Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) (31 page)

“I bet you hate that prick Olund, because everybody who knows him does,” Noah said. “But how about his money? You want some of that?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The rustling stopped. Raw, choppy breaths from the man.

“Want to be rich?” Rolling the dice, betting on greed and curiosity. Distracting him.

“Fuck you, man,” the wounded man gasped out. “This ain’t no game show.”

“Just hear me out. Before anyone else gets hurt.” Noah rose slowly, letting the gun dangle from his spread fingers as he stepped into the doorframe, hands up.

A bald man with a black and silver goatee crouched against the wall. Blood coursed down his face. More leaked from his boot. He’d slashed Caro’s restraints, and pulled her down on top of himself as a shield. He held the gun to her temple and held Caro clamped against his chest. Blood trickled down in long rivulets between her breasts. A knife lay next to them on the floor. The blade was bloodied. He’d been using it to cut her.

The bastard was pretty fucking quick, for an unmod. But there were claw marks on his face. Caro had done that. Good for her.

She looked up at Noah. Her lips tight, but her eyes were clear. Her sig was ablaze.

“Take the ammo out of the gun,” the thug commanded.

“Don’t hurt her,” Noah said.

“I swear to God, I will cut her throat right now if you don’t empty that gun and kick it over to me.” The blade dug in deeper. Blood pooled in her navel.

Noah pulled out the magazine, dropped it to the floor, kicked it.

“Take out the chambered round,” the man said. “Toss the bullet over here. And slide me the gun.
Now,
fuckface.”

He did as he was told. The bullet bounced and rolled right into the puddle of blood at the man’s feet. The gun rattled across the plywood floor.

“Don’t hurt her,” Noah said again. “She’s the only one who can open Olund’s safe. She doesn’t know what’s inside it. But I do. Major money. You in?”

“Shut up, asshole, or she’ll feel it.” The guy whacked Caro in the side of the head with the gun butt. Noah buzzed on the raging edge of a supernova.

Not now. Not yet. Not with a gun to Caro’s head.
Not. Yet.

“You must be the son of a bitch who fucked up my team yesterday,” the man snarled. “I’m not doing any goddamn deals with you.”

“Hear me out,” Noah said. “I hate that psycho prick, and I want him dead, preferably slowly, and screaming. But I have nothing against you . . . yet. There’s no reason you and I couldn’t cut a deal.”

“You are so full of shit.” The man shoved the gun barrel against Caro’s face. She winced as it dug into her cheek. “What the fuck would I need you for?”

“Getting the job done right,” Noah said calmly. “You’d have to take down Mark on your own otherwise. It’ll be a whole hell of a lot easier to do with me.”

“Oh, God,” Caro said shakily. “No! No, you can’t—”

“Shut up and do as you’re told,” Noah said curtly.

“Talk fast,” the bleeding man said. “I’m getting bored.”

More like about to pass out from shock. The wound was serious. But the guy was tough. “Mark never told you what was in that safe?”

He watched the guy’s sig carefully, filtering out Caro’s overlay.

“It’s not my fucking business what’s inside,” the guy growled.

Noah read defensiveness, conflict and anger. The man holding Caro really didn’t know what was in the safe, and he was curious, even if he was afraid of Mark. He was smart, and his survival instincts were good.

“So you’re that kind of guy,” Noah said softly. “You toe the line. Take what you’re given.”

The other man gripped Caro tighter, making her catch her breath. “Right now, asshole, I have the gun, and you have jack shit. Tell me what’s in the fucking safe.”

“Bearer bonds,” Noah said. “Eighty million bucks worth. Half are yours.”

“I don’t believe you,” the man hissed.

Noah smiled thinly. “That’s a forty million dollar payday. Why else would I be here?”

“You tell me.”

“To get rich. So how much did Mark pay you to pick up this chick? Fifteen thousand? Twenty thousand?”

“More than that.”

“Chump change,” Noah said. “You call that money?”

“Yeah. With benefits. Like this.” He squeezed Caro’s breast. She gasped sharply.

Noah’s hands clenched. “I need her alive and functional. She set the biometric parameters on the vault. Only her brainwaves can open it. The safe is programmed to destroy anything you try to extract by force. Kill her, and you kill the money.”

“Hmmm.” The thug ran a meaty, bloodcaked hand over Caro’s tangled hair, and cupped her head. “Brain waves, huh? You could just shave off all this pretty hair, stick on some electrodes. Record the brainwaves. Crack the safe with a playback. Beats hauling this whiny bitch around.” He yanked hard at her hair. “Then you’d look like me,” he crooned, licking her throat. “Only scared.”

The rage almost ran him over. Noah forced it down. He’d make that piece of shit pay in blood for every humiliation. Later. When Caro was safe.

“Won’t work,” he said. “The sensors pick up body heat, blood flow and electrical fields, all keyed to her. Not my preference. I like to eliminate all witnesses. But shit happened, and I had to improvise.”

“Big fail, fuckface. Right now, everything belongs to me. The girl, the safe, the bonds. You.”

“Only until Mark Olund gets here,” Noah said. “I’m telling you I can help you flatten him like the piece of shit that he is. Then you and I get to split some serious money.”

The doubt on the guy’s face was reflected in the frantic fluctuations of color around his head.

“One thing at a time,” the guy said. “To start with, I want you restrained. You make me tense.” He extended a hand without taking his eyes off Noah, feeling around for a canvas bag next to the bed. He pulled out thick zip ties and put them in Caro’s hand. “First, take off your jacket and throw it toward me,” he said to Noah. “Then turn around. Kneel. Put your hands behind your back. She puts the cuffs on you. I hold the gun to her head while she does it. Then she cuffs your ankles. One wrong move and she dies. Bye bye brainwaves. You follow me?”

“Yes,” Caro said, when he prodded her with the gun barrel. “I hear you.”

Noah shrugged off his jacket and tossed it. It landed halfway between them. His smartphone slid out of the pocket and onto the floor.

“Turn around!” the man barked. “Get down! Cross your wrists and keep them crossed!”

Noah sank to his knees. Echolocation formed an exact picture of where Caro and her captor were in space, as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Caro was moving. A masculine grunt and a sharp hiss of pain showed that her captor was on his feet as well.

Muted sounds. Zip ties scattered on the floor. A thud of a gun butt connecting with Caro’s head again. A stifled grunt of pain.

He hung on to himself. Patience. Wait for it, goddamnit.
Wait.

“Pick them up, you dumb cow, and don’t drop them again,” the guy snarled.

“You won’t have to split the take with anyone but me, once Mark is dead,” Noah said. “There’s no one else to pay off. No witnesses but me. And her,” he added, like an afterthought.

The other man hesitated. “What about my men?”

Noah shrugged.

“Shit!” He sounded irritated. “All of them?”

“You need a better crew,” Noah remarked.

“So do you. And why did you stash her in that flophouse dump if she’s the key to all that money?”

Noah stared straight ahead. “I was keeping an eye on her there. Neither one of us has a crew, but together we could take Mark. Are you in?”

There was a long silence as the man thought it over. “Ninety percent for me, ten for you,” he said slowly. “Since I’m the one holding the gun.”

“Get real,” Noah said. “Fifty-fifty. You can’t take down Olund without me.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. That guy is one hard son of a bitch.”

“So am I. Just keep in mind that it’s him I want to kill and not you.” Noah eased around to look at him. “Just look outside, if you want proof. I’m good at killing.”

The thug was holding the gun to the back of Caro’s neck and clutching a bedpost with the other hand. He studied Noah through slitted eyes. “Who the fuck are you, man?”

“Does it matter?”

“That’s not an answer. Tie him up.” He shoved Caro forward. “Move!”

She stumbled forward. He felt her cold fingers fumbling at his wrists, her hair swinging, brushing his forearms.

“Tighter,” the man barked. “I want it to hurt. Now the feet.”

Caro kneeled and struggled at his ankles with the zip tie until the guy was satisfied.

The guy pulled her roughly back against himself, his arm pressing down on her throat, the gun pressed to her temple. Noah turned his head.

“So?” Noah asked. “How about that forty million? Do we have a deal?”

“I didn’t say that you could look at me, dickhead. I should just give you to Mark as a bonus. Bet he’d be happy to have you to play with.”

“Put the gun down,” Noah coaxed. “I’m restrained, and she’s harmless.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” the man replied.

“We need her alive and functioning,” Noah insisted.

“You keep saying that.”

“Look at her,” Noah said. “She’s a basket case. The gun is overkill.”

“Yeah,” the other guy said, with a harsh laugh. “Right. Funny.”

“She’ll do whatever you say. Right?” Noah looked at Caro.

She drew in a hitching breath. “Yes,” she whispered, through bluish lips.

“See?” Noah said. “She’ll cooperate. I’m restrained. She and I both want to live. And all of us want that money.”

Caro nodded.

Slowly, the guy lifted the gun barrel from her head.

Noah snapped the zip tie effortlessly and sprang up, twisting in the air. “Dive!” he yelled.

Caro hit the ground. Mark’s thug opened fire. Bullets whizzed past Noah’s cheek, but he evaded them, with his combat reflexes and his AVP. One barely clipped his ear. Others pocked the walls.

He landed, slamming the man to the ground. The guy’s gun skittered under the bed. He rammed his knee up toward Noah’s groin.

Noah twisted to protect himself as the guy snatched up the bloodied knife he’d dropped on the floor earlier. He whipped it up.

Noah blocked the stabbing blow to his face, but his opponent’s blade sliced through his sleeve and carved a gash in his arm. Noah yanked the knife from his pants pocket. With a yell, drove the notched blade down through his opponent’s hand, pinning it to the floor.

The knife bit deep into the damp plywood.

The guy screamed, convulsing. Blood spread beneath his hand. He stabbed at Noah with his knife, but his wild, slashing strokes didn’t reach, not with his other hand pinned to the ground.

Noah snagged the man’s knife hand, torqued it . . . and crushed it. The knife fell.

Noah straddled the guy. That fuckhead had hit Caro. Cut her. Now he paid.

He started in on the guy’s face. Then his ribs. Instinct and training took over, and he let it roar on through him like a flash flood—

. . . Noah . . . Noah! Stop! It’s enough! Stop it, goddamnit!

The words came from faraway. Caro’s voice. He fought his way back.

Those strange, rhythmic rasps were his own panting breaths. His throat was raw. He had a vague memory of screaming.

He stared down at the broken, unrecognizable man beneath him. Mark’s bald, goateed thug was a gory mess. Blood gushed from his nose, his jaw was askew, his eye socket was crushed, trapping his eyelid so that it could not blink. His other eye watered, rolling frantically.

His own knuckles looked like raw meat.

“Noah?” Caro’s voice was barely a whisper. “Are you OK?”

He nodded, struggling off the guy. Feeling weak. Just when he needed to be strong for her.

She grabbed him. His forehead pressed the cool skin of her belly, but just for a second. He had work to do. He heaved himself off the guy. Reached to touch his carotid artery.

There was a pulse, barely. He was shutting down. He saw it in the man’s sig, too. No tears when this one went down the drain. “Dying,” he said.

“Good.” Her voice hardened. “Wish I’d done it myself.”

“I killed the ones outside,” he said. “Three more out there.”

Caro got to her feet and swayed for a moment, clutching the bedpost for balance. Her eyes looked glassy, but he could see her fighting the drop in blood pressure by sheer force of will. “What now?” she asked. “I assume you don’t want to involve the police.”

“That’s right,” he said. “My DNA would confuse the living shit out of a crime lab. But Mark won’t call the cops either when he shows up. This is his mess. Let him deal with it. We just need to get you away before he shows up.”

Noah looked around and spotted a crumpled wrapper from a breakfast sandwich on the floor. He retrieved it, fished a pen from a pocket of his own jacket and smoothed the grease-stained paper out onto the window sill. “You write this,” he said.

“Write what? Why me?”

“Mark might recognize my handwriting, even if I try to disguise it. I don’t want to identify myself to him yet.” He pushed the pen into her hand.

“OK.” She poised it over the crumpled wrapper. “So?”

“Write, ‘Oblio.chat. You’re the Keyseeker. I’m the Keyholder. When I find you, we’ll talk terms.’ Just that. Nothing else.”

She looked up, eyes wide and wary. “Terms? With Mark? Are you nuts?”

“We have to establish a point of contact. I’d finish this right now, if I could, but I’m not prepared. And I don’t want you anywhere near him.” They stared at each other. Finally, he made an impatient gesture. “Write it. Now. So we can get out of here.”

She wrote it, asking him what was capped and what was not along the way. Noah crumpled it, bent down, and shoved the ball of paper into the dying man’s mouth.

Caro turned her gaze away, shuddering.

His own jacket lay stuck to a thick smear of blood. Too bad. He would have liked to use it for Caro. He scooped it up anyway, along with his phone.

Her coat caught his eye in the corridor, crumpled and forgotten in a corner. He picked it up and draped the ugly thing over her shoulders. Her bare, bloodied feet looked so vulnerable, poking out from the frayed hems of her blood-spattered jeans. He hated that she had no shoes on. “Come on,” he said shortly, tugging on her hand.