of that cage and back where she belonged.
In his arms.
“I can’t get the ropes off my ankles!” Harper’s desperate voice. “The knots are too tight! Charlotte, help me!”
Charlotte would help her, absolutely, but she didn’t glance at the other woman, not yet.
She’d already lost sight of Logan as he rushed into the darkness.
She could still see Sebastian, though, as the marshal leaned over a prone Carmichael and searched for the padlock key.
“It has to be on him!” Charlotte got as close as she could to the fencing without touching it.
“He just locked me in here.” She looked over her shoulder. “Harper, where did he put the key?”
“Get me out of this chair! I’ve been tied here forever!”
“Got it!” Sebastian called.
Charlotte’s head whipped back to him. He’d just pulled a key out of Carmichael’s front pocket.
A broad smile split Sebastian’s lips as he looked up at Charlotte.
Then beyond her to Harper. “I’m going to get you both out,” he promised.
“Logan will get rid of the voltage, he’ll—ah!
” His words ended in a shocked cry of pain.
“Sebastian!” Harper screamed.
Charlotte watched, in horror, as Carmichael drove a knife into Sebastian’s chest. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
“No!” Charlotte’s shriek.
“Sebastian!” Harper’s cry was heart-wrenching.
Sebastian was still crouched over Carmichael, and he clearly hadn’t anticipated the attack. Carmichael had wrenched the knife up—from where? His boot? Under his pant leg? And he delivered four fast and brutal jabs to Sebastian’s chest. Blood flew everywhere in a horrifying spatter.
Then…
Sebastian dropped to the side.
“Sebastian!” Harper’s voice broke. There was a loud crash.
Charlotte glanced back at the crash. Harper’s chair had toppled to the side.
“I don’t like being interrupted!” Carmichael’s snarling voice.
Charlotte’s gaze whipped to him.
He rose to his feet. The knife remained in his hand. “Really annoys me.” He drove his booted foot into Sebastian’s side.
Sebastian barely moved at the impact. A dark circle—blood—spread around him.
“Had to bide my time. Wait for that prick Logan to disappear. Wait to attack…” Carmichael bent, and his left hand slid toward his boot. He came up, holding what looked like a tiny remote. He aimed it at the right side of the cage, toward a black box.
“No more voltage,” Carmichael said after he clicked a button on the remote. He tossed aside the little device. “Now I’ll be taking that key back.” He swiped it from Sebastian’s grip.
Sebastian didn’t fight. Didn’t move at all.
But the dark circle of blood beneath him grew.
Carmichael stalked toward the cage. “Gonna have to finish you both quickly. I don’t like that. I like to take my time. But when Logan comes back, he has to find your dead bodies.” He inserted the key into the lock.
Charlotte backed up, trying to move protectively near Harper.
“I’ll slice you good, though,” Carmichael promised. “I can do it fast. I can stab you twenty times before you even have time to scream.”
Harper screamed. Loud. Long. Desperately. The scream seemed to echo around them. Surely, Logan would hear the cry? Surely, he would…
The scream stopped Logan cold. He hadn’t made it to the control room, not yet, and with that scream…
I won’t make it there.
He spun in an instant and began running back toward Charlotte. Fear fueled him. Rage burned past all rational thought.
Sebastian should have let him kill Carmichael. Logan should have thrust the knife--Charlotte’s favorite knife—deep into Carmichael’s heart.
This time, that was exactly what he would do.
Carmichael opened the padlock. He tossed the lock aside. When the cage door swung open, there was a long, ominous creak. He gripped the knife. Took a step inside the cage.
A long shudder worked his body. He swallowed. Blinked.
Charlotte remembered how dazed she’d been when she first woke up. “Doesn’t feel good to get electrocuted, does it, jackass?”
A snarl twisted his lips. He launched toward her, swinging down with his knife.
She waited, waited…
Then she twisted out of the way. She lunged to the side, swept out with her foot, hooked it around his ankle even as she was grabbing his wrist, and Charlotte sent him flying toward the floor. A bellow of rage broke from him.
Too fast, Carmichael leapt back to his feet. He still gripped the damn knife. She’d hoped he would drop the knife when he fell. No such luck. She’d just have to try harder.
They circled each other.
“I’m going to cut you open,” he promised. “I will drive my knife in you from your neck to your—what the fuck? You—” His words ended in a gurgle.
Harper had just jumped on his back. She still gripped part of the rope that had bound her to the chair, and she yanked it across his neck, pulling back with all of her strength.
Carmichael stabbed backward with his knife. It cut across Harper’s arm, but she held on tighter. She made no sound when he sliced her. Just seemed to yank the rope harder.
Charlotte hurtled toward them. She kicked out with her right foot, aiming a brutal blow toward Carmichael’s left knee.
He shouted at the impact, and his left leg seemed to give out beneath him.
He toppled toward the floor, but he sliced out with the knife once more, a vicious, forward slice, narrowly missing Charlotte this time because she was so close to him.