But he already knew that.
For the first ten minutes after stealthily making landfall, he and Mason had slunk around the island, watching. Watching as the mysterious team assembled their hostages. Observing the way they carried themselves. Cataloging all those details both big and small that would eventually give them the advantage. Like…the short, mouthy dude favored his right knee. There’s an injury there that can be exploited. Like…the asshole with the Southern accent had trouble using his nondominant left hand. So if it comes down to CQB—close quarters combat—always approach from his weaker side. All of this they’d filed away. And all the while formulating a plan. This plan.
“You drop your weapon!” the dude still drawing down on Maddy thundered. Bran knew two angry, red laser dots glowed on his chest. He imagined he could feel them there, boring, burning, inciting the darker side of him until his blood was a conflagration coursing through his veins, his heart a fiery fist that pounded flames through his chest.
“I’ll give you one more chance!” he yelled, feeling the warm waves crashing against the backs of his calves. A blade of seaweed slipped by his ankle, slick as an eel. “Drop your weapons and you might live!”
His finger twitched on the trigger. It would be so easy. Just a couple of pounds of pressure. Just a gentle contraction of familiar muscles against familiar resistance and bang! Done. One less evil piece of shit on the Earth.
“Ha!” The guy who seemed to be the leader cracked a laugh that echoed over the dark water. “In case you haven’t noticed, asswipe, you’re outnumbered!” He made a weird sucking noise against his teeth, like he was trying to remove a piece of stuck spinach.
Asswipe, eh? Careful, gavone, or I might make you eat that insult along with that spinach.
“I count four against one.” Bran hitched one shoulder casually. “Which means you’ll overwhelm and kill me in the end. But not before I take one of you with me.” He jerked his chin toward Lead A-Hole. “I’m thinking I’ll make you that one.”
The man must have heard the truth in Bran’s tone. Bran could see his throat work over a hard swallow behind the fabric of the balaclava.
That’s right. Go ahead and make my day.
Before Lead A-Hole had a chance to respond, a red dot appeared on the chest of the man with the bum knee.
Mason. Impeccable timing, my friend.
“Uh-oh.” Bran tsked. “I hate to hafta tell you… No, wait. I love having to tell you that the odds just swung in my favor.”
“What the—?” The guy glanced down at the gleaming dot centered directly over his heart. Bran watched with satisfaction as his eyes widened. “What’s going on here? Who are you motherfuckers?” He lifted his chin to Bran. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same questions,” Maddy piped up. And there she was. The loudmouthed dynamo Bran had come to know and…lust after. Only, right now she needed to shove a sock in it. “Who are you? And what do you want with us?”
“None of that matters,” Bran insisted. When Maddy turned to him, he sent her a look. Her lips flattened, the upper one protruding just past the lower. But she kept her mouth shut. That big, beautiful, Julia Roberts upside-down mouth of hers with the top lip plumper than the bottom. The mouth he’d kissed on that hot night three months ago. The mouth that…
You stupid pazzo, he scolded himself. Now’s not the time!
“What matters,” he continued, “is that you find yourselves in the middle of a crossfire situation. And judging by the way you jackholes carry those SCAR-Ls, you know a little bit about military tactics. Which means you also know that being caught in the middle of a crossfire situation means you could be dead as shit in about ten seconds if you don’t drop your weapons!”
Maddy blinked rapidly, and then she did the damndest thing. She grinned. At him. And it was all blinding and brilliant and you’re my hero.
Well, shit.
He watched as the leader glanced over at the guy sporting a shiny red dot on his chest. Bran decided to throw in a little more incentive. “Look. We don’t wanna hurt you. We just want you to let these good people go. And then we’ll let you go. No questions asked. So what’d’ya say you toss those rifles on the sand, hightail it back to your boat, and we’ll forget this ever happened, capisce?”
Lead A-Hole darted a glance around, seeming to search for another way out. Part of Bran hoped he’d try something—the dark, angry, bloodthirsty part of him. But Maddy was downwind of a Category 5 shitstorm—a.k.a. having a full auto aimed at her cute nose—so the other part of him just wanted to get rid of these mysterious hooded men as bloodlessly and expediently as possible so he could run and gather her in his arms.