Prez nodded. “Yeah, well, I had my doubts. Good to know she ain’t sellin’ you out.”

Remy owed her big for doubting her, too. He’d be forever indebted to her and he had a lifetime to make up for it. But now he had to sort the douche out and, to his surprise, he didn’t know what he was going to do about it. If it were up to him, he’d kill him. Removing him from the picture would smoothen out a lot of complications in his life. Forever he’d been in that man’s shadow.

The reasonable Remy didn’t want to cause more heartbreak to Sara. It was one thing to walk away from someone she loved. How would she react if he’d been killed in the hands of the man she chose to be with now?

That was a predicament he didn’t want to experience.

Eighteen

I sat at the edge of the bed and watched the clock on the night stand tick by. Wait for it… Wait for it…

Exactly forty five minutes after Remy left, I stood up and paced the room. I was a ball of nerves. At one point I stopped, bent down and tried to control my breathing. I was hyperventilating. It has to be done…

I steeled myself and stood up straight. Then I went to my drawer and pulled out a pair of my jeans. I dug into its pocket and withdrew the one weapon I’d taken from the bunker the first night I’d been there. The switch blade. During that lonely night, I’d opened the box again and concealed it in the pocket of one of my jeans. At the time I did it because I was still uncertain of Remy, and now I was glad I had something to fall back on in case I had to really fight for my life.

I put it into my pocket and stared at the door, telling myself to move my legs. “You gotta do this,” I whispered, hoping that saying it out loud would help somehow. “Just get it done.”

In a heartbeat, I moved to the door and opened it. Peering down the empty hallway, I resolved to just get this done as fast as possible. It was late at night. The women were in their rooms, and they wouldn’t know come morning.

I hurried down the stairs and then cautiously made my way to the surveillance room. I stopped in front of the room and put my ear against it. I couldn’t hear him. Fuck, why couldn’t I hear him? This might blow up in my face before it even began. I backed away from the door. This was out of my hands now.

Entering the main room, I searched the tables. I stilled when I saw it, exactly where he said it was going to be! I looked around the room; Fritz was passed out on the couch and there were two cats rolling on the rug beneath him. Had it ever been so silent before? It was like the calm before the storm. Every Jackal was out guarding the bar, waiting for the strike to come, and here I was, in the core of their home, protecting something of my own: my heart.

I was acting purely on adrenaline. I walked to the table and grabbed the gun at the end. So far, he was right. Now this next bit was going to be tricky. Heart pounding, I eased up to Fritz. Fuck, he needed to be coherent for this. He needed to be awake, goddammit!

You still have the opportunity to back out of this, I told myself. Yeah, fucking unlikely. The second I had seen him, I was a goner.

“Do you or do you not, Sara?!”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off immediately. “Because if you do, you need to let me talk first. There are cameras all over the place. I can’t just walk you out of here. There’s too much risk and I don’t want to fuck this up. They can’t hear us now because the alarms are going, so listen carefully. If you want this, you shake your head. If you don’t, then make no movement at all. Now, do you want this?”

He’d plotted this to perfection. Those blue eyes roamed my face, seeking an immediate answer. This was dangerous. This was going to result in something worse than I feared.

But those fucking blue eyes! The way they looked at me; the way his mouth was parted open, as if any second I would crush him. I stared down at his outstretched hand and slowly shook my head.

Relief flooded his eyes, but he seemed to be intentionally concealing it. He dropped his hand down.

“That’s good,” he said on a sigh. “Now this is what you’re going to do.”

I pressed the gun against Fritz’s temple. “Get up,” I barked out. My voice surprised me. It was smooth and hard, no hesitation whatsoever.

His eyes opened. Not as drunk as I thought, thank fuck.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, startled by me.

“You’re going to get up right the fuck now,” I demanded.

God, he stunk. I held my breath and waited for him to move. He slowly sat up, his dark long hair splayed out all around him. He looked at the gun and then at me. Then he shook his head. “What the fuck is all this?”

“This is me telling you to get the fuck up or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!” God, I was loving this no nonsense shit. I felt damn good. Powerful even.

He slowly stood up, wobbling a little bit on his way. Then he rubbed his hand against his beard and shook his head again in anger. “What do you want?”

“You’re going to take me out of here. Grab your car keys, your gate card and let’s go.”

Looking me in the eyes he replied, “Remy’s going to kill you for this.”

Fuck. I didn’t want to hear his name. That might weaken me.

With a cloudy look on his face, he looked around and scratched his head. Fucking useless, this guy.

“On the table!” I hissed, pointing to the table with my free hand.

He shot me a venomous look before bending over and grabbing the keys.

“Now the card.”

“Card’s in the surveillance room, dumb one.”

“Then get moving!”

With my gun still aimed at his head, he walked with ease to the room. You wouldn’t have thought there was a gun pointed at him by how nonchalant he was. I held my breath with worry when he opened the door.

“GHWAWO!” Oh, thank every baby kitten in the universe. Barge was passed out cold, head against the table.

Fritz grabbed the card next to Barge’s fat arm.

“Good,” I said. “Now move.”

He obeyed and we walked back into the main room. Not many more steps to go, I told myself. Just keep going—

“What the fuck?” I nearly jumped out of my skin. Rita was standing in front of the bar in the middle of rummaging through her purse. Shit. Shit. Shit. She went all kinds of red at the scene in front of her. “What the fuck is going on?”