Читать книгу Shannon McKenna Bundle: Ultimate Weapon, Extreme Danger, Behind Closed Doors, Hot Night, & Return to Me - Shannon McKenna - Страница 35

The first sentry’s eyes barely had time to widen before Val grabbed the side of his head, whipped it down, and smashed the man’s temple into his jerked up knee. The sentry thudded to the floor. A swift, brutal kick to the nose to make sure he was out, and Val darted on.

He felt a detached sense of unreality to be slipping through the corridors of this hellish place again. The palace was drafty and cold, with a pervasive stench of damp and mold. He’d found the place crushingly depressing when forced to live and work there in his youth, like the dismal castle of an absentee vampire. He almost expected to run into himself as he passed silently by the mildewed library with its treasure trove of rotting antique books.

He stopped, listened. Heartbeat slowing, time slowing. Battle ready.

A sentry rounded the corner. Val jabbed a punch into his face, grabbed his neck. A headbutt, an elbow raked across the the throat, a knee jab to the groin, and the man was felled. In relative silence, but for the grunts and thuds.

He froze in an agony of indecision at the top of the staircase.

Crash, gunshots, glass shattering. The noise broke his paralysis. He sprinted down the stairs. The Saints Salon, then. Novak’s favorite room with its baroque splendor and its creepy frescoes. Typical.

Georg had arrived and made his move. It was about fucking time. He experienced a flash of what almost amounted to warmth for the bloodsucking freak. Not that it would keep Val from killing the man at the first opportunity.

He began stepping over bodies, skirting puddles of blood. Novak’s staff, he assumed, taken by surprise by Georg’s attack force. Blood-spattered, water-damaged walls, and rolled in dark rivulets across the cracked antique tilework.

So he’d missed the first wave. Just as well. Not his fight.

The next corner he turned would put him outside the Saints Salon. With his sixth sense, he picked up the inaudible shush of fabric-clad thighs rubbing together, squeaks of rubber-soled boots against tile. The man turned the corner, whipping up his gun—

Thunk, Val’s knife sank into the man’s eye, before the shout had time to flash from the man’s brain down his nerve fibers to his throat.

He staggered, fell. Val sprinted forward and grabbed him under the armpits, dragging him out of sight of anyone around the corner.

Black-clad, heavy, slung with gear. The dead man was shorter and slighter, but the bulky vest might camouflage that for the brief moment that mattered. He whipped the helmet off the dead man—and gasped in a short, shocked breath. Staring at the corpse.

Cristo. He knew this man. Knew his name. A PSS agent, young, hired less than five years ago. Efficient, capable. Professional.

Val dragged his eyes from the accusing gaze of the pale, staring blue eye that remained. Unfortunate, but if he had not killed, he would have been killed, and Tamar had no time for moral ambiguity.

This man had made his choice. He had known the risks.

The fastenings of the Kevlar vest made a loud scritch as he wrenched them loose. He stilled, ready to shoot whoever might poke his head around the corner to investigate.

Seconds ticked by. Nothing. No one.

He donned the vest, ignoring the blood that stained it, put on the helmet, strapped on the chin guard. He angled his head for maximum shadow on his face and walked toward the other black-clad man stationed in front of the Saints Salon.

A gun crashed from inside. The man turned to look, distracted.

Val leaped, grabbed, wrenched. Crunch, the man’s vertebrae gave. The man flopped to the ground, neck snapped, shitting himself.

He did not recognize this one. Thank God.

The door to the Saints Salon was ajar. Val prodded it with the gun barrel until it swung further open. He peered around the door frame.

His breath froze in his lungs. Tamar hung from a rope by her arms in the corner of the room, her tangled hair falling like a dark curtain around her battered, beautiful face, a stark mask of pain and mute endurance. Still alive.

It wrenched something inside of him loose. Grief, rage, and terrified hope. He had been trying to brace himself against finding her dead. Trying and failing. But hope was more cruel than despair.

Three men were down on the ground. Four were on their feet, one of them Luksch. Val’s knife flew into the throat of the nearest man, and he spun, arms windmilling, glass crunching beneath his boots before he crashed to the ground.

Val dove, tucked, and rolled to dodge the bullets, but when he somersaulted back up into a crouch, still more bullets thudded into his chest, bam, bam, and flung him backward, like huge, punching fists. He slammed to the ground, wind knocked out, and rolled onto his knees without air, gasping for oxygen. He brought the gun up, took aim at—

Henry. Blue eyes and square jaw. Henry. Holding a gun on him. Val’s muscles locked for a fraction of a second—

Bam. His weapon spun uselessly out of his hand into space. It sailed in a high arc, bounced, skidded across the carpet.

Then, the numb, cold burn. The trickling heat of blood. Shot in the arm. Fucking shit. Henry had shot him. His friend.

“Valery.” Henry’s face looked distant, sad.

Val focused on the gun muzzle in the foreground. Henry’s face faded to a blur. “You?” he whispered.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Henry said dully. “I wasn’t supposed to have to face off with you, buddy. There was no reason for it.” Henry’s eyes flicked past him, focusing on someone behind Val. His voice muted. “But I can’t change things now.”

“Why?” Val demanded, his voice hard.

“Money,” Henry said matter-of-factly. “A lot of it. Hegel told you. We would have been happy to share, but it just didn’t work out. Your dick prevailed, man. But no woman is worth millions.”

Val’s eyes flicked up to Tamar’s bright gaze. It blazed down, unquenched. An instant injection of passion, of power, straight into his muscle fibers, his nerves, his mind.

So beautiful. So precious. Her intelligence, her courage, the steely endurance beneath the smooth, seductive curves of her tortured body.

Tears slid down her cheeks. She rubbed them angrily against her stretched arms. So tough around her secret core of tenderness.

Worth millions. Worth anything, everything. His life, his soul, his heart. But Henry would never understand that.

Not this Henry who he had really never known at all.

“…would have helped you save Imre,” Henry was saying.

“Imre is dead,” Val informed him. “I am here for her now.”

Henry shook his head. “You can’t save everybody, Val. I’m sorry. I was hoping you would stay the hell away from here, but you just had to poke your nose in. It’s just business. My friendship for you was real.”

Val glanced pointedly at Henry’s gun. “Do not talk of friendship and hold a gun to my head.”

Henry’s mouth tightened to a colorless line. “It’s just business,” he repeated, his voice hard. “Good-bye, Val.”

Val stared up at Tamar, locking eyes with her. He had never feared death before and did not fear it now. What he felt was piercing grief for the life he had thought he might live with her. An improbable fantasy, destined to end with a bullet to the brain, but even so. That fleeting fantasy, that brief hope had been the sweetest, finest thing he had ever known. Even so, he was grateful.

He braced himself. Waited for it, his eyes fixed on Tamar’s.

“No,” said Georg suddenly. Glass crunched under his feet as he started walking toward them.

Henry glanced at the other man, alarmed. “What?”

“Don’t shoot,” Georg said slowly. He gazed at Val, an expression of discovery on his face. “Not quite yet. I want him to watch first.”

Henry frowned. “Watch what? Do you mean…oh, no. For God’s sake, you can’t be serious. Now?”

“Yes. It’s perfect.” Georg’s eyes were gleaming with wild excitement. “He’s the perfect audience. It will be the sexual experience of a lifetime. Here, bring him closer so he can see everything. Hold him. He watches. Kill him when I come. Exactly when I come.”

Henry’s mouth twisted in distaste. He gestured with his chin for to the other black-clad man to approach. “Hold your gun to his head,” he ordered the man curtly. “If he moves, blow his brains out.”

The man held his gun up to Val’s temple. Henry stepped behind him and wrenched Val’s wounded arm back, then the other one, hyper-extending the mangled, wounded shoulder. Torquing them into a tense, shaking hammerlock of pure pain.

Val’s lungs jerked, in hard, shuddering gasps. Blood ran down, dripping off his fingertips. The wound in his shoulder had torn open again. He felt the warmth, the sting. Hot liquid, spreading.

Henry dragged him toward the corner where Tamar was hanging. The man with the gun to Val’s head accompanied them, step for step.

He was a couple of meters from her now. Henry behind him, the gunman to the side, and Tamar before him, staring down, eyes blazing.

“This is your life, from now on,” Val said to his former friend. “Pandering to that crazy sadist’s whims. Kneeling to kiss his stinking ass for your money. Enjoy it, Henry. You deserve it.”

“Do not fuck with me,” Henry hissed. “I did not choose this.”

“Yes, you did,” Val said. “You bought it. And you will pay for it.”

But all thoughts of Henry vanished from his head as Georg started toward Tamar, massaging his crotch.

As if she needed more of a fucking challenge. As if things were still a bit too tame around here, too easy. Now Val had to show up and put himself in mortal danger.

Damn him for complicating things. She would rather have died with her feelings hurt, hating his guts, thinking him a backstabbing traitor, than be forced to watch him die trying to save her. Much rather.

How many more pieces of her heart were going to be torn out of her chest and stomped to death before her eyes? There was no end to it.

At least Novak was down. Maybe Rachel had gotten her miracle. Then again, maybe not. András had her, and András loved to hurt just for hurting’s sake. And Georg was walking toward her, Tam, his face a tight mask of lust. Her body recoiled. Her ordeal had only just begun.

Imagine. The man was turned on by a woman hanging from a hook, a woman with a broken arm. She shook with a mix of tears and hysterical laughter. What was it about her and sadistic madmen? Why were they so attracted to her? She must have been a bad girl in a past life to deserve this insanity. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly.

When András came back with Rachel, bullets would start to sing again with her baby right in the middle of it. Val was immobilized, a gun to his head. She was hanging up like a cow in a meat locker—helpless.

Except for one thing. She rolled the tongue studs in her mouth as Georg touched her breasts, eyes shiny and rolling with hot excitement. His hands were stickily damp as they clamped over her breasts and squeezed. He groped at her crotch. Gripped it painfully hard.

She marshaled her self-control to put a look of heavy-lidded longing on her face. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Please. You saved me. Kiss me before you do it. I have been dreaming of your kiss.”

He jerked her toward him, pulling her off balance again. The arm, oh God, the arm… she clamped down on a shriek of pain to not waste spit.

His face came closer, filling her field of vision, distorted, grotesque in every lurid detail. His breath was sour and damp, pulsing wetly against her face, stealing all the air.

She placed the poison capsule between her molars, estimating distance, velocities, counting seconds, crunching data. Cold and sharp. Robot Bitch. Not yet…not yet…three…two…one…crunch.

The capsule broke.

Her mouth filled with a granular, metallic bitterness. His lips touched hers, hideously slippery with mucus. His mouth yawned.

She spat the poison wad into it.

Georg reeled back, spitting, pawing at his mouth and tongue as the corrosive burn began to spread. He lunged forward, slapped her. She did not feel it. He slapped her again and again. Her cheek was numb. He was screaming, bellowing, but she could not hear his voice.

The calculating machine in her head reminded her that she had less than fifteen seconds…thirteen…twelve, before it was too late to bother with the antidote, but she couldn’t coordinate her jaw muscles to bite again. She’d gone limp, spent her strength…nine…eight…seven…the icy tingle, the numbness of impending death crept through her…five…four…blood trickled from her nose…

Rachel.

She bit down on the other capsule. The antidote was bitter too. She needed more spit to swallow the stuff, but she was dry, her mouth full of sand and dust. She flung her head back so that the blood streaming from her nose would run down her throat.

Come on, Steele. You’re good at swallowing bitter pills.

Georg was falling, writhing, twitching. She saw it as if through the wrong end of a telescope. She could not enjoy her victory. It was too far away, too long ago. It had happened to someone else.

She gulped her own blood and fought the darkness.

It was Imre who saved him, in the end. Imre, who had taught him to use his brain like the high-functioning machine that it was.

Val cut loose from the fear battering at him like a hurricane wind. He took the three steps back and floated free. He still smelled Henry’s sweat. Still felt the cold circle of steel the other man pressed against the pulse point of his throbbing temple. Still felt the burning agony of his wounded arm and shoulder.

Still saw Georg, slavering and groping the woman Val loved.

But he floated apart from it. Waiting in the vast stillness inside his mind for his opportunity. There was always a split-second opening, if the mind was wide open and soft enough to sense it, flexible enough to recognize it for what it was. And quick enough to exploit it.

…he’s kissing her, fucking pig rapist…

No. That thought would shatter his focus. He let the thought go, wrenched his concentration back to the matrix. Wait. Just…wait.

Georg reeled back and began a strange dance, screaming and pawing at his mouth. He slapped Tamar, once, twice.

“What is it? What is it? Where’s the antidote?” he bellowed. “What is the antidote, you fucking bitch?”

Antidote? Poison. Oh, God, no. Tamar. No.

The shocked gaze of the man holding the gun on him skittered over to the spectacle. Val felt the relentless pressure of the gun barrel against his head waver for an instant—

Val flung himself backward against Henry, ignoring the flare of pain, forcing the man to shift his bulk, brace himself—

Now!

Val ran up the wall in three big steps, and flipped his body over Henry’s head. Henry shouted, and tumbled backward. They crashed to the ground together. The impact knocked Henry’s grip loose.

He grappled for Val, flipping him over with a roar of rage, and pinned Val beneath his huge, muscular bulk. Val heaved, struggled…and pushed with his thumb against the stone on the ring he wore, Tamar’s ring, that released the spike. Short, but razor sharp and wickedly pointed.

Henry’s grip slipped on Val’s bloody wrist. Val wrenched it loose with a shout—and stabbed the small spike into Henry’s carotid artery.

Gouts of hot blood splattered him, rhythmically. Henry choked, convulsed, stared down into his face, a look of betrayal in his eyes.

Val crawled out from under him, grabbed Henry’s gun, and clambered to his feet, blood-drenched and swaying.

He pointed it at the man whose job it had been to hold the gun to his head and asked a silent question with his eyes.

The gunman shook his head in reply. His wide eyes darted, from Georg’s corpse to Henry’s, to Tamar, and back to the gun in Val’s hand. The place was silent, but for Val’s breath sawing in and out of his mouth, and the moaning whisper of the wind. Heavy brocade drapes billowed and swirled. Candle flames leaped and flared.

He lifted his hands, pointing his gun in the air, and began to back warily toward the door, boots crunching and sliding on the broken glass. He stumbled over his colleague’s dead, bloody body. Caught himself, without even looking down.

“I’m gone,” the gunman said. “I’m out of here. I was never even here at all.”

Val nodded, and waited until the other man had slunk out the door. His running footsteps retreated. The silence was absolute.

Val turned to Tamar. She sagged in her ropes, eyes closed, face deathly pale. Blood streamed from her nose. More trickled from the corners of her mouth. Georg lay still, though his feet still twitched. Bloody froth foamed from his mouth. His face was blue, tongue protruding.

She’d pulled some poison trick. A kamikaze move. Ah, God.

All the times in his life that he had numbed himself to endure some atrocious thing had not prepared him for this. He was a helpless child again. Staring at the end of the world, lying on the bathroom floor.

Then, to his astonishment, her eyes fluttered open. They focused somewhere beyond him, and widened. She sucked in a bubbling breath.

“Watch out!” she cried.

He jerked to the side, and the bullet grazed his hip, plowing a deep furrow to join his other wounds. Novak grinned from his pool of blood on the floor, thin neck straining, and lifted his Walther PPK to try again.

Val emptied Henry’s Taurus into the old man and kept pulling the trigger compulsively even after the gun was empty.

He glanced wildly around the room. “Anyone else? Anyone?”

No one moved. No one spoke.

Val stumbled over to the dead man, the young one, who lay on his back with Val’s knife sticking out of his throat. He yanked it out and lunged toward Tamar.

He put his arm around her slender body as he reached up to saw at the rope. Just a few passes of the blade severed it, and her slight weight dropped into his arms. She was covered with tiny rivulets of blood. Small wounds, from the shards of flying glass.

He gathered her up, looking around for a place to lay her down that was not strewn with glass. There was none.

He dropped to his knees and cradled her.

Her eyes opened. Her gaze was still sharp. “Don’t…k-kiss me,” she croaked in a halting whisper. “I’m poisonous.”

Despair slammed through him. “Oh, fuck,” he said, his voice high and shaking. “You are killing me, Tamar.”

Her lips twitched. “Melodramatic,” she whispered. “Idiot.”

Their eyes met, full of pain and longing. She hitched in a shallow breath and said her daughter’s name with a whispering sigh. “Rachel,” she said. “András has her.”

Her eyes commanded him back into action.

“Yes,” he said thickly, smoothing back her sweat-stiffened hair. “I understand.” He pressed a kiss to her damp, icy forehead. “There’s glass everywhere,” he said, helpless. “I don’t know where to put you.”

“Fuck the glass,” she croaked. “Get…Rachel. Move your ass.”

He cleared a spot on the rug as best he could with his boot and laid her down gently. Then he forced his shaking legs to bear him over to the bloody carnage on the ground to scrounge for loaded weapons.

Rachel. The last thing that he could do for her.