She heard the sound again. It was closer this time.
Her heart pounded so hard, she was certain it would burst from the pressure.
Please be Trace. Please be—
The door was kicked in by a man dressed in all black.
Not Trace!
Emma shot to her feet and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit her target in the shoulder, his large body slamming into the wall. But he didn’t stop.
“You bitch!” He shot toward her.
Emma screamed and shot again, but her second bullet merely grazed the man’s other arm. She started to squeeze the trigger a third time, but the man was too fast. His booted foot swung around, kicking the gun out of her hand.
No!
Emma barely had time to register the fact that she’d just lost her only means of defense when his fist collided with the side of her head.
Pain exploded inside her skull as she flew to the side, landing hard on the bathroom’s cool, white tile. Tiny white stars filled her vision, and she had to fight with everything she had to remain conscious.
She heard the man talking to someone, on a walkie-talkie, maybe? She couldn’t get her eyes to focus enough to be sure.
“I’ve got the woman. Kill the man and meet me at the airstrip. We’ll be in the air in less than an hour.”
There are two shooters. And this one had just ordered the other to kill Trace.
No!
Emma pushed herself back up to her feet. Then, like a football player pushing against one of those practice things on the field, she let out an animalistic growl as she rammed her shoulder into the guy’s gut as hard as she could.
The unexpected move had the intruder stumbling back. For a second, she thought she might actually take him down.
She was wrong.
He punched her again. And again. This time when Emma fell, she didn’t get back up.
****
Trace took a pictureof the man he’d just killed. Like a coward, the man had run half a mile into the fucking woods. But he’d found him.
The dumbass had been talking to someone. Trace had been too far away to hear what was being said, but the muffled voices had led him straight to his target.
Stripping the dead guy of his weapons and phone, he wasted no time heading back to the cabin.
Though Trace hadn’t found him yet, he was certain Howard was dead. Otherwise, the well-trained man Trace had just killed wouldn’t have gotten as close to him and Emma as he had.
Emma.
He picked up speed as he jogged back to her. He needed to see her. Let her know he was okay.
After that, they were going to get the hell out of here and go someplace safe. Someplace onlyheknew about. And then, they were going to finish the conversation they’d started.
Because she needed to know. She needed to know everything.
How he felt about her. That he wanted her to take the job in Virginia so they could be together. Hell, maybe even get a place together.
The idea of being able to wake up to her every morning filled him with a burst of energy. Suddenly, this anti-commitment hard-ass couldn’t wait to spill his guts to the woman who—in a week’s time—had become the center of his world.