Chapter Sixteen

“I will not retire while I’ve still got legs and my makeup box.”

—Bette Davis

Sylvie rushed forward, but Tony circled her wrist, jerking her back before she could plow headfirst into deep shit. In the same move, he took a half step to the side, obstructing Anders’s and Marvin’s view of her. Out of sight and out of mind—he hoped like hell. He prayed the girl on the floor would be okay. But he had to stay focused on the men and, somehow, take them down. He needed to get Sylvie the fuck out of there.

No other outcome was acceptable.

“A pity. For you, that is.” Anders walked farther into the room, crushing the girl’s fingers under his shoe. She didn’t even flinch. “I love being a designer, but it’s my other profession that really makes me feel alive.”

“You goddamn bastard.” Sylvie hurled the words at him, anger thick in her strained voice.

Instead of pissing Anders off, he smiled at the insult.

Marvin loomed by the door, hands clasped behind his back and shoulders straight, his face a blank mask. Former military, Tony figured. Best to target him first. Fast and hard.

Sylvie pushed her way around Tony, stopping shoulder to shoulder with him. “Profession, you call it? You’re not just selling a little blow to some models. You sell people.”

“Bravo.” Anders clapped theatrically. “Let’s see. We have prostitution, a little human trafficking, with a side of drug dealing and blackmail. Which is why I keep such meticulous records.” He waved a hand at the computer. “You know, said that way, it sure does put the harassment complaint you came to bitch about way down at the bottom of the totem pole of bad things, doesn’t it?” He ambled to the filing cabinets. “Of course, it would be harder to manage all of my activities if it wasn’t for my photographic memory. My father thought I was wasting that gift when I enrolled in design school. Little did he know how handy it would become.”

Thank God Anders had an ego the size of the moon, eager to spill all the intimate details of his grand plan. That he was sharing so much didn’t bode well for Tony and Sylvie’s longevity, but at least the more the asshole talked, the more time Tony had to formulate an escape.

The designer crossed to the desk and tapped the cover of Sylvie’s laptop. “I wonder…” He stopped midthought and took another step closer to Sylvie.

The closer Anders came to her, the louder the blood roared in Tony’s ears.

“One of the benefits of a photographic memory is that I never forget a face. Especially not a photographer’s assistant with a totally squeezable ass. Or should I say an undercover cop with a totally squeezable ass…” As Anders turned to Tony, he slid a 9 millimeter Glock from a shoulder holster hidden under his magenta blazer, and held it casually at his side.

“I’m not a cop,” Tony ground out between his teeth. “Not anymore.”

Ignoring him, Anders spoke in a singsong voice, as if reciting a child’s bedtime story. “I remember how blistering hot it was the day I shot your partner. Even the cats were sweating as they watched from the top of the dumpster in the alley behind Yo! Mein. I’d forced a hulking man to his knees in front of me, and the power rush was amazing. Instead of pulling out my dick—which is what normally happens in that situation—I grabbed my gun, put the barrel flat against his forehead, right next to a large mole above his right eye. He cried when I put my finger on the trigger. Not weeping. No, he was too butch for that. Just a single tear, like a brokenhearted girl in a sappy romance movie.” He paused, drawing out the ugly tale as fury raged inside Tony. “Then boom, his brains were splattered all over the asphalt.”

Tony saw red. Every tendon and muscle begged for action, for the chance to rip Anders’s bones from his body and beat him senseless with his own femur. His peripheral vision turned black. His arms and tightly drawn fists shook with long-denied wrath. Thighs tense, ready to attack, he went deadly cold. He emptied his lungs of air and his mind of distractions.

He could move fast enough to kill the asshole before Marvin even realized what was going down. But then what would he do about Marvin? And if he went for the bodyguard first, he’d be taking a huge chance that Anders would shoot them both before he could get to him.

All shitty options. But they were the only ones he and Sylvie had.

One target.

One move.

One outcome.

The single click of a gun safety being released echoed off the bare cement-block walls. Tony swung around.

“I don’t think so.” Marvin centered the gun’s aim on Tony.

Anders’s brows went up.

Marvin moved like lightning, and in three long-legged steps had his Remington .45 shoved against Tony’s ribs. “This is not the day to be a hero.”

“Oh, didn’t I mention it?” Anders malicious smile widened. “You and the bitch are going to die.”

Tony took a mental step back and made himself assess the situation with cold calculation, as he’d learned at the academy. The bodyguard was fast, but with all that bulk, he wasn’t nimble. Pulling out all the stops for a surprise attack would render him useless. Anders, on the other hand, had crazy on his side.

But Tony had more to lose. Sylvie.

The designer turned a disdainful gaze on her. “Can’t say I’ll miss either of you. Of course, attending your funeral may be a bit awkward, but I think I can bear the burden. I’ll be sure to wear something you’d hate.”

“Sylvie, now! Run!” In one fluid motion, Tony pivoted on his heel, grabbed Marvin’s gun, and shoved the muzzle away from his body.

But instead of escaping as planned, Sylvie grabbed her laptop with both hands and winged it at Anders. It smashed into his nose and blood squirted out like a fountain.

While Anders reeled, Tony sliced his elbow into Marvin’s windpipe, and a split-second later smashed his fist into the goon’s face. Marvin went down like a redwood tree, and stayed down. The gun clanked against the concrete floor.

The sound of Sylvie and Anders struggling penetrated the heartbeat drumming in Tony’s ears, and he dove for the gun. Ignoring the searing pain in his bad knee, he rolled into a half squat, gun in hand, Anders in his sights.

The designer stood, bloodied and battered, with his arm around Sylvie’s waist, his own gun’s muzzle planted on her temple.

Tony’s gut hardened. “Let her go.”

Anders pressed the muzzle hard enough against Sylvie’s head that she whimpered. “You’ll never pull the trigger in time. She’ll die first.”

Doubt crept up Tony’s spine, embedding itself in the secret, dark places of his mind where all his fears resided. His thigh muscles started to quake and the pain in his knee hit fifteen on a ten-point scale.

“Although, you’ve known her for what, a few weeks? It’s not like she actually means anything to you.”

Everything came at Tony in a split second. Lavender perfume. The way she twirled her hair around a finger as she listened to his stories. The look on her face when she’d tasted his gravy. How she talked to herself while typing away on her blog. The way she’d climaxed so hard on his deck, screaming his name. Had it been only a few weeks? It seemed like a lifetime.

“Sorry to disappoint you.” Tony raised the gun, putting the asshole square in its sights, his finger on the trigger. “Sylvie, S.I.N.G. Trust your gut.”

Understanding gleamed in her eye a half second before she drove her elbow deep into Anders’s stomach, then ducked.

He pulled the trigger.

A bang thundered through the office.

A high-pitched scream pierced the air.

The thunk of two bodies hitting the floor reverberated through the room.

Blood pooled around what was left of Anders’s face.

For a heartbeat that lasted a decade, Sylvie—still tangled in the bastard’s grip—didn’t move.

Shit.

Tony dropped to his knees beside her. “Sylvie!”

The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils. A panic he’d never experienced before gripped him by the balls and shook him. Then she opened her eyes. Thank God.

Her voice shook. “Nice advice.”

Blood spattered Sylvie’s cheek and dripped off her jaw. Her face had turned from olive to ghostly white, the normal sparkle of her green eyes dulled by shock.

Something inside him broke.

“My God, where are you hit?” His hands were everywhere, smearing the crimson liquid as he searched for her injury.

“It’s not my blood. It’s—” Her mouth trembled.

Relief flooded through him and lightened his arms. He wrapped them tightly around Sylvie to reassure himself as much as her.

And he didn’t let her go until the cops released them from the scene.