It had to be one of the guys. Who else would she call? Yes, it was Zeke. He was in the paddock the previous afternoon, lunging Iesha, and Cantara had rang him to see if he needed anything. Trusting to luck that she hit the right button on a phone she wasn’t used to and couldn’t actually look at, she pressed last number redial. She barely had time to do so before Romney jerked her to her feet, his grip vicious, unbreakable.
“Such a shame,” he muttered, putting his face up close to hers. “I always did have the hots for you, but there’s no time to do anything about it now. They’ll be wondering why you haven’t turned up for your scan.”
“Where’s the orderly who should have collected me?” she asked, speaking as loud as she dared, hoping she was getting through to Zeke.
“Oh, tied up in a cupboard. He’ll survive which, unfortunately, is more than can be said for you.”
“They’re taking their sweet time,” Zeke remarked, flipping through a gun magazine.
Raoul yawned and stretched his arms above his head. “Yeah well, I expect they’re backed up as usual.”
“I still don’t get how we didn’t figure Romney for the traitor. It’s kinda obvious, when you think about it.”
“Not so very obvious,” Raoul replied. “I hate to admit it, but he fooled me. Perhaps because we were always at odds with Pool and Romney went out of his way to smooth things over for us.”
“Jerk!
“Yeah well, at least we now know—”
Zeke’s cell phone beeped. “You’re supposed to turn that thing off in here.”
Zeke shot him a look, checked the caller display and jerked upright. “It’s Cantara.”
“What!”
They listened and heard Cantara asking what had happened to the real orderly.
“Something’s wrong,” Raoul said tersely.
Both men threw themselves from their chairs and ran in the direction of the CAT scan room. They asked the astonished receptionist where Cantara was and raced toward the room she indicated.
“You can’t go in there,” she called after them.
Raoul tried the door, but it was locked. Without a second’s thought he stood back, raised his foot and gave the lock a hefty kick. The door flew open and crashed against the inside wall, sending chunks of partitioning flying in the air. Raoul’s heart lurched when he saw Cantara losing her struggle with Romney. He had a syringe in his hand and was trying to inject her with its contents. Their arrival didn’t seem to faze him in the least and he increased his efforts to subdue Cantara, who was kicking, gouging and putting up one hell of a fight.
The problem was, Romney was holding her too close for her blows to have much impact. Something needed to be done about that, but with that needle so close to her arm, Raoul couldn’t risk moving in and breaking Romney’s miserable neck, which every cell in his body urged him to do. If he did that, Romney would have ample time to inject Cantara with whatever deadly concoction he had in that syringe before Raoul and Zeke could save her. He drew in several shuddering breaths, forcing himself to calm down and assess the situation dispassionately. He had been trained to disassociate himself emotionally in tight situations and had never had a more compelling reason to employ that talent.
“You’re a dead man, Romney,” Zeke said, his murderous expression so intent that even Raoul was intimidated by it. No one with an ounce of sense fucked with Zeke when he was in such an uncompromising mood. “Let her go.”
“Not a chance. If I’m dead, I’m taking her with me.” He smirked. “Not quite so tough now are you, assholes?”
“Is that your problem, Romney?” Raoul taunted. “You wanted to be one of the best but didn’t have the balls to make the grade, so you got daddy-in-law to fix you up with a nice safe desk job. But deep down inside you know you’re a coward, which means you have a grudge against the world and take out your frustrations on defenseless women.” Raoul shook his head as he continued to goad the creep. “That must make you feel like you actually have stones.”
“You don’t know shit about me.”
But Raoul’s words had the desired effect. While focusing his attention on Raoul, he momentarily loosened his hold on Cantara, affording her the opportunity she needed. Raoul could only watch, impotent, hoping she would understand what he had done and be quick enough to take advantage. He exchanged a proud smile with Zeke as he observed what happened next, wondering how he could ever have doubted her.
“Just so we’re clear,” she said, “there’s absolutely nothing defenseless about me.”
Before Romney could transfer his attention to her, Cantara demonstrated her point by using the additional space now separating them to bring up her knee and deploy it in Romney’s groin with enough force to make even Raoul’s eyes water. Attagirl! The bastard had it coming. She followed up that move with a sharp chop to his windpipe with the side of her hand—a move which he and Zeke had taught her in a previous life. It saw the syringe fly from his hand and clatter to the floor. Romney, puce in the face and struggling to breathe, howled and slowly crumpled to his knees. He curled into a defensive ball as he nursed his damaged genitalia, but had the foresight to roll quickly out of the range of Raoul’s rapidly approaching feet. Unfortunately for him, that meant he landed right on top of the syringe.
“This is getting to be a habit,” Cantara said in a shrill voice, presumably thinking of the time when she had dealt with Salim in a similar fashion.
“Babe, are you okay?” Raoul caught her just before her knees buckled beneath her.
“I obviously haven’t forgotten how to kick ass,” she replied with a feeble smile.
“Thank God you had the presence of mind to call me,” Zeke said, moving in for a hug. “If I’d obeyed the rules and switched my phone off—”