Increasing the length of his strides, he started to gain on her. She glanced back over her shoulder and spotted him, but with his sunglasses on there was no way she could know he was staring at her. Facing forward, she quickened her pace and hitched the strap of her bag up higher on her shoulder.
Only a young guy walking a spaniel appeared on the sidewalk ahead of them. Will maintained his distance from the target until the guy passed him, then sped up again.
The woman glanced back again, and this time he could tell she was nervous of him. A flare of excitement hit. The thrill of the hunt. And the little alleyways were coming up soon.
He’d already typed out a command to the others on his phone. His thumb hit over the send button as he approached the woman. Go.
Less than twenty seconds later, he heard a vehicle turn the corner behind them. Glancing back, he saw the van.
He shoved his phone in his pocket as he faced forward again, his pulse accelerating under a burst of adrenaline. They’d already passed the first alley, but there was another one just a dozen meters or so farther up. And there wasn’t another soul around who would see this. He’d scouted the area beforehand to make sure there were no cameras around.
As the van neared him, he broke into a run. The woman turned, but too late. He grabbed her from behind, clapped a hand over her mouth to cut off her scream and dragged her into the alley.
She fought him but he subdued her easily enough with an arm across her throat, applied with enough pressure to make breathing difficult, and his hand still across her mouth. She kicked at his knees and shins as she twisted but the flat, rubber soles of her trainers didn’t hurt at all.
The van whipped into the alley, plunging them into shadow. As he dragged her toward it the passenger side door slid open, and the guy in the back reached for her. Together they quickly got her inside, and Will slammed the door shut behind him.
“Go,” he snapped to the driver.
His colleague was struggling with the woman, his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams. Will turned around to help subdue her and narrowly avoided a foot to the jaw. Then the van suddenly lurched to a sharp stop.
He stumbled back, slamming into the door. “What the hell?” he snarled at the driver.
“Arsehole’s blocking me in,” he responded.
Will looked back, and sure enough, a car was parked across the end of the alley. His heart lurched. Had they been seen? Was the driver calling 999?
“Ah, Christ,” the guy struggling with the woman hissed. “We’ve been made.”
“Shut up,” Will barked, mind racing.
He faced their captive. The first thing they needed to do was subdue her and get her out of sight in case someone came to investigate. He had a sedative to use if necessary, though it usually wasn’t once he got the cuffs and gag on.
But as he reached for her arms, Harry suddenly stilled. His face went slack, his eyes wide with surprise and confusion. He slumped to the side, his hand falling away from the woman’s mouth.
Will went to grab a handful of her hair, but she blocked it with a move that told him she’d taken at least a self-defense plan. Then her expression shifted, going from terror to a smile of pure malice that made the hair on his nape stand up right before her hand shot out and something sharp jabbed into the side of his neck.
EDEN JAMMED THE end of the pin into Heaver’s neck with a burst of pure satisfaction. He yelled and grabbed at her hand, his grip bruising, but it didn’t matter. Her custom-blended concoction was already doing its job.
Within seconds Heaver blinked fast and started to topple sideways. Eden helped him out by planting the sole of her foot in his chest and sending him flying.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” the driver demanded, scrambling out of his seat and coming toward her.
She settled into a crouch and waited, coiled and ready. Come and get it, asshole.
His eyes widened when he saw his two buddies sprawled out in the back. A blade flashed as his hand came up. She dodged it as it swung toward her, striking the heel of her hand into his face.
His head snapped back, a sharp howl coming from him as he doubled over, cupping his nose. She swept his feet out from under him with her leg, and rolled out of the way just as the van door was ripped open. Zack started to lunge inside.
“No, I’m good,” she told him, leaping lightly to her feet once more. The driver was lying crumpled on his side now, moaning and crying as he cursed at her. “This was almost too easy. Cocky bastards.”
“You dose him?” Zack asked, voice taut.
“Nope. No need.” And this way he’d be able to talk better.
Zack picked up her bag and held it open for her. Bastards should have dumped it rather than bringing it into the van, but whatever. These guys weren’t nearly the pros they thought they were.
“I’m just the driver,” the guy blurted. “I don’t know anything, I swear!”
“Shut up.” She capped the end of the used pins and put them in the bag, then grabbed the restraints and nylon rope she’d brought and turned toward him.
He’d scrambled up onto one elbow but seemed afraid to move, glancing from her to Zack through streaming eyes as blood dripped over his lips and chin. “Listen to me, I don’t know who you guys are, but just let me go and I won’t say anything. It’s them you want,” he insisted, nodding at his two buddies lying unconscious on the floor. “They’re the ones who know everything.”
“Shut up.” He recoiled when she grabbed his wrist, howled when she wrenched his beefy arm behind him and angled it upward, putting pressure on both the shoulder and elbow joints. One jerk, and she would pop them right out of their sockets.
It was tempting.
She curbed the impulse, jerked the flex cuff around that wrist and used his awkwardly-bent arm to steer him onto his stomach, keeping him in place with a knee in his back as she wrenched his other arm behind him.
“Who the fuck are you?” he snarled, his face wet with blood and tears.
Oh yeah, he’d talk, all right. “Your worst nightmare.”
Seeing the driver no longer posed any kind of threat to her, Zack stopped hovering and climbed in the front and started searching for evidence they might find useful. “Got a cell phone and a radio here.”
“Clone the phone and take the radio.” Eden had no doubt that Amber could get all kinds of juicy things from them.
Working fast, she secured the driver’s wrists behind him, bound his feet, then secured the others in the same way before tying them all together. In seconds she’d stripped them of their phones, wallets and weapons—switchblades—and handed everything over to Zack to deal with.
“Found this too,” he said, holding out a slim metal box containing loaded syringes, no doubt containing whatever sedative they’d intended to dose her with.
“Leave it for evidence.” Straightening, she spotted the chain loop welded to the floor in the back, and paused. If she’d been like the other women they’d taken, they would have bound her and chained her to it, rendering her helpless.
A wave of rage hit. Assholes.
The driver let out a yelp as she seized his bound wrists, quickly tied a constrictor knot around the flex cuffs, then secured the rope to the chain loop in the floor and tightened it until there was no room for any of them to move more than a few inches.