“Will do,” Ian replied. “Go pick up Avery and batten down the hatches for tonight. The rest of you get your asses to the club. We have to figure out what this fucker wants.”
Liam took a long breath. He was walking away from everything he’d held close for years. For years, all that had mattered was figuring out what had happened to him, but now he had a future. He was going to grab it with both hands and never let it go. Avery would forgive him. She had to because he was going to prove he could be worthy of her.
He pulled the radio off and packed up his gear and left the key card on the bed. He needed to get to her as fast as possible. He’d rather take her away tonight, but Ian was right. There were issues to be settled, and they didn’t want to tip Nelson off. Or Molina.
Liam opened the door and out of his peripheral vision caught a flash of metal. He leapt back, shoving his bag up and catching the gun just as it went off with a quiet little ping. Silencer.
Fuck. He’d been followed, and he hadn’t even known it. He was losing his edge.
Adrenaline flooded his body. His opponent was caught off guard, and Liam reached out, grabbing the arm that held the gun before the man could aim again. He pulled his attacker inside. The last thing he needed was to get Scotland Yard involved. He brought his knee up, catching the man in the gut while he twisted the hand with the gun. It fell neatly to the floor while his opponent tried to fight back.
Liam let his instincts take over, forgetting everything but the fight. He brought his fist up in a neat uppercut that caught his opponent right on the jaw. A nice crack split the air as the bone broke and blood started to flow. The man fell to the floor but not before Liam managed to get his gun in hand. It was time for a little torture. Fuck. He hoped the guy could still talk. Liam looked down at him. Maybe he could just write down all the pertinent information. Liam hadn’t broken his hands. Yet.
It was turning out to be a terrible day, but a little interrogation was just what the doctor called for. His inner sadist nearly stood up and cheered.
Until the second bastard invaded.
“Mr. Molina says hello, Mr. Donnelly. He wants you to stay away from his lady friend. Permanently.” The second guy was dressed in an immaculate suit and had come equipped for a gunfight.
Liam put a foot on the unconscious, hopefully-wasn’t-dead-yet man, though he might have used a little too much force because the bloke wasn’t moving. Liam had to admit he might have sent pieces of bone straight up into the git’s brain. He could be a little forceful at times, but he wasn’t going to tell his current attacker that his partner might be dead already. “How about you put the gun down, and I don’t kill your friend here.”
The new guy fired once, and Liam was no longer worried that he’d killed the first attacker. The bloke on the floor now had a bullet in his brain. His new opponent simply smiled. “I never liked him much anyway.”
Liam got off a shot before he rolled away behind the big four-poster bed. It wouldn’t provide much cover, but it was all he had. This bloke wasn’t playing, and he was far better trained than the idiot he’d sent in as his first line of fire.
“You aren’t what you say you are, Mr. Donnelly. I thought I was shooting a guy who was unlucky enough to be fucking the woman my boss wants, but you’re here for something else, aren’t you? Who sent you? You’re not a bloody construction worker.”
And now this guy had to die, too. He couldn’t just get away. Liam huddled behind the bed, catching sight of the man moving in the mirror over the dresser on the opposite wall. He stepped over his dead compatriot and had the deeply bland look of a man who had killed hundreds of times.
Liam flattened his body to the carpet and took the only shot he had, splitting the guy’s ankle and sending him to the floor, where he promptly proved what a pro he was. There was the briefest glimpse of his body falling and then a shot that went straight under the bed and across Liam’s left bicep. Pain flared, fire running over his skin.
And there was not a second to consider the pain. He got to his knees as a second shot grazed his hip. He rolled to the side and let everything but the fight fall away. There was nothing past this moment and this man. He would live or die and everything crystalized. Time seemed to slow down, his vision getting sharper as though he could laser focus.
Breathe in. Move to the side.
Breathe out. See the target, a little spot right between his opponent’s eyes. Lift the gun.
Breathe in. Fire.
The man’s head jerked back, blood splattering behind him, but on his forehead there was only a neat little hole.