Alpha One (Shadow Agents #1)(43)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“He’s already dead.” The man thought she was a fool. “And so are you.” Logan. The scream was in her head, desperate to break out, but she saw herself calmly aiming the gun right at his chest. One shot would be all that it took. Of course, she couldn’t aim with her trembling fingers, so maybe she’d just empty the gun into his chest.

That would work.

His smile vanished. “You’re killing him. Every moment you waste, every second. My men are so eager to pull the trigger…”

Only, there wasn’t any thunder from gunfire outside. Just silence.

“Jasper…he’s there.” Jasper would still be fighting. And there were other guards. Other cops.

“The one at the gatehouse? The sniper? It took some doing, but we took him out, too.” His hands were up in front of him. “There’s no one out there to help. Backup might be coming, but they’ll get here too late.” No Spanish accent coated his words. “By the time they arrive, Logan will be dead.”

“He’s already dead.” And Guerrero was just jerking her around.

“Come with me,” he said, his voice low, emotionless. “I’ll prove that he’s alive.”

She wanted to believe him.

“Or stay here,” Guerrero said as his dark eyes glittered, “and you will be responsible for killing him.”

“Move,” Juliana ordered. “Head down those stairs and keep your hands up!”

He laughed, but he moved, taking slow, measured steps as he headed down the stairs. She expected him to try for the gun, to attack her, but he didn’t.

He didn’t even glance back at her as he walked.

The front door hung open. He was just about to head out that door now.

“Wait!” She hated to get close to him, but there wasn’t a choice. Juliana rushed forward and shoved the gun into his side. She didn’t know what might be waiting out there, and she wanted a shield.

He grunted when the barrel of the gun dug into his body. “So different…than the girl in Mexico.”

“Maybe you didn’t know that girl so well.”

His eyes flashed at her.

“Anyone comes at me, I’ll kill you.” Just so they were clear.

His head inclined toward her. “I think you mean it.”

“I do.”

“Pity…” Then he started walking, nice and slow. “Don’t you wonder why more cops aren’t here? Why it was just your lover and the skeleton staff of guards?”

Yes, she did. Where the hell was the backup?

When she went outside, all she saw was carnage. Bodies on the ground. Men moaning, twisting. Shattered glass. Susan—

Juliana jerked her gaze away.

“Money can buy anything in America. A slow response time from cops. The right intel from a disgruntled detective who feels like everyone is going over his head on yet another case.”

Two men had risen from the ground. They were bloody, bruised, but coming right toward them.

“Tell them not to come any closer,” Juliana whispered.

“Don’t come any closer,” he called out easily enough. “Such a shame that things had to be this way between us. You know, I became quite fond of you in Mexico.”

The man was the best liar she’d ever met. “Where’s Logan?”

She didn’t see him. Hope had her heart racing too fast in her chest. Guerrero was a liar, but maybe, maybe Logan wasn’t dead.

Don’t be dead.

Guerrero pointed to a black van that was idling on the right. “In there.”

She kept her gun to his side. They walked slowly toward that van. It seemed to take them forever to reach that spot.

Where is Jasper? He should be out there but she sure couldn’t see any sign of him.

“Open the door,” Juliana ordered when they drew close to the van.

Guerrero moved forward. He grabbed the side door on the van and yanked it open. It was dark in the van, but Juliana could just see the crumpled form of…a man inside. She couldn’t tell if the body was Logan’s. It could have been anyone. Any—

Gunfire.

Blasting right near her body. No, near Guerrero. Her head whipped up. Gunner was leaning out of the broken second-story window, firing down on them.

Then Juliana was hit from behind, rammed so hard that she stumbled forward and fell into the back of the van.

More gunfire.

Coming from behind her now. Jasper? Finally?

But the van door had closed behind her. The gun had fallen and she’d slammed face-first onto the van’s floor. Her forehead hit hard and pain splintered through her skull.

And she hit—someone. The man in the van. The man who wasn’t moving. She shoved her hands against the van’s metal floorboard even as the vehicle lurched forward. She was tossed back a bit and tires squealed. More gunfire.

The van kept going—racing away.

She lifted her hands, afraid, and touched warm skin. Her hands slid over the man’s body nervously. Wide shoulders. Strong muscles. She touched his neck and felt the thready beat of his pulse.

Her finger smoothed higher. Felt his chin…and the faint scar that raised the skin there.

Logan.

She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close and—felt the wetness of his blood on her. “Logan?”

“Isn’t that sweet?” Guerrero’s voice. Her head jerked up. In the darkness, she could make out two men in the front of the van. The driver—and the shadowy form of the man who held a gun on her.

“Told you he was alive,” Guerrero said as the gun’s barrel swung between her and Logan. “And if you want him to stay that way, you hold him tight, and you don’t so much as move until I tell you to do so.”

They were leaving the senator’s mansion, heading down the twisting roads of the swamp. Roads that could take them to a dozen secluded locations.

“This time,” Guerrero promised, “we won’t be interrupted, and if you don’t tell me everything I want to know, then you’ll watch while I slice your lover apart.”

He’d already started slicing.

“He’ll be the one who screams soon, Juliana. You could hardly bear it when you heard the sound of a stranger screaming. Tell me, what will you do when those cries come from someone you love?”

Anything.

And Guerrero, damn him, knew it.

Chapter Eleven

Logan opened his eyes, aware of the pain that throbbed through his body in relentless waves. It was the pain that had forced him to consciousness.

The darkness hit him first. Wherever he was, there were no windows, no fresh air. He was sitting, bound with his arms pulled behind him and tied to the wooden slats in the back of his chair.