The stabbing pain he caused stole her breath. “What?”
He yanked her hair again and threw her back onto the bed. “You altered my mark.” His face reddened to crimson, and his lips curled.
The tattoo. She’d forgotten about her layover in Washington, DC. “I didn’t know we’d be getting back together. I guess we can change it back.” She struggled to keep her voice from quavering.
“Change it back? Who the hell is ER?” He spit out the words.
He’d kill her for having another man’s initials on her, even if it was only the man’s title and not his name, so she reached into her memory for a woman. “Eleanor Roosevelt. She’s my role model.”
“You lie.” He slapped her face.
She threw up her hands to press on the stinging. Her stomach twisted with fear. “The Queen of England?” The words came out between sobs.
“Wrong.” He slapped her again; her ear ached as though a hammer had struck it. Tears formed in her eyes, and she struggled to get away. She wasn’t ready to die. He pushed her off the bed by kicking her cast. Loud screams came from her mouth, but no one arrived to help her. Landing hard on the floor, she ignored all the pain and shuffled toward the fireplace. Not even a damn log available to launch at him.
Through her tears, she focused on the Queen Anne chairs. Twins, made of a hard oak. She couldn’t break them into pieces in her condition, but maybe she could break his head with one.
Before she reached them, Luc arrived at her side and kicked her in the stomach, his shoes slicing through the thin material and scraping her skin. The wind knocked out of her, she gasped for air and coughed, barely breathing.
Blood soaked through the white dress still wrapped around her torso. A bloody bride in a macabre horror film. This was it. The final act.
She caught his next kick with her hands and tried to pull him off balance, but the beatings had weakened her. She only managed to slow him down. When he stepped back, she dived for the chair. Lifting it only halfway above her head, she swung it toward him. He evaded it with ease. She swung again.
This time he grabbed it and tossed it toward the door. “You are a dead woman.”
She reached the second chair before he turned back to her. When he raised his hands to stop her from hitting him with it, she launched the chair in the opposite direction and straight into the silver gilt mirror hung over the fireplace. The mirror shattered.
Luc stepped back to avoid the flying glass, giving Alex the chance to dive into the spraying shards. The glass cut her knees, but the agony spurred her on. She lifted a large piece in the shape of a dagger. The edges pierced her palm and lacerated her fingers, but she squeezed tighter in order to strike at him with deadly force. She rushed toward him, attempting to stab him in the neck. His size and strength made her job impossible. She managed to scrape it across his face before he threw her on the bed and knocked the weapon from her hand. His fist landed on her cheek below her eye. The impact pushed her head into the headboard. The last thing she heard was Luc calling out to Pascal.
…
Henry swallowed several shots of the cheap Irish whiskey Simon had ordered from room service. It helped dull the nagging dread that occupied all of his thoughts. He finally settled down to research Luc’s location on the internet. Mapping out their operation provided the perfect distraction from his badass case of raging emotions. Simon relaxed while Henry’s analytical mind dissected and used every smidgen of information he’d gleamed from his time at the café as well as the information Simon provided on the dinner at Luc’s house. More information came from Google Earth and the MI6 satellite surveillance system.
He lifted his gaze from the laptop. “I’m impressed with these programs. They would have helped us in Afghanistan at the start of the war.”
Simon laughed. “You jumped ship too soon. Technology changes by the millisecond now.”
“I miss it occasionally, but I’m a nerd at my core. Reading books, leading seminars. I even love teaching cocky computer science majors who believe the subject’s a waste of time until they analyze the career of a cultural anthropologist working at Intel. And what would I do without the Ripon Women’s Group?”
“Attend more social events, I suppose.”
Simon’s mobile rang. He answered the call in the bathroom.
A bad feeling rose through Henry’s gut. He wished he could listen in to understand the depths of the intelligence Simon had access to.
Simon shouted into the phone. His alarmed words were muffled through the door, but the message was clear.
He sprinted out of the bathroom. “Henry, we have to get Alex out now.”
Shit. If something happened to her, his world would end.
Henry’s stomach twisted and cramped. Pressing a fist to his mouth, he tried to harness his growing dread at the outcome. He moved with efficient strides and focused on his sole objective.
He grabbed the gun Simon had given to him. They both secured the weapons in their waistbands, hidden from the public and the police. Within seconds, they bolted out of the hotel, jogging down the street fast enough to get there, but not so fast as to draw attention to themselves. They crossed through a side street and into the backyard of one of the houses next to Luc’s. The wall was high between the properties, but a Range Rover parked near it provided the perfect means of entry.
“We only have one chance if this alarm goes off.” Henry slowed and gave the area a quick once-over.
Sliding under the car, Simon reconfigured a few wires. “It should be all set. Let’s go.”
He bounded to the top of the vehicle. Henry climbed up behind him. They peered over the wall. The house was eerily silent. They hopped over and moved to an entryway next to a small patio.