“Well, all three of you have been missing in action, so I’ll ask plainly, where have you been?”
Then it went silent. Call it intuition or having dealt with my fair share of shady people lately, but I knew something was off. We couldn't hear anything, but Connor was intently staring at his men as though they were giving a soliloquy.
That was when it hit me.
At the road show I went to with Felicity, those people seemed to have the ability to communicate silently as well. Exactly as Jaxon had feared, the men were turning on us.
“Go around,” I whispered to Nathan, then I charged around the corner and out into the clear view of Connor.
“Oh. You figured you’d turn on me, Brayden, is that it? You think Deon alone can stop me?” Connor asked.
“He's not alone,” one of the goons said. “This whole thing is a setup.”
I took a few steps forward, but Connor pulled out a gun and pointed it at Brayden. “Ah, ah, ah. Why don't you stop right there? Unless you want me to—”
A gunshot cracked into the room, piercing the leg of one of thugs, sending him clattering to the ground. I looked over my shoulder, but no one was there, and that was when I realized the shot had actually come from Brayden. His restraints were applied in such a way that he still had total mobility, and he was able to pull his gun out and shoot. He quickly turned on the other guy, but he'd already let go and was ducking for cover.
Connor fired, but Brayden managed to duck out of the way. Exactly as we expected he might, Connor turned and started to run towards a door near the back, but the second he opened it, he came face to face with the barrel of Nathan’s gun. Nathan backed Connor back into the room with Nikita behind him, who then blocked the door.
Brayden passed me, saying, “I'll guard the front,” and crossed paths with Cherri walking in, her gun drawn as well.
“It’s the end of the line, Connor,” Cherri said.
“Isn't this cute?” Connor said. “A double date? You were just going to storm in here and the power of love was going to help you defeat me?”
Resounding clicks pierced the sky, as several men appeared as if from nowhere, all with guns cocked and aimed at us. Behind me, Cherri yelped as one of them got hold of her, and one appeared behind Nikita, capturing her as well.
Connor walked over and sat down behind his desk at the head of the room. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. I honestly expected a little more from you boys, but I suppose you’re just children at the end of the day. Only children are stupid enough to think the bad guy just sits around in his office unarmed, waiting to be jumped. This isn’t a hero story. That's not how it works. Deon, I half-expected this from you, but Nathan. I taught you better than this.”
“You did,” Nathan replied. “You taught me well. I’ll admit, finding you was a pain in the ass, making sure you were cornered was something else I wasn’t sure about, but going tit for tat with you—I'm a master at that.”
“A master?” Connor scoffed. “Look around you. You’ve got no cards left to play. I’m going to kill that pretty girlfriend of yours in front of you, then your brother. I’ll hunt all your friends and end them too, keeping only that one.” He smiled at Cherri. “I knew ever since I first laid eyes on her that I had to have her, one way or another. How will it feel, knowing she suffers everyday because of you?”
Rage filled my body, not just because Connor was disregarding me, but because he was threatening Cherri in the process. Something in me snapped and I whirled around and punched the guy holding Cherri in the face. He went down in a single hit, as did the two guys standing closest. I pushed Cherri behind me and put myself in front of her. If anyone else touched her, I’d see to it that they stopped breathing.
“I’m sick of this. Why don’t we get the ball rolling?” Connor stood up and held a gun out towards me. “Goodbye, son.”
A gunshot popped out from Connor’s gun and I braced myself for impact, but felt nothing. A fear bubbled in my stomach and I looked behind me, but Cherri was still standing there. I turned around and looked forward and halfway between me and Connor, was Nathan. He was still on his feet, but there was blood dripping from him.
“Nathan!” Nikita and Cherri both screeched.
My brother had put himself between me and a bullet. I glared past Nathan to Connor, and saw for the first time, that flash of regret on his face before he went cold again.
“You will regret that,” I growled. “Just like you will regret all the shots you took at me and missed.”
31
Cherri
Deon reached his hand behind himself and shoved me off to the side. He ducked down and snatched a gun out of one of the gunmen’s hands, and in the distraction, I retrieved my gun from the man who had taken it. Immediately, I lifted it to shoot and hit the guy holding Nikita straight in the shoulder. He released her and she finished the job, throwing her head back and headbutting him unconscious. The remaining guards broke out, firing their guns in our direction. I slipped behind some filing cabinets and fired back, giving Deon enough of an opening to grab Nathan and drag him back.
Nikita backed into the hallway for protection, and eventually she disappeared. I figured she must be running back around, but it only took a handful of seconds for them to get around the first time, and in that same amount of time, she didn’t appear.
Either way, I trusted Nikita to take care of herself, and Deon dragged Nathan back behind where I was. I knelt down next to him and was glad to see the bullet only grazed his stomach.
“Deon,” Nathan said. “You know what you have to do. Just get their attention.”
Deon was firing into the fray, keeping himself mostly blocked by the cabinets. “Yeah, they’re all fucking firing at me and Connor is making a break for it.”
Suddenly, the shooting stopped and I watched as the remaining three shooters crowded around Connor and filed him towards the door Nikita had gone through.
“Shit,” Deon hissed, then he stepped out again. “Who here has a daughter named Cynthia? A wife, Angelique?”
The men stopped. Two of their gazes shifted towards one man, who was seething. “Keep their names out of your mouth.”
“Connor used them, right? To get to you?” Deon took another couple of steps forward. “Threatened to release scandalous photos and videos?”
“Do not listen to him,” Connor demanded. “If you know what's good for you.”
Next to me, Nathan shifted and started trying to get to his feet. My one attempt to hold him down failed, so I braced an arm under him and got him to his feet instead.
“I have all those videos,” Nathan said. “Each one of you who has been blackmailed into working for my father, I hold the key to deleting any sensitive information for good.”
“He's lying,” Connor said. “I’ll prove it to you.”
He grabbed a remote from his desk and turned on the television hanging on the wall behind it. He pressed a few buttons, navigating to a folder on the smart TV, and pressed it, but the second he did, an alarm started to blare from the TV.
I smiled as Sicily's face appeared on the screen. “Oh, hey. If you’re seein’ this, you been Sis-hacked.” He started to snicker. “Sis-hacked. That’s good stuff.”