On The Rocks (43 page)

The sharp blade touched the crease between
her scalp and the shell.

“The last time I did this,” Abrahan sucked
his teeth, “I gave my friend a nasty haircut. I’ll be more careful
with you.”

He’d done this to his
friend
? Her
poor heart beat quadruple time.

The blade slipped down the teeniest bit,
just a nick, but there wasn’t any pain. There wasn’t—

“Oh,
fuck
!” Lips peeled back from her
gums, she clamped her jaw shut hard against the burn. A huge breath
exploded through her teeth sending a spray of spit into Abrahan’s
wicked face.

He swiped the back of his blade hand over
his cheeks and narrowed his gaze. “For that, we’ll go slower.”

Abrahan pulled that ear harder, separating
the skin nanometer by agonizing nanometer. Kizzie’s eyelids
squeezed closed and her mouth went wide. Having the pain so
concentrated, so localized compounded it exponentially.

The metal touched her ear again. He pressed
down and—

Thunk thunk thunk.

A solid pounding sounded against the heavy
outer door of the office. The pressure at the side of her head
eased up.

Abrahan muttered in Portuguese. Or maybe it
was Italian. Hell, he might’ve been screaming “Where. Are. My.
DRAGONS?!
” in Dothraki for all she knew. At present,
Kizzie’s right and left eardrums were having their own battle of
the bands, drumline edition.

Panting, she peered through lids narrowed to
slits. Abrahan had moved toward the guard at the door. He whispered
something that didn’t carry, and then the enforcer opened the door
just wide enough for atoms to pass through single file.

“
Abrir la porta, mano
,” a voice said
on the other side.

Sanzio.

Not good.
Soooo
not good.

Abrahan wanted to keep her ears, but Sanzio?
That guy had been way too eager to see her dead. She’d embarrassed
him, and payback was a muthah.

Kizzie swallowed a sigh. This was going to
be a very long night.

Or a short one.

Definitely the
last
one.

The knocking came again. “
Mano
.”

Abrahan nodded. His guard readied his gun,
inched the door open a little wider on its slide. A low pop and he
lurched forward.

All at once, the room erupted into
chaos.

Gunshots landed in the guard’s back as
Abrahan’s men aimed for the doorway. His shoulders shimmied like
he’d touched an electrified fence. Abrahan was yelling, and the guy
pulling a Swiss cheese at the door came moonwalking into the room
with a quickness.

The force behind Kizzie loosened the tiniest
bit, and though she had no idea what was happening, she reacted
instantly.

Surprise on her side, she yanked an arm
free. But the bastard still locked onto her other wrist wasn’t
letting go without a fight.

She swung around, fist connecting with his
block-like head. That went over like a mosquito bite on King
Kong.

He spun her around and caught her in a
headlock, those meaty arms squeezing like a vice grip. She clutched
at his forearm, digging her nails in through the material of his
suit but by no means making a dent.

Abrahan yelled something, more gunshots
sounded, and then there was the sound of heavy metal clanging shut
against rock.

Kizzie focused on not blacking out. The goon
behind her had his sweaty cheek pressed to hers. The putrid smell
of his breath would be the last thing she ever inhaled in this
life. Comparatively, losing her ears might not have been so
bad...

Her feet came off the ground without her
permission, increasing the pressure from the fleshy noose at her
neck. Kizzie crunched her abs, lifting her knees up high, and then
rammed her heels back into the asshole’s thighs.

He howled and doubled over, but didn’t let
her go. Her feet slammed the ground hard, and she tipped forward
with a small car on her back.

She had to get him off of her. Her breaths
were just air passing through the eye of a needle, and her brain
was starting to go fuzzy. With a final surge of energy, she tried
to buck him off. Looked up in time to see a muzzle aimed right at
her.

Her mouth widened in a soundless gasp at the
same time the gun bucked once. Twice.

Blood spattered her face.

The guy on her back went limp.

And then his entire weight crashed down on
her, tipping them both forward for a face plant.

Digging deep, Kizzie braced hard, shifting
his momentum just enough to have him hit the floor first instead of
pancaking her on the slab of Italian marble. Her breathing punched
out of her chest as she stared up at the ceiling. Seeing lights
meant she wasn’t dead.

Yet.

But if she didn’t move quickly, she would
be.

She kept staring up at the ceiling.
Everything in her tried to move, but in the absence of oxygen the
request went unmet.

A head popped into her field of vision, the
light making a halo around a dark face.

Oh good. She’d gone up. Now she could ask
Peter here about those chains…

“Need an engraved invitation, Princess?”
Xander asked.

Kizzie blinked until her eyes focused. And
then she smiled.

He came back.

Now
so
wasn’t the time for the mini
neener
neener
to Lennox, but, yeah, she was damn glad
to see her man… er… Dom. She was overjoyed to have both her ears,
even if one still stung a lot.

Oh!
And
she wasn’t going out the damn
window.

Laughter bubbled out of her chest as he
pulled her up. A hand at her waist, Xander steadied her when she
swayed in her heels.

“You good?”

She nodded. “Never better.”

“Get on my six.”

Kizzie crouched and searched the guard
behind her for a weapon. Glock in hand, she went to Xander at the
door.

As soon as he peered out, a million rounds
whizzed by the open doorway.

“Close it! Close it!” he yelled, dragging
the metal door on the track. Kizzie followed through, grabbing a
handle and pushing until the heavy expanse was fully in place.
“Shit.”

“Language, Sir,” she teased.

He chuckled.

Kizzie put her back to the door. “Well, this
was a fun date. Got an exit strategy?”

Xander shook his head. He peeled away from
her and went to the computer. Disconnected the ring and slipped it
into his pocket.

Then he scavenged the dead men in the room,
pulling off weapons and clips. He tossed an extra magazine to her
and she held it like she didn’t know what it was for.

“Um… X?” He glanced at her and she patted
her hips. “Where am I storing this?”

She tossed it back and he slipped it into
his pocket.

A guy holding your purse was one thing.

A guy holding your spare clip though…?

She swallowed the dreamy sigh.

“Where’s Abrahan?” The elder Galletti wasn’t
among the dead, and couldn’t possibly have slipped out when Xander
made his very subtle entrance.

Xander stood easily and pointed to the
vault. “Got a shit ton of guns n’ ammo in there with him, and he’s
not gonna stay in there all night. Let’s roll.”

Kizzie blinked. Once the door was open, the
wall directly across from it was exactly that, a wall. Their only
choices were left and right down the hallway. Unless Xander was
packing full-body Kevlar —for two— going outside was suicide.

“You got a secret way out I don’t know
about, X?”

Nodding, he turned and faced the sea of
black beyond the glass.

Shit.

She was going out the window after all.

LENNOX SLAMMED THE brakes and the SUV
screeched to a halt. A crunch of the gears had it parked and then
he killed the engine. Killed the lights.

Killed all hope of getting Kizzie back.

For a while he just sat there, hands
gripping the steering wheel as he heaved deep breaths.

The first time he'd left Kizzie was Bill's
call. This time it was his, and it didn’t feel as bad as the first
go round.

It felt worse.

The only solace was in knowing this time
would be the last.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he
remembered the reasons behind his abandonment and got to work. He
hopped out of the car and jogged the short distance up the rest of
the drive, praying Kizzie aborted the mission. Since he didn’t
answer when she’d called, she had nothing to go down into Abrahan’s
office for. She’d be pissed but she’d deal with it.

Rook perched on the steps of the cottage,
flicking his tail impatiently. Lennox went by him, throwing open
the door and flipping on the lights.

First things first: into the kitchen.
Yanking open the fridge, he grabbed the few leftovers that were in
there and pulled them out for Rook. Let the cat go crazy on chicken
bits and veggies while he went into his room.

Essentials only.

Passport? No. Company issued.

Cash? Absolutely. Only passport anyone
needed anyhow.

He shoved his clothes into his duffel,
grabbed his weapons, and headed out. Repeated the process in
Kizzie’s room. She traveled light, same as him, so it was only a
few more minutes before he had her rucksack stuffed and her clothes
bagged and ready to go.

He jogged outside and tossed the bags onto
the front lawn, Rook’s little head swiveling back and forth as he
followed each throw.

Inside again, Lennox shut all the windows
and then went over to the living room table. Their entire mission
was spread out on the surface, notes, pictures, recordings, laptop.
All of it centrally located and obvious to anyone looking.

He picked up the laptop and slammed it to
the floor. It splintered into five huge pieces and he dug out the
hard drive from the mess. Slipped it into his waistband. Pushed the
printer over and let it crash.

Rook meowed.

“Exactly,” Lennox said. “Fuck this
mission.”

He pulled the phone Bill had given him from
his back pocket and dropped it onto the pile. Fuck that mission,
too.

The old man probably wouldn’t let him go
anyway. And if he couldn’t have Kizzie, getting out didn’t mean a
damn thing, did it?

Right on cue with the response, Rook hissed
and Lennox nodded. “Not a thing.”

He really liked this cat.

The cap Kizzie wore sat on the table. Lennox
chucked that shit across the room. Whoever the guy was, fuck him,
too.

Computer paper in hand, he went around the
place crumbling pages up and dropping them on the floor. Then it
was into the bathroom for the bottles of alcohol.

Opening them two by two, he held a bottle in
each hand and shook the contents out, leaving puddles on the floor
and wetting the few pieces of furniture. The paper. Bottle after
bottle got emptied and then tossed.

Rook jumped out of the way and Lennox kept
going, soaking the place but good.

Some fourteen bottles in, he was
satisfied.

Last things last: back to the kitchen.

From his spot in the center, Lennox looked
around, ensuring that he had everything they needed. Positive he
was good to go, he twisted the knobs on the stove, opening the
valves just enough to leak.

Then he scooped up his cat and walked
out.

28

KIZZIE POKED HER head out the wall of glass,
seeing nothing but a void. She looked down precisely because she
wasn’t supposed to. No vertigo came. In fact, it was so dark out it
looked like she’d step onto a fluffy black carpet…

Right before she plummeted four stories to
her death.

Gulping down air, she jerked back into the
room. Xander stood beside her, that intense chocolate gaze on her
face.

“You see ‘em?”

“This is a really bad idea,” Kizzie
muttered. Whoever the sick fuck was who wrote this into her life
script really needed to be committed.

“Princess, do you see the cables?”

She nodded.

“Good. Do you think you can reach the middle
one. It’s about six feet up.”

Six feet
plus
four stories? Sure, no
problem. Again with the bobble-heading. “I really want to throw up
right now, Sir.”

“You can do that all you want as soon as we
get out of here. The lines go for about thirty, forty meters, okay.
It doesn’t look straight but it is. Every quarter there’s a
vertical line that holds the cables together. Be mindful of
them.”

“Still don’t like this.”

“Trust me, Princess.”

He pulled a knife from his pocket
—
her
knife. How’d he get her lucky knife back?— and dropped
into a crouch. Flipping it open, he slashed across the long skirt
of her dress, and ripped until she was rockin’ an angled mini. He
folded her blade and slid it back into his pocket.

On a deep breath, Kizzie squared her
shoulders and pulled her head out of her ass. If Xander wasn’t
worried about it, she wouldn’t be. Besides, her only other option
was to wait around in here for Abrahan’s men to get through the
door. Then the real fun would begin.

Xander tossed the rich red fabric away, took
her gun and slid it into his waistband. “Heels.”

“What?”

“Off.”

She sucked her teeth, muttered,
“Goddammit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“This secret agent shit is murder on my shoe
game, X,” she deadpanned.

“You can keep the shoes… If you want to be
buried in them.” Xander winked.

Gripping his arm she toed off the heels and
lost three inches.

“One foot in front of the other,” he said.
“Don’t stop until you’re safe. Anything happens to me, keep
moving.”

He aimed at the window of the south
wall.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

Frowning, he glanced back at her. “Shooting
out the walls.” He looked to the west wall, where the two center
panels were wide open, then came back to her face. “You thought we
were gonna shimmy all the way over to the cables? That’s twelve
feet away. Are you crazy?”