Page 40 of Relentless Knight

He snorts, clearly unimpressed by my attempt at self-defense. And I can’t say that I blame him. I’m trembling so violently, I doubt anyone would take me seriously. But I’m not about to just roll over and hand myself to the enemy.

Springing forward, the man snatches me with a grip far stronger than his lean form would suggest. And I cry out despite myself as I realize this hold is definitely going to be trickier to get out of.

But I’m not about to give up.

I repeat Natasha’s steps in my head, spinning my arms so he can’t get a firm grip. Then I bring my elbows down with as much force as I possess. He looks almost as surprised as I feel to realize it worked. But as much as I would like to take a moment to celebrate, there’s no time for that.

While he’s reaching for me again, I step into his arms and drive my knee up into his groin as hard as I can manage.

“Huuuuh!” The wind leaves him in a rush, and he pales visibly as his hips bend.

Taking advantage of the opening, I turn my shoulder to him and drive my elbow up into his nose. Then I make a break for it, jerking free of his limp grip and sprinting the rest of the way to the car.

Fingers on the handle, I’m ready to climb in when three ear-shattering gunshots echo through the enclosure.Lance doesn’t have his gun on him.

Horror grips my stomach, and I think I just might vomit as I whirl to see what happened. Blood seeps through the left side of Lance’s torn shirt, and he keeps his left hand pressed to the opening.

But to my intense relief, he’s not riddled with bullets. He’s standing over the bodies of the men he was fighting. And with a blood-chilling calm, he turns, sees the man I incapacitated, raises the gun, and pulls the trigger once more.

The shot rings through my ears like cannon fire, jarring my teeth.

And the silence that follows is deafening.

“Are you alright?” Lance asks, his voice gruff.

“I’m fine,” I breathe. “But you’re hurt.” I stride purposefully back across the parking garage to check how bad it is. “We need to get you inside.”

“No, we need to get you home,” he counters, scanning the parking structure to ensure that was the last of them.

“Lance,” I object, pulling the torn edges of fabric away from his skin to see the cut. It’s shorter and looks shallower than the last one but will probably still need stitches. “The hospital is right there, and you’re bleeding.”

“Quinn.” He waits until I end my assessment to look up into his eyes. “Four men are dead. I’m putting them in the trunk of the car, and I’m taking you home where you’re safe. You can stitch me up there.”

I swallow hard as I see his point. He just killed four men in cold blood. Of course we can’t go waltzing back into the hospital—unless he’s ready to face the law for his actions. And while we would have a pretty strong self-defense, I know that with Lance’s rap sheet, he won’t get off that easy.

“Okay,” I murmur.

He gives a curt nod and stoops to hoist the first man over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “Get the door?”

I do, racing to the trunk of the Escalade and releasing the hatch. He has four bodies stashed there in no time, and while the ground is stained with crimson, we’ve left no other clear evidence behind.

Scrambling into the passenger seat as Lance starts the car, I open the glove compartment and dig through it to find some gauze.

“Here,” I insist, leaning over the console to slip the absorbent fabric between his shirt and ribs. “Put pressure on that until we get home. Should I drive?”

Lance casts me a look that says I must be joking, and I fall silent. But I worry the whole way home, wondering if he might not be losing too much blood.

We pull into Killian’s driveway twenty minutes later, and as I climb quickly out of the car, Lance tosses the car keys to Scott.

“I made a mess of the trunk. Mind taking the car to get it detailed?” Lance asks.

And suddenly, I’m wondering how many dead bodies Lance has brought home like this, because Scott slips into the driver’s seat without questions or a second’s hesitation.

“I’ll stitch you up in my room,” I say as we climb the steps into the house.

Lance nods, seeming perfectly at ease, though he’s bled through the gauze and is now staining the crisp sky blue of his ruined shirt.

“What happened?” Natasha’s stunned question comes from the stairs leading up to Killian’s wing of the house.

---