Rules in Defiance

by Nichole Severn

  Could’ve?

  His hand shot to her throat, cutting off her oxygen. Waylynn tried to pry his grip from her, but he pulled a gun from the waistband of his pants and lodged it into her rib cage. Black cobwebs snaked into the edges of her vision. “P-please—”

  “Why don’t you point that thing at someone your own size?” That voice.

  A combination of recognition and hesitation slid through her. She’d know that voice anywhere, but right now, it sounded...different. Waylynn searched the wreckage through the holes that hadn’t darkened in her vision, jerking in her captor’s hold. Movement registered from the back of the totaled SUV, urging her to step back, but her abductor kept a tight grip. Shadows retreated from his face as Elliot moved beneath the pool of light from the streetlamp. A gasp caught in her throat. Blood chilled in her veins, yet beads of sweat slid from her temples. He was alive. Goose bumps prickled across the small of her back. He was...not the Elliot she knew.

  No. The shadow standing ten feet from her had turned into something far more threatening. Waylynn pulled at her attacker’s wrist, her body screaming for air. Pressure built in her lungs. A single second stretched into hours, the darkness closing in faster.

  “I’ll have to use a higher voltage on you next time.” Her abductor’s hand loosened enough for her to gulp down a lungful of oxygen as he took aim at her best friend.

  Warning trickled down her spine.

  “There won’t be a next time.” A predatory growl escaped from Elliot’s mouth, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Violence stared out through the gray eyes she’d dreamed about for months. A shadow of that same violence darkened his expression. “Now get your damn hands off her.”

  Elliot didn’t wait for an answer and rushed forward.

  She wanted to scream. Couldn’t with the hand around her neck. The explosion of gunfire rocked through her. Her ears rang as his shoulder ripped back from catching the bullet. His guttural groan ignited the burn of desperation. Waylynn tried to lunge forward to catch him before he hit the ground but was pulled back into her attacker. She launched her elbow into a wall of muscle, only her captor’s exhale an indication she’d done any damage. That small amount of vulnerability pushed her harder.

  Elliot had collapsed to one knee, his knuckles against asphalt, eyes shut tight.

  Slamming her heel into the top of her assailant’s foot, she got him to release her. She twisted out of his reach, gulped as much air as she could, and rocketed the base of her palm into where she thought his nose might be under the mask. “Get off of me!”

  The satisfying crunch of bone reached her ears. She raced to take control of the gun in his hand, but she wasn’t fast enough. A strong backhand across her face knocked her to the ground. Stinging pain lanced through her head as she fell, the city street nothing but a blur.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” Elliot’s swing unbalanced the gunman, but another squeeze of the trigger arced a bullet wide over Waylynn’s head. They had to get out of here. “Waylynn, run!”

  She covered her head in a vain attempt to stop the bullet with her hands. The sirens she’d heard earlier seemed to fade. Where were the police? Why wasn’t anybody helping? Blood dripped from Elliot’s shoulder. His movements were slowing. He wouldn’t last much longer without help. Shoving to her feet, she searched the scene for something—anything—he could use as a weapon.

  The crunch of glass against asphalt followed by a rough groan from over her shoulder forced her to turn back to the fight. Her attacker had pinned Elliot against the colliding vehicle and raised the gun once more. Another hit to the face twisted his head in one direction. The second hit wrenched his head again. “Stop! You’re going to kill him!”

  Her attacker punched Elliot over and over, those dark gray eyes locked on her.

  “No!” Waylynn pumped her legs hard, then latched on to the masked man’s arm to give Elliot a fighting chance. But a solid kick to the midsection sent her flying back. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Only adrenaline kept her moving. There. Waylynn crawled toward a piece of the damaged streetlamp, loose gravel digging into her knees. Sliding her fingers around the metal, she pushed to her feet and hiked the steel above her shoulder on unsteady legs. “Get the hell away from him. Now.”

  “Waylynn...run.” Blood trickled down Elliot’s bottom lip as he swayed on his feet, the skin swollen and cracked.

  Waylynn fought off the paralysis threatening to overwhelm her. She’d never attacked another human being before. Never wanted to hurt someone as much as she wanted to hurt the man with the gun right now. “I said back away.”

  She adjusted her grip around the pipe and swiped her tongue across her increasingly dry lips. Her gut clenched as Elliot slid down the side of the vehicle, his normally bright gaze clouded. He was losing blood too fast. She had to get him to the hospital.

  “You should’ve listened to your bodyguard, Dr. Hargraves. You should’ve run while you had the chance.” A low rumble of a laugh filled her ears, dread pooling at the base of her spine. No matter what happened in the next few minutes, she’d remember that laugh for the rest of her life. Something pure and evil crawled over her skin. That black gaze forced ice through her veins. “Those sirens you heard? A distraction of mine. Anchorage PD won’t have enough patrols to answer this call. Nobody is coming to save you.”

  She glanced at Elliot losing consciousness at her feet. The bullet could still be inside him, could be causing permanent damage. Not to mention the other dozen injuries he’d incurred since the crash. They were running out of time. Elliot would die right here in the middle of the street if she didn’t do something. He’d protected her this far. Now it was her turn to return the favor. “I don’t need anyone to save me.”

  Waylynn swung the pipe as hard as she could.

  Her attacker caught it midswing and wrenched the steel from her hand. She didn’t hesitate, lashing out at him with her opposite hand, but the strike did nothing. She didn’t work for Blackhawk Security. She hadn’t been trained in hand-to-hand combat or joined the military. She was a scientist, a researcher. She spent most of her days glued to the computer screen analyzing genetic samples under her microscope.

  But she wouldn’t let him take her and she wasn’t going to let Elliot die.

  The clang of metal on asphalt rang loud in her ears as he tossed her makeshift weapon and advanced. She stumbled back, the heel of her flats catching on chunks of loose debris from the crash. No. Waylynn fisted her hands, taking a stand. “His team is already on the way.”

  “They can’t help you now, Dr. Hargraves. You brought your bodyguard into this mess, and he’ll die because of you.” Her attacker raised the gun, taking aim at her head. “Then it’ll be your turn.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Over here!” an unfamiliar voice called.

  A bright light passed over him, footsteps and shouts close enough to pull Elliot from unconsciousness. Pain shot across his shoulder and down his arm. His head throbbed at the base of his skull.

  “Tell me he’s not dead.” Now, that voice he recognized. Sullivan.

  Cold fingers slid across his neck and he hissed in reaction. “Pulse is weak, but he’s alive. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Different voice.

  “You say the nicest things, Kate.” He struggled to see the psychologist’s face. Squinting against the circle of flashlights around him, Elliot moved to lift his arm to block the light but couldn’t. Right. A bullet tended to have that effect. He ran his tongue along the split inside his cheek, then leaned over and spit blood. Digging his heels into the ground, he pressed his back against the vehicle behind him and pushed to his feet slowly to face the team. Oh, hell. He felt like he’d been hit by a train. Or at least a Mack truck. Pieces of memory bled into place. They’d been attacked. The son of a bitch had gone after Waylynn right before he’d lost consciousness. “Where is s
he? Where’s Waylynn?”

  “You tell us.” Sullivan Bishop centered himself in his vision as Kate Monroe, Blackhawk Security’s profiler, moved out of the way. Vincent, Glennon, Anthony, Elizabeth. Even Elizabeth’s baby daddy, Braxton, stood around him. The gang was all there. “What happened?”

  “Bastard plowed into us. Tasered me to get to her. I fought him off, but he put a bullet in my shoulder. Lost too much blood.” The haze cleared with every inhale. He was still losing blood. Then he spotted the piece of pipe she’d threatened to bash her attacker with in the middle of the street. Rage diluted the pain and spread like wildfire. Her abductor wanted a battle? If the son of a bitch damaged a single hair on her head, Elliot would bring a war. He shoved through the semicircle his team had built around him. “Get out of my way.”

  They couldn’t have gotten far. Everything about this investigation—the death of Waylynn’s assistant, the destruction of her research, the recovered hard drive, the tracking device in her phone—it all tied back to Genism Corporation. He’d never met Dr. Matthew Stover, but it stood to reason he was the one who’d been tracking her since giving her the phone a few weeks ago.

  Anthony Harris, the team’s weapons expert, barricaded himself, arms folded, in front of Elliot’s escape route. “I’ve seen that look, man. Hell, I’ve given that look to everyone who came between me and Glennon. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Tell me what you need, and I’ll recover her while you get patched up.”

  His reflection stared back at him from Anthony’s damn aviator sunglasses. Blood dripped down his face, his lip busted. Not to mention the injuries he couldn’t see. The bullet in his shoulder, the possible cracked rib he’d taken to give Waylynn a chance to run. He’d failed her once. It took every ounce of energy he had to keep standing, but he wouldn’t fail her again. He’d take a hundred more bullets if it meant keeping her safe. Rolling his shoulder forward, he clenched his teeth against the pain screaming through his arm. The bullet was still inside, tearing through muscle and tendon, but every second that bastard had Waylynn led to a higher chance he wouldn’t be able to find her. And that wasn’t an option. He wouldn’t lose her. Not now. Not ever. Elliot stretched out his hand. “Keys.”

  “Take mine. None of you have wrecked it yet. Want backup?” Kate didn’t hesitate, a half smile curling at one edge of her pale mouth as she tossed the keys. He shook his head. This was something he had to do on his own. The psychologist-turned-profiler folded her arms. Medium-length, platinum blonde hair framed a thin face and wide green eyes. At five foot ten, Kate Monroe demanded attention with a single look, but the shroud of grief from losing her husband to a former patient last year kept most people at a distance. But Elliot knew the truth. Of all of the men and women on this team, Kate was the biggest softy of them all. She nodded. “You’ve been shot, beaten and we found you unconscious.”

  “I’m fine.” Nothing would stop him from getting to Waylynn.

  “Try not to get yourself shot again,” Vincent said. “Or killed.”

  Elliot curled his hand around the keys, then circled around Anthony without looking back at the rest of his team. He wouldn’t need backup. Didn’t need a weapon. He’d tear the son of bitch who dared take Waylynn from him with his bare hands.

  A thin veil of snow dusted the ground as he rounded to the driver’s side of Kate’s SUV and climbed in. What kind of hell city snowed in the middle of June? The engine growled to life at the turn of a key, the entire team staring at him through the windshield as he spun away from the scene.

  Red and blue police cruiser lights flashed across his vision as he programmed Genism’s address into the vehicle’s navigation system. Sullivan and Anthony would stall Anchorage PD as long as they could. Elliot had more important things to worry about. There was only one place this could end, one place he bet the man who’d framed Waylynn for murder would take her.

  “I’m coming for you, Doc.” Headlights reflected off wet road, but Elliot only pressed the accelerator harder. He squeezed his knuckles around the steering wheel, the scrapes and cuts along the back of his hands still bleeding. Whoever had come after her wasn’t some geneticist. He’d never known a lab researcher to fight like that. He swiped at the blood running down his mouth. No, the son of a bitch who’d taken Waylynn was something more. Former military, maybe a trained federal operative. But that didn’t explain the connection to his next-door neighbor or her employer. Unless Genism Corporation had hired someone to come after her on their behalf.

  Didn’t matter right now. Getting Waylynn back, having her in his arms again, that was all that mattered. They’d deal with the rest once he recovered her. Together. The slight sigh that’d escaped from her as he’d kissed her replayed in his head. Blistering-hot blood rushed through his system. He’d get her back. He had to. “You better be alive.”

  Tires screeched on pavement as he fishtailed the SUV into Genism Corporation’s main parking lot. Streetlamps flickered, then died, the sun peeking out from behind the Chugach Mountain Range. No sign of another vehicle. Nothing to indicate her abductor had brought her here. His gut said he was in the right place. Stretching his arm into the back seat, Elliot suppressed a scream working up his throat as he reached for the lockbox under the bench seat. A faint pop registered beneath muscle and he exhaled hard through the pain. Damn bullet wouldn’t stop him from finding her.

  Nothing would.

  Slamming a fresh magazine into his spare Glock, he loaded a round and checked the safety. His boots hit the ground, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. As though he’d been centered in someone else’s crosshairs. He scanned the lab’s rooftop—still nothing—then headed for the main doors. Warning exploded through him, but what was life without a little risk? Elliot tightened his grip around the gun. He wrenched the glass door handle and raised the gun, pushing his way inside the stark white lobby.

  Silence. No cars in the parking lot, no security on location. Yet the lab’s front door had been left unlocked. “That doesn’t seem very responsible.”

  A pair of black shoes sticking out from behind the large receptionist desk pulled him forward. Checking over this shoulder, Elliot crouched beside a female guard who’d been relieved of the weapon that was supposed to be in her holster. A line of blood trickled onto her cheekbone, but the rise and fall of her chest indicated she’d only been knocked unconscious. He pulled his phone from his pocket and requested an ambulance to the lab. Scuff marks veered off to the left, stark black against the white tile leading deeper into the lab. Caused by Waylynn’s shoes as her abductor dragged her down the hall? Shoving to his feet, he hefted the gun to shoulder level. Pain exploded down his arm, but it wouldn’t slow him down. Anchorage PD was about to have their hands full with another body on this case.

  A high-pitched scream echoed down the hallway, an all-too-familiar sound that jacked his blood pressure higher.

  “Waylynn.” Every cell in his body caught fire as he followed the sound. White walls and tile blurred in his vision, his gut tight. Clear glass windows and expensive equipment was all he could see as he passed lab after lab. He’d heard her—she’d been close—but there were too many rooms in this damn facility to know where the SOB had taken her. Elliot slowed. Focused. His lungs worked overtime, but he forced himself to listen harder. She was here. She was alive. He was close.

  “You don’t have to do this.” Her voice shook and Elliot slowed. The scent of geraniums filled his lungs and he breathed her in deeper as he pressed himself back against the nearest wall for cover. Waylynn. “Nobody else has to get hurt. Please.”

  The static sound of tape coming off the roll filled the silence. Elliot chanced a glance around the corner. There, in the center of the room, Waylynn had been duct taped at the wrists and ankles to a black office chair. Right in front of her stood the bastard who’d taken her with another piece of tape stretched between his hands. Her abductor leaned forward to secure the strip over
her mouth. She struggled to free herself from the grip at the back of her neck and Elliot tightened his hand around the Glock. The SOB had hit her once. He wouldn’t touch her again. Elliot swung gun-first into the lab, the scent of chemicals strong in the air. “Looks like I’m late to the party.”

  Only the man’s dark eyes were visible through the black ski mask, the shooter’s hands raised in surrender. One wrong move. That was all it would take to give Elliot a reason to pull the trigger.

  “That was easy.” The gun wavered in his hand as he closed in on the suspect. “What? You’re not going to shoot me again? How about another round of electricity?”

  Waylynn struggled to speak through the tape, but only mumbled sounds reached his ears. Warning flared in her gaze.

  Fluorescent lighting reflected back off some kind of liquid on the floor. The chemical smell. Elliot caught sight of the empty bottle on the desk beside Waylynn—isopropyl alcohol—and the lighter in the shooter’s hand. “Oh, hell.”

  * * *

  THEY WERE DEAD.

  Relief at seeing Elliot alive warred with the suffocating panic clawing up her throat. If her kidnapper let go of that lighter, everyone in this room would burn. And there wouldn’t be a thing she could do about it. Waylynn pulled at the tape securing her to the chair. One edge slipped off the hem of her sweatshirt and her pulse jerked a bit higher. Could she get to the kidnapper before he killed them all?

  She twisted her wrists again, attention on her attacker. She’d almost lost her best friend once. She couldn’t do it again, couldn’t watch him die in front of her. Although the entire bottle of alcohol her abductor had emptied onto the floor around her might solve that problem faster than she wanted.

  “Drop that lighter and I’ll make you wish you’d killed me when you had the chance.” Blood stained Elliot’s jacket and jeans. Awareness flooded through her as he flinched against the pain he must’ve felt from the bullet.