by Janie Crouch
Brandon no longer worried about silence or caution. Had Andrea been wounded in fighting the older woman? Did she need medical attention? He was glad it was Mrs. McConnachie on the ground and not Andrea, but where was she?
He burst into the room, looking around, but didn’t see her. Had she made her way outside? He began looking between pews, to make sure she hadn’t fallen behind one.
He sensed her behind him before he saw or heard her. Brandon turned to find Andrea standing in the aisle between the two rows of pews, as if she was a bride about to walk to her groom.
But in the shadows behind Andrea, Brandon could immediately make out another presence. He knew right away who it was.
“Let her go, Freihof.”
“Ah, Agent Han, I see my reputation has preceded me.”
“Yeah, your reputation as a sicko. Let her go.”
“Come now, Agent Han, I’m sure sicko isn’t the clinical term. You have too many degrees to be using such common terminology.”
Brandon’s eyes narrowed, but he played along. “How about ‘psychopath with homicidal tendencies and sociopathic and delusional proclivity.’”
“Yes, yes. So much better!” Freihof turned to Andrea, shrugging. “Basically a sicko.”
Freihof took a few steps closer, forcing Andrea with him as a shield, coming out of the shadows and into the dim light of the church. Brandon could see the knife Freihof held at her throat, which was covered with angry red marks. Andrea had been strangled.
“Miss Gordon unfortunately fell into the clutches of the crazy old lady there.” Freihof gestured toward Mrs. McConnachie’s body. “I had to take care of that. Wasn’t going to let anyone kill our Andrea.”
He kissed Andrea’s cheek and she flinched. “Anyone but me, that is. Please take your gun out and throw it to the side, Agent Han.”
Andrea tried to move away, but Freihof pulled her back against him, his blade still at her throat. Brandon took his Glock out of its holster and slid it on the ground over to the side. He refused to take a chance on Freihof cutting Andrea’s throat. Freihof nodded approvingly.
“I’ve had almost four years to study you all,” Freihof continued. “It’s amazing how much one can find out about Omega Sector if he tries, both by electronic and flesh-and-blood sources. Not to mention, your organization has put a lot of people behind bars. A lot of angry people.”
“What do you want, Freihof?” Brandon asked. He needed to get Andrea away from Freihof’s blade.
“C’mon, Agent Han, play along. I’m just trying to impress you with my knowledge. I know Steve Drackett is your boss and was there the night I was arrested. I know a great deal about some of your colleagues, a Liam Goetz and Joe Matarazzo. More than that.”
Brandon tried to figure out the other man’s endgame, in order to get ahead of him, but couldn’t see it. “Great, Freihof. I am thoroughly impressed at your mental database of Omega Sector.”
Freihof smiled and shook his head back and forth like a giddy child, taking a few steps closer with Andrea. “I know. I’m showing off. It’s annoying, I’m sure.”
He had figured the man was a psychopath, but Brandon hadn’t realized just how intelligent he was. Freihof’s size and strength were also impressive. He’d obviously spent some of his time in prison working out and bulking up.
Freihof was dangerous in every possible way.
“Okay.” Brandon took a step closer, arms outstretched. “Honestly, I am pretty impressed. Your escape. Finding us. Knowing so much about Omega. You’re definitely more advanced than most of the criminals I face.”
“Thank you, Dr. Han. It means a lot that you would say that.”
“Now tell me what you want, and let Andrea go.”
Brandon purposefully did not let himself look at her. He didn’t want to give away how much she meant to him, plus couldn’t trust himself to be able to focus if he saw she was about to fall apart.
Andrea was strong. She could handle it. He had to believe that. He did believe it.
Freihof’s knife stayed at her neck. “What I want? Do you mean long-term or short-term?”
“Either.”
“What I want, what I plan to do long-term, is take Omega Sector apart piece by piece. Destroy you guys from within until the whole organization falls apart. And keep Andrea here by my side as a plaything while I do it.”
Over Brandon’s dead body. “Some grandiose plans you got there. How about short-term?”
“Short-term, I plan to sit Miss Gordon down right here at this pew—oh, please don’t get me started about the church symbolism—and give her a little gift.”
Freihof did as he’d spoken and sat Andrea down, awkwardly because her hands were restrained behind her back, on the pew next to him. Brandon watched in horror as he took out a small explosive device with a twine loop and wrapped it like a necklace around Andrea’s slender neck. He took her hands and secured them to the arm of one of the pews with a zip tie.
Brandon could see the three-minute countdown blinking out at him brightly.
“I know we’re running out of time and the rest of this rinky-dink town’s police force will be here soon, so I’m going to start this timer,” Freihof continued in a conversational tone. “That will give you three minutes to finish me off and get back to your love here, Dr. Han.”
“Don’t turn that thing on,” Brandon said through clenched teeth. “How’s she supposed to be your long-term plaything if you blow her up?”
“I’ve found you have to be flexible in your plans, Agent Han. Besides, I don’t foresee any problem with me being able to take you in three minutes—it will give us both motivation to do our best work, right? Neither of us wants Andrea in little pieces.”
Freihof pressed a button that started the countdown.
2:59, 2:58, 2:57...
“I have a feeling you’re going to wish you’d spent less time in the library and more time in the gym, Dr. Han.” Freihof’s eyes were complete evil.
Brandon allowed himself to look at Andrea just for a moment. A single tear fell from her green eyes. Then he looked down at the explosives attached to her neck.
2:51, 2:50...
Freihof was wrong. Brandon wasn’t going to wish he’d spent more time at the gym. He stood up straighter, immediately knowing what he had to do. For the first time in his entire life, Brandon didn’t even try to keep the darkness inside him at bay. He let the cold, intellectual side of himself be pushed to the side.
As the warrior inside broke free.
He could feel his mind emptying, a complete and utter focus overtaking him. Intellect would not win this battle; the warrior would.
The warrior fighting for his woman.
He saw Freihof’s eyes narrow briefly—the man realized his mistake too late—before Brandon flew at him at a speed he wasn’t expecting. Freihof still had the knife, and Brandon felt its sharp sting, but it seemed to be at a distance.
Freihof was bigger, stronger and had a weapon. But Brandon fought like a man with nothing to lose.
Because he realized what the warrior inside him had known all along: if he lost Andrea, he lost everything.
The blows between him and Freihof were brutal and coarse. The countdown around Andrea’s neck left no room for strategy, no room to dance around each other.
Brandon felt perverse pleasure as Freihof’s nose broke under one of his punches, but then felt the burn as the man’s knife found his side. Again.
The moves he’d practiced so recently with Andrea helped him face the bigger man. He heard the snap of Freihof’s arm and the man’s grunt of pain when Brandon used a move he had just been showing her yesterday.
The only thing the warrior would allow his intellectual side to do was keep track of the time. Without even having to look, Brandon knew the exact second of
the counter.
1:02, 1:01, 1:00...
As Freihof fell to the ground, Brandon threw punch after punch at the man’s head and torso. Brandon knew at that point he would win the fight.
But he also knew he would pay a heavy price. He could feel himself becoming light-headed from blood loss, although he’d since kicked Freihof’s knife away.
0:19, 0:18, 0:17...
He had Freihof in the hold he wanted. One that would subdue him into unconsciousness in a matter of seconds.
“You’re running out of time, Han.” Freihof wheezed. “Are you going to choose her or me?”
He was right. Brandon didn’t even hesitate. He let Freihof go and ran over to Andrea.
0:10...
He had no idea how to disarm the bomb; all he could do was get it off her and away from them, praying it would not have enough power to bring the entire building down on them.
0:06, 0:05...
He slipped it off her neck and threw it as far as he could toward the back corner of the church. He snatched the knife lying beside Freihof’s unconscious form and cut through the zip tie and most of the thin twine that bound Andrea’s wrists. That was all he could do.
He grabbed her and slid them both under a pew, wrapping himself around her to protect her as best he could, tucking her head into his chest.
A moment later the explosion shook the entire building and nothing could be seen but darkness.
* * *
EVERYTHING IN ANDREA’S body hurt. Her shoulders, her throat, her ears. But she was still alive.
The building hadn’t collapsed, but given the state it had already been in before the explosion, Andrea wasn’t sure how long it would stay standing.
“Brandon, are you okay? I think we need to get out of here.”
She nudged him with her shoulder. He had pulled her close to protect her, but now his arms were lying limply by his side. The bonds that held her wrists were looser and Andrea tugged at them for release. Seeing Brandon lying so still gave her a burst of strength.
She bit her lip in agony as her shoulders moved back into a more natural position.
“Brandon?” More panicked now, she brought her cheek up to his mouth to see if she could feel his breath. Yes, breathing. But when she looked down at his body all she saw was blood.
Too much blood.
She tried to stop the bleeding with her hands, but his shirt was so soaked she couldn’t even figure out where the wounds were.
“This is the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department,” Andrea heard someone call out. “Is anyone in here?”
“Yes,” she yelled as loud as her hoarse voice would allow. “Back here.”
She waved her hand, but then immediately brought it back down to his wounds.
Too much blood.
“Here,” she called out again. Flashlights pointed in her direction as she called out. “I need help.” Her voice completely gave out with that last word.
Out of the corner of her eye, something caught her attention. Freihof. She turned and he gave her a tiny wave and evil smile before running silently out the side door.
Andrea wanted to communicate with the police officers who were making their way through the rubble to get to them. To tell them about Freihof, but she literally could not get the words out.
Besides, she didn’t care about Freihof when Brandon’s blood was seeping out of his body under her. He still wasn’t conscious.
She bent back down to say in his ear as loudly as her voice would allow, “Come on, Brandon. I need you. I’ve had two serial killers almost get me today and we’re not going to let them win. You fought for me. You beat him for me. Fight for you now. For us.”
She kissed him. His lips, his forehead, his cheeks.
A paramedic as well as two police officers came and took over life-saving duties. Andrea didn’t want to let Brandon go but knew more qualified people needed to take over. She watched it all as if she was in a daze.
But when they rushed Brandon into the ambulance, Andrea found her spirit and fought to stay with him. She wasn’t letting Brandon out of her sight. A paramedic stopped her at the ambulance door.
“I’m sorry—you can’t ride here.”
“I have to,” Andrea croaked out, but the words came out soundless. She could feel herself begin to panic. She couldn’t leave Brandon alone.
She felt someone take her arm. “I’ll drive you,” Kendrick said. “Consider it the beginning of restitution for all the times we let you down when you were younger.”
Andrea nodded. She knew she should say something, couldn’t anyway, so she just got in the car with Kendrick. Her eyes never left the ambulance the entire time.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fifteen hours later—the longest fifteen hours of her life—Brandon was safely out of surgery. Andrea was still watching over him. Keira had brought her a change of clothes, much needed since hers had been covered in Brandon’s blood. Andrea had talked with her friend for a while, still a difficult task due to the damage to her throat. Keira had contacted Steve Drackett for Andrea so he could be updated.
The doctors had done a full scan of Andrea after Kendrick brought her in right behind Brandon. She’d been very fortunate, they’d told her, that although she had extensive bruising and swelling, none of her neck muscles had been ruptured, nor did there seem to be any permanent damage to her larynx.
Ironically, if Freihof hadn’t stopped Mrs. McConnachie when he had, the damage would’ve grown exponentially greater every second.
Kendrick assured her that every law-enforcement officer in Arizona was looking for Freihof even as they spoke. Somehow that didn’t reassure her. But she wouldn’t let it worry her right now. Right now she was focused on Brandon.
He had fought for her.
Andrea had realized, of course, when he had been teaching her the self-defense moves, that Brandon knew how to handle himself. He was a trained agent, so he would know hand-to-hand combat moves.
This had been more than that.
When Freihof put that explosive necklace around her neck, Andrea had not believed there was any way Brandon would be able to fight and beat someone with the size and cunning of Freihof—who had a knife—in three minutes. Some things were just not possible.
She’d watched as Brandon had turned into something else before her eyes. In one second a myriad of conflicting emotions had radiated from him: concern, anger, worry, pain. He’d been thinking of multiple different angles and scenarios to tip the situation in his favor, his powerful mind working in overdrive.
In the second Freihof had turned on the explosives countdown, Brandon’s powerful mind had been completely shut down. Every emotion he’d been projecting had stopped. Focus and determination had taken its place.
The intellectual genius had been replaced by a dark warrior. And the dark warrior had achieved the impossible: defeating Freihof before the time had run out.
He had fought for her. No one in her life had ever fought for her.
Andrea held Brandon’s hand as he slept. Soon his family would be here and she’d be relegated to the waiting room. But for now he was hers to protect.
* * *
BRANDON’S BRAIN WOKE UP before he could force his eyes open. That happened a lot. He was processing before he was fully awake.
But for some reason he seemed to be processing more slowly than usual. Frustrating. He forced himself to relax, not opening his eyes. To listen, to remember, to piece it all together.
His first awareness was of the pain. It seemed to radiate from everywhere in his body. Everything hurt so much he couldn’t seem to figure out where his central injuries had occurred.
He heard the beeping of machines, distant talking farther away. He was in a hospital. The fight with Freihof, the k
nife, the explosion... It all came back to him.
“College just wasn’t for me,” a deep voice was saying. “I had better things to do with my time. Things that provided a much more rounded education, if you know what I mean.”
Joe Matarazzo. Brandon knew his friend and fellow agent’s voice.
Brandon tried to open his eyes but it was more difficult than he’d thought. The pain wanted to pull him back under.
“You’re bad.” It was Andrea’s sweet voice, but different. More throaty. Hoarse, but damn if it didn’t still sound sexy to him. He could feel his hand resting in hers.
“My friends say I’m audacious.” Brandon could hear the smile in Joe’s voice. “I had to look that up to see what it meant, because of the lack of college education and all. Ends up that ‘coming from a billionaire family and sleeping with every available woman in a three-state area’ is actually the very definition of audacious.”
Andrea laughed. “Yeah, well, I’m a high school dropout ex-stripper. I think that might one-up you.”
Had Andrea just made a joke about her past?
Joe’s bark of laughter was friendly and kind. “Well, then you and I probably ought to run off and get married right now.”
Now Brandon opened his eyes.
“Nope, she’s taken.” He raised their linked hands.
Joe smiled. “Hey, bro. You gave us a scare for a minute.”
Joe said some other things, but Brandon only had eyes for Andrea. She was here. She was safe. She was at his side.
Joe cleared his throat. “I can see that you and your lady need some time, so I’ll be back in a while.”
Joe made his way out the door. Brandon appreciated the other man’s tact.
“Hey,” Andrea whispered, leaning over him so she was a little closer.
It cost him considerable effort, but Brandon reached up to bring her lips down to his. He couldn’t go another second without feeling her sweetness against him.
“Are you okay?” he asked against her mouth.
“Yes. You were the one who was hurt, fighting Freihof.”
“Your voice sounds different.”
