“He’ll take me out,” she said. “I could very well survive the hit, especially this close. Through and through. You know that. Either way, it’ll give you an opportunity to rush him.”
A waxy grin slid across Carver’s face. “This is going to be fun.”
Levi shook his head. “Not on your life, beautiful. I’ll rush him.”
He mopped his brow with a sleeve again. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
“When I do, you put every round you have into his chest.”
“I can’t risk hitting you.”
“Are you guys inbred?” Carver asked, astonished that they’d kept talking.
They both watched him like hawks waiting for their prey to flinch. To weaken. To lose focus for that tenth of a second it would take for them to make their move.
“You’re stronger than I am,” she said. “You’ll have a better chance at overpowering him.”
“That’s it.” He pointed the barrel at Levi’s chest, and the world tilted under her feet. “How ’bout I just take him out of the equation altogether?”
Sun risked a glance. Adam had taken hold of Levi’s T-shirt with his free hand, the fear on his face palpable. Elliot stood close behind her, but he was also almost as tall as she was. She wasn’t as much of a barrier for him as Levi would have been. If she rushed Carver, Elliot could be shot instead of her. Or, more likely, the bullet would go right through her and into him.
She needed to divert the gunfire away from the boys and give Levi enough time to do the rushing. She would have to dive away from them.
“If you don’t stop those wheels spinning in your brain, Sheriff, I’ll kill the boys first.”
“If you kill them, you won’t know where the money is,” she said.
“I only need one for that, sweet cheeks.”
“Are you sure? How do you know Seabright didn’t move the money himself? Elliot could have told him where to find it.”
“I can work with that.” He was having a hard time keeping the gun steady. Her chances of survival were multiplying by the second. “I’ll kill you all and pay Seabright a visit in the hospital.”
“He doesn’t know where it is,” Elliot said, trying to step around her.
She held him back.
“Only I know where it is and I’ll never tell you.”
“Problem solved,” Carver said.
“On three,” she said to Levi. Of course, she wasn’t an idiot. She’d never really count. But Carver didn’t need to know that. She dragged her palm across her duty weapon in preparation.
Levi lowered his head and watched Carver from underneath his thick lashes.
Carver scoffed at her. “Do you really think you stand a chance against an assault rifle?”
“I do.” She tilted her head. “Not a particularly great one, but yeah. I think I have a decent chance.”
“I think I have a better one.” He stepped closer and aimed the gun at her chest point-blank.
He was really bad at this. He was far too close, for one thing. The small room probably had more to do with that than his bad-guy skills. She shouldn’t be so quick to judge. But the claustrophobia? He should’ve thought this through before barreling into a mineshaft.
Sun tensed, preparing to make her move, when Zee’s voice drifted toward them like a ghost in the darkness.
“I think I have the best chance of all.” She eased forward into the light, the shadow from the tunnel sliding off her like water. She kept her rifle steady and leveled at Carver’s head.
Quincy followed behind her, his sidearm drawn, his aim as steady as Zee’s despite his heavy breathing. He knelt at her side, keeping the sites trained on the sociopath.
Both of them were covered in a fine sheen of sweat. They’d run. Something had alerted them to Carver’s presence, and they’d run up the mountain instead of using the ATVs so they wouldn’t tip him off.
“It’s over, Carver.” Sun raised a hand and showed him her palm, keeping her other one on her sidearm.
“You clearly don’t know how talented I am with this gun. I once picked off a diplomat in a crowd of thousands in Russia at five hundred yards in high winds.”
“You’re an assassin?” she asked, appalled.
He lifted a shoulder.
“My parents set me up with an assassin?” She shook her head. “Why am I not surprised?”
He didn’t fall for it.
“Actually,” Elliot said from behind her, “if anyone pulls the trigger, the cave will explode.”
She glanced over her shoulder in shock. “What? Why?”
“I opened the propane tank.”
She looked down. Sure enough, he stood right by the propane tank hooked to the small cookstove and the smell of rotten eggs hit her.
“He’s lying,” Carver said.
She turned back to him. “Take a whiff, Carver. You pull that trigger, we all die.”
She could see it in his eyes. The moment he made the decision. The microsecond he’d come to terms with the fact that he would just have to kill everyone there, including Elliot, and hope to make it out alive. He stood at the opening to the tunnel that led to the pit. It was too much to hope he’d fall into it. He could fire his rifle and dive into the next shaft, but the pit was farther in, if Sun’s memory was correct. Carver could feasibly escape with his life. Maybe get to Seabright and attempt to torture the guy into telling him where the money was stashed.
Clearly, he didn’t know Seabright.
Carver tightened his grip on the rifle and eased back into the adjoining tunnel. “Then I guess we all die,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut for a fraction of a second as though trying to focus.
The claustrophobia was taking its toll. She imagined the walls were closing in on him. The edges of his vision were darkening. He was running out of time and he knew it.
Zee and Quincy exchanged glances, not sure of what to do. They couldn’t fire, either.
Then again, if Carver did, would the explosion really kill them? Sun doubted there was enough gas in the air to get the job done. It would burn off instantly, but the propane tank could explode. The propane tank that was right beside the boys.
The fact that Carver had yet to pull the trigger gave Sun hope. He could have killed her easily before Zee and Quincy arrived, but he hesitated. Maybe not quite the world-renowned assassin he claimed to be.
Both Zee and Quincy looked to her for direction. She quickly dropped her gaze, then returned it to them, indicating the boys. They nodded. The minute Carver fired, they would protect them the best that they could while she and Levi tried to subdue her would-be ex.
Carver backed farther into the tunnel, putting more distance between them. Lessening her chances of success with each step.
Sun felt rather than saw the tension in Levi’s muscles. They were coiled, ready to strike the moment she made her move.
Carver tightened his grip on the rifle, preparing to fire. She’d hoped for another blink. Another microsecond of freedom to up her chances of lunging toward him without getting a bullet through her heart, but even the sweat beading onto his lashes didn’t elicit a response.
“You’re forgetting one thing,” she said, stalling when she realized he was actually aiming at the propane tank now. It would definitely explode. It would likely kill Elliot. Or Adam. Or Levi. She fought the fear that had a stranglehold on her throat and moved to block his line of sight.