Living on the Edge

by Shannon K. Butcher

  “I suggest you don’t scream,” he said, his voice only faintly accented.

  “I hadn’t even considered it,” she said, before thinking better about playing the role of tough chick. It was better if he thought her weak and helpless. All she had to do was get close enough to him to reach him.

  He rose from the chair, smiling as he moved toward her. Sloane stood her ground, waiting for him to inch closer.

  “Back up,” he ordered. “Gina told me all about what a talented fighter you are. She threatened me with you more than once. After what you did to my home, I don’t think I’ll underestimate you a second time.”

  “What do you want?” asked Sloane, stalling for time to think.

  “Gina, of course.”

  “Why? What’s so important about her?”

  “She’s on the List.”

  “List? What list?”

  Soma shrugged, his dark eyes glittering as they slid over her body. His gaze made her feel dirty and used, but she kept hoping he’d try to make a move. Even if it meant having his filthy hands on her for a few seconds, she could tolerate that long enough to take him out.

  “I don’t know much more than that. Adam Brink hires me to find people, and I find them. You’d have to ask him, not that you’ll get the chance.”

  “Are you going to kill me?” she asked, hoping he said no. She wanted him to spew out nonsense about how she was his and he was going to do horrible, nasty things to her until she learned to like it. Whatever. Just as long as he didn’t pull that trigger.

  “Yes. Let’s go wake Gina, shall we?”

  Oh,God. He was going to make Gina watch her die. He was going to punish her for escaping, just like he’d claimed he’d do with the little girl Julia.

  Sloane planted her feet, not moving. “If you want to kill me, you’re going to have to do it right here, right now. I won’t help you torture Gina.”

  Soma opened his mouth and someone knocked on her door.

  Sloane froze, caught between possible help at the door and not knowing what Soma would do to whoever was on the other side.

  “Sloane? I know you’re in there. Open up.” It was Lucas.

  Every cell in Sloane’s body rejoiced at the sound of his voice. Before Soma could stop her, she called out, “Hold on. I’m coming.”

  Soma snarled a hissing whisper. “You’d better get him to leave.”

  “Or else what? You’ll kill me? You already showed your hand, shit-for-brains. You can’t bluff now.”

  Lorenzo ducked into Gina’s bedroom before Sloane could stop him. She lurched after him, but was too slow. Before she’d even crossed the room, he appeared in the bedroom doorway with Gina in front of him. His weapon was shoved into her mouth, keeping her from screaming.

  Gina’s eyes were wide, confusion and fear melding together in the form of tears. She looked at Sloane, begging for help or answers, or maybe both. The pain meds were probably making her too groggy and weak to figure out what was going on, which had to be terrifying.

  “Don’t hurt her,” said Sloane, trying to keep her voice calm for Gina’s sake.

  “You get him to leave or I’ll kill her.”

  Sloane couldn’t tell if he was bluffing or not, and she wasn’t about to take the chance. “I’m going. Just don’t hurt her.” She went to her front door and leaned close. “I can’t talk to you right now, Lucas. Go away.”

  His deep voice seeped through the two inches of wood, muffled, but strong and confident. “No. Not until we talk. Open the door.”

  From behind her, Sloane heard the muted click of a hammer being pulled back. Gina whimpered.

  Sloane cracked the door open. Her heart was pounding so hard, she could barely hear, but when she saw Lucas’s handsome face, her pulse still kicked up a notch. His dark hair fell over his wide forehead and concern creased the skin between his eyes. He was only inches away. If she slid her fingers through the opening, she’d be able to touch his cheek or maybe his hand.

  She didn’t.

  “Let me in,” he demanded.

  “I can’t. I told you, it’s over.” Dear God, she wished she could take those words back now. She didn’t want it to be over. In the face of certain death, none of her concerns seemed valid anymore. Of course that was easy to say now when she knew her chances of surviving the night were slipping by the second. So were Gina’s if she didn’t get him out of here.

  And yet if he did leave, she didn’t know how she was going to handle the situation. This was one of those times when she really wished Lucas could help her. She didn’t even care if that made her weak. She’d take being weak over having a dead friend any day.

  He stared at her, his dark blue gaze steady. “It’s not over. I know you need me. Don’t you.” It wasn’t a question. He was trying to tell her something with his eyes, but she was too rattled to understand. “You need me in there right now. By your side.”

  Sloane could feel Soma’s growing impatience. “Please, just leave.”

  “Are you in trouble?” he whispered.

  Did he know Soma was here? Could he know? If she admitted she was in trouble, Soma would pull that trigger. All it would take was half a second and Gina would be gone. Irrevocably.

  “No,” Sloane whispered, hoping it saved her friend’s life.

  “Are you going to let me in?”

  “No. But when you see my father, will you tell him something for me?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said, his voice cold and uncertain.

  “Will you tell him I love him?”

  Lucas blinked twice in silent shock. Sloane closed the door in his face, praying he’d figure out her distress signal and bring help.

  What she wouldn’t give for one huge, heavily armed Texas SWAT team right now.

  She turned to Soma. “He’s gone. Let Gina go.”

  Soma shook his head. “We’re all going for a drive now. I don’t want to take any chance that your friend will come back.”

  “He won’t. I made it clear he wasn’t wanted.”

  “Lovesick men are often foolish.”

  Lovesick? Lucas? Hardly. A man like him could never fall for her. Not seriously. The sex was fantastic, but her edges were too sharp for anything more. Men liked women who were easier to live with, women who weren’t always looking for the next chance to bust some heads. Or balls. What he had felt for her was passing infatuation. Nothing more.

  Not that it mattered. If she didn’t figure a way out of this mess, her ball-busting days were over.

  “Get your keys,” he ordered. “We’ll go out the back, and I’ll keep my gun handy so you’ll remember to be a good little girl.”

  Sloane’s teeth creaked she grated them so hard. She hadn’t been a little girl for a long time, and she sure as hell wasn’t good. At least not for him. She wanted to scream out how she was going to kill him—how she was going to blow as much lead through his insides as she could. Only the gleam of the 9mm barrel in Gina’s mouth allowed Sloane to keep her control.

  Her keys were in her jeans pocket. She reached in and pulled them out, dangling them in front of him. “I need my driver’s license. It’s in my bedroom.” Where her weapon was.

  She took two steps in that direction before his voice froze her in place. “Stop. Drive without it. If you get stopped, I’ll kill the police, too.”

  Frustration and fear ground her down, making her regret the fact that she hadn’t already put this man in the ground where he belonged.

  He pulled the gun from Gina’s mouth and motioned with it toward the back door. “Out. Now.”

  Red and blotchy, Gina’s face was streaked with tears. There was a sheen of confused lethargy in her eyes as she stumbled toward the kitchen, dragged inside Soma’s tight grip.

  Sloane looked around for some kind of weapon. Something. Anything. All she had to do was incapacitate his weapon hand enough to ensure he wouldn’t shoot Gina. After that, all Sloane needed was to have the bastard in her reach.

  A knife caddy
full of wicked sharp steel stood in the middle of the small island in her kitchen. If she could distract him enough that he wasn’t watching, she could snatch up one of the blades and use that. Knife fighting wasn’t her forte, but she’d learned the basics. With any luck, Soma hadn’t.

  He was in the kitchen now, moving slowly with Gina in tow. He kept his eyes on Sloane, clearly not trusting her.

  He might be a bastard, but he wasn’t a stupid one.

  “You go first,” he ordered, his eyes narrow as if he suspected her intentions.

  Shit. If she was in front of him, she couldn’t tell if he was watching her.

  Sloane shot Gina a meaningful look, hoping her friend would catch on that she was planning something. Back in high school, they’d been able to communicate with little more than a glance, but it had been a long time since high school. Gina was drugged up and scared out of her mind. She also had a loaded gun pressed against the base of her skull. She had things to think about besides Sloane’s looks.

  Gina met her gaze, though Sloane couldn’t tell if she understood the signal.

  Sloane darted her eyes to the right again, indicating Gina should head for the kitchen table when the commotion started. If Gina could just get a few feet away, Sloane could hurl one of those knives at the guy’s head. It probably wouldn’t kill him, but it might slow him down long enough for her to disarm him.

  “Move,” barked Soma.

  A flash of recognition lit in Gina’s face. At least Sloane hoped that was what it was.

  “Now!” she shouted.

  Gina dropped like a stone. Sloane reached for the knives. A gunshot went off. The wooden caddy flew across the room and landed on the floor, spilling its contents.

  The back door slammed open. It hit the wall so hard the window glass shattered.

  “Down!” The demand was made with such authority that Sloane found herself falling to the floor before thinking it through. Lucas. He hadn’t left her.

  Relief trilled through her, and for half a heart-stopping second, Sloane had to hold herself back to keep from running to him.

  Another gunshot went off. Sloane ducked behind the island and peered around it, looking for Gina.

  Gina had broken free of Soma’s grip and was scurrying on her hands and knees toward the kitchen table. There wasn’t much cover to be had, but at least she no longer had a gun pointed at her.

  Sloane surrendered to another wave of relief while she took stock of the situation. She could just barely see a peek of Lucas’s booted foot immediately outside the doorway leading to her backyard. If he stepped inside, he’d be right in the open, an easy target for Soma.

  What Lucas needed was a distraction.

  Sloane opened a cabinet door and pulled out a stainless-steel mixing bowl. She hurled it toward the last place she’d seen Soma standing, then grabbed another. One by one, her mixing bowls crashed to the floor. Glass and pottery smashed into a noisy mess. More shots were fired, though Sloane couldn’t tell from whom. The men were too close together.

  She was out of ammunition, so she scooted to the next cabinet. A flash of motion caught her eye as she saw Soma’s reflection in the kitchen window over the sink. He was crouched behind the island, moving toward her, his weapon aimed right for her head.

  Chapter 28

  Lucas didn’t have time for any more cowboy antics. He needed Soma dead. Now. Before Sloane or Gina was hurt.

  He’d lost sight of Soma, but he had to be nearby.

  There was a wide opening between the kitchen and the living room. Soma could be hiding on either side of that opening, just waiting for Lucas to put his head in sight. Or he could be low, hiding on the other side of the island filling the center of the kitchen.

  Only one way to find out.

  Lucas stepped inside, his weapon raised, his finger on the trigger. Soma was in black and white. Gina was in red. Sloane was in denim and a green top. All he needed was a small glimpse—some body part to help him ID his target.

  His boots crunched on the broken glass, giving him away.

  He heard a scurrying sound, a feminine grunt of pain; then Soma stood with Sloane’s throat clutched in one hand, his other aiming the gun at her temple.

  The man’s eyes were wide, dark, and wild with the frantic look of a cornered animal.

  Anger filled Lucas, choking him. He tried to channel it into a steely kind of calm, but it wasn’t working. That fucker was hurting Sloane and all he could think about was how good it was going to feel to kill him. “Shoot her and I’ll kill you before the echo dies down.”

  Sloane’s face was turning a dark red. A choking sound gurgled from her mouth. She pried at his fingers, but it did no good.

  “Put down the gun or I’ll kill her now,” said Soma.

  Lucas debated for a millisecond before he complied. Sloane was running out of air, and with it, the ability to fight her way free. All she needed was an opening and Lucas was determined to make one for her. But first he had to get that gun away from her head. One move now and Soma could easily twitch and pull the trigger.

  Lucas set the gun on the ground.

  “Kick it away.”

  He did that, too. It slid easily over the polished floor until it came to rest against the carpet of the living room.

  “I’m leaving. With both women.”

  Sloane slammed her elbow into Soma’s ribs. Her leg came down hard in a stomp kick on Soma’s fancy leather shoes. Whether she didn’t know she had a weapon at her head or if she was too desperate to care, Lucas had no idea, but in that one brief second, his whole world narrowed down to a single pinpoint, and inside it, the only thing that mattered was Sloane.

  Soma let out a harsh whoosh of air, lifted the gun, and bashed Sloane in the side of the head. She stumbled forward, catching herself against the sink. Soma shoved his hand between her shoulder blades, making her head crash into the hard porcelain.

  Sloane staggered and slumped to the floor, unable to support herself.

  Rage soared through Lucas, stretching its black wings to fill every corner of his soul. He launched himself at Soma, gliding over the top of the island to tackle him.

  Soma’s gun went off. Lucas didn’t give a shit if he was hit. He was still moving and that was enough for him.

  They slammed into the cabinets behind Soma, but he took the brunt of the landing. Lucas balled up his fist and drove it into the side of Soma’s head. The blow snapped his head sideways, but the man kept fighting.

  Soma had been lifted by Lucas’s tackle so that he was sitting on the counter. Soma’s feet lashed out, striking a solid blow to Lucas’s good knee. The bad one couldn’t handle the sudden shift of weight and he fell, ripping off the sleeve of Soma’s shirt as he went down.

  Soma jumped down, landing hard on Lucas’s leg. Lucas scrambled to move back out of the man’s reach before he broke something.

  Soma snarled and his foot came soaring right toward Lucas’s balls.

  No fucking way.

  Lucas jerked aside, taking the blow on the inside of his bad knee. Pain lanced up his spine, nearly blinding him for a moment. He couldn’t breathe, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now.

  The flash of a kitchen knife caught his eye. He grabbed it and turned back to Soma.

  Soma had retrieved his weapon from where it had landed on the counter and aimed it at Lucas’s head.

  Lucas shot up into a sitting position. Something white flew at Soma and smashed into his head. The gun exploded so close to Lucas he could taste gunpowder. He didn’t wait for pain to register. He rammed the knife up into Soma’s thigh, slicing through an artery.

  Soma screamed. Fine, white powder settled across everything. Lucas yanked the knife free and dodged the heavy pulse of blood that spurted from the wound.

  Soma collapsed to the ground, holding his thigh. Another pulse of blood arced up, splattering the cabinets. Then another.

  The man deserved to die, but not until he suffered in jail for a while, kept as a priso
ner the way he’d kept those women.

  Lucas whipped off his belt and tried to slip it under Soma’s leg to stop the bleeding, but the man kept fighting him, frantic and panicked.

  Sloane appeared at Soma’s head, on her hands and knees, slipping in the flour coating the floor. She grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down. “We’re trying to help you, you bastard.”

  Within a few seconds, his struggles weakened, but it was too late by then. Lucas’s fingers were slippery with blood and by the time he got the belt tightly in place, Soma was already dead.

  Lucas couldn’t bring himself to care.

  Sloane looked at Lucas across Soma’s body. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You?”

  “Yeah. Thank you.”

  Lucas wanted to grab her and hold her tight, but not like this—not covered in another man’s blood.

  “Gina.” She turned and hurried to her friend.

  Lucas washed his hands in the sink, watching the pink water swirl into the drain. His bad knee barely held him up. His good one wasn’t much better. Both were throbbing like a son of a bitch. Now that the fight was over, he felt every scrape and bruise and cut on his body. Every quivering flicker of fear.

  He’d nearly lost Sloane tonight. If it hadn’t been for her well-timed flour grenade, he’d probably be dead right now.

  Lucas looked across the bright kitchen to where Sloane was huddled over Gina. “How is she?”

  Sloane’s voice was too bright. Too optimistic. “She’s great. Soma’s gone now. She doesn’t have to worry about a thing.”

  Except massive quantities of therapy, no doubt.

  “I’m going to call the police and your father and fetch a change of clothes. I can’t stand having this asshole’s blood on me.”

  Sloane looked up at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. She’d been through hell tonight and all he wanted to do was hold her.

  Hell, who was he kidding? What he really wanted was to hold her forever. She’d made it clear that wasn’t an option. After charging in here to save her, telling her in no uncertain terms he thought she wasn’t capable of saving herself, he bet she’d just added the final tick mark in the he’s-just-like-the-general column. And after his display of weakness tonight—letting Soma knock him down like a stack of wooden blocks—he knew her opinion of him wasn’t going to improve. He was injured and yet he still acted as though he was more capable of taking care of her than she was of taking care of herself.