She turned toward the sound—and froze in shock at the scene that greeted her.
Striding quickly through the restaurant, straight for her, was Shawn. Carly’s ex.
And he did not look happy.
He was wearing a vest that looked a lot like the one she’d seen in Marshall’s picture from when he was deployed. It had just as many pockets—but what caught her attention was the large box strapped to the front.
There was a red light in the center that blinked on and off.
Even as he approached, Shawn reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a pistol. He stopped four feet from Kenna, pointed the gun straight at her face and growled, “Where’s Carly?”
For a split second, as cliché as it sounded, Kenna’s life flashed before her eyes.
As she looked down the barrel of that gun, she realized how much she wanted to live. She suddenly longed to call her parents; it had been too long since she’d talked to them. She wanted to spend another night with Marshall. A lifetime of nights. She wanted to travel. Get married. Have children.
“Where’s Carly?” Shawn barked again, stepping closer. Before she could even think of moving, he grabbed her upper arm, shoved the pistol against her temple, and began dragging her toward the bar.
Exactly where she wanted to go. Toward Marshall and his friends, who could hopefully take this asshole out just as they’d done before.
Kenna heard people screaming around her, almost falling over each other trying to get to the beach and away from the crazy man with a gun.
“She got off early,” Kenna told Shawn without hesitation, and she’d never been so glad in her entire life that her friend wasn’t there.
The string of curse words that came out of Shawn’s mouth at her answer was surprising. Not that Kenna was offended by cursing. She’d been known to spew the occasional bad word herself. But she hadn’t even heard some of the words Shawn was muttering.
She jerked on her arm, trying to get away from him, but Shawn’s fingers dug into her flesh, forcing her to continue toward the bar.
As she figured, Marshall, Jag, and Pid hadn’t run in the opposite direction at the first sound of trouble. All three were standing near their chairs, taking in the scene with narrowed eyes. Paulo and Kaleen were frozen behind the bar.
Shawn turned the weapon in their general direction and without warning, shot off a round, shattering a bottle of booze on a high shelf behind the bar.
It was Kenna’s turn to screech. For a split second, she’d thought he’d been aiming for Marshall.
Jag and Pid cleared the bar in one jump, landing behind it and grabbing the two bartenders, hauling them down behind the dubious safety of the wood.
But Marshall, the crazy man, simply straightened from where he’d hunched slightly, and glared at Shawn. She wanted to tell him not to do anything stupid, that he needed to live, but she didn’t get the chance.
“Of course the big bad SEAL doesn’t flinch,” Shawn sneered.
“I’m not scared of bullies,” Marshall said in a deep, hard, chilling tone of voice that Kenna had never heard before. She’d gotten to know Marshall as a man. He was funny, sarcastic, and had never spoken to her in anything other than a respectful, or sexy, or loving tone. This was an entirely different facet of him. A different man.
This was the no-nonsense, deadly Navy SEAL.
“Put down the weapon before this gets even worse,” he ordered.
“Don’t think so. See this?” Shawn asked, gesturing toward the box with the blinking red light. “It’s a bomb. A big fucking bomb. With enough ANFO to blow up not only this restaurant, but the entire fucking building. I can take it all down just like that.”
Kenna didn’t know exactly what ANFO was, but she’d watched enough episodes of Mythbusters to know the situation wasn’t good.
“And even better, it’s got a mercury tilt switch as a detonator.”
Kenna wasn’t sure what that meant either, but at the look on Marshall’s face, knew it was bad. Very bad.
“That’s right, asshole. If you or your friends try to tackle me again, we all go boom. If you shoot me and I fall over, we go boom. If I even bend over at the waist too far, we fucking all go boom. So…now that I have your attention, and we know who the fuck is in charge here,” he glared at Jag and Pid, who’d stood from behind the bar, “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
The two SEALs looked extremely pissed, but they did as Shawn ordered.
It was now only Shawn, Kenna, Marshall, Paulo, and Kaleen left in the restaurant, as far as she could tell. At least, if her coworkers had fled, they’d done so without standing. She hoped they did—and that they’d hit the silent alarm to summon police on their way out. Everyone else had fled onto the dark beach, into the storm, or through the front entrance of Duke’s.
Shawn kept his tight grip on Kenna’s biceps as he walked toward Marshall.
Kenna could see a muscle in her man’s jaw ticking, his hands fisted tight, but otherwise, he stood stock still.
Shawn stopped just out of Marshall’s reach and raised the pistol once more.
Kenna’s heart flew to her throat and she almost stopped breathing.
Instead of killing Marshall right then and there, it seemed Shawn was in a chatty mood. “Just as I thought…you’re not as tough as you think you are,” Shawn smirked.
Kenna saw something flash through Marshall’s eyes at the words—she could’ve sworn it was respect. But that had to be a trick of the light.
Or Marshall was just fucking with Shawn until he could find a way to take him out.
“Good job. I had no idea you’d left that note on my Jeep. How’d you get into the military parking lot? It’s strictly monitored.”
Kenna’s mind whirled. Note? He’d gotten a note too?!
“The military sticker on my car. I’ve done some work on base,” Shawn told him. “Who’d you think the note was from?”
Kenna felt as if she was in the twilight zone. If Shawn wasn’t holding a gun on Marshall, and if he didn’t have a freaking bomb strapped to his body, she might’ve thought the two men were old buddies catching up after some time apart.
“There’s a guy on base who’s been a pain in my ass for a while,” Marshall answered, seemingly unfazed by the fact he was looking down the barrel of a gun. “He said almost those exact words to me not too long ago. Figured he was still messing with me.”
Shawn laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. It was one of deep satisfaction.
“What about your note?” he asked, shaking Kenna. “Did it make you wanna shit your pants?”
“No,” she said with more bravado than she really felt.
“Fucking liar. All bitches lie,” Shawn seethed, shaking her even harder, his grip painful.
Kenna knew she was going to have some pretty damn vivid bruises in the next week or so…if she lived that long. Her arm throbbed where Shawn held it, and once more she tried to wrench herself out of his grip, but he simply laughed.
Kenna had already been terrified enough by this point, but the crazy look on Shawn’s face made her blood run cold. She could hear sirens now, and she prayed the police would hurry. But at the same time, she worried about what they’d do. If they didn’t know about the bomb, they might try to take Shawn out. And if he fell, that bomb would go off.