Page 7 of Midnight Danger

“Indeed.” Xavier held his hands out in front of him, clamped together at the wrists. “Let her go and you can take me.”

“Why don’t I take both of you and have some fun with your woman?”

Nausea burned up my throat in a trail of bile at his implication.

Even though Xavier’s body language didn’t change, his eyes turned to hard glass. This was a side of him I never saw. Occasionally, it appeared in business meetings, but disappeared just as quickly. Right now, I was beginning to wonder who the biggest predator in the room was.

A click sounded to my right. “Or why don’t we just blow your fucking heads off?”

I didn’t want to alarm anyone, but I think I actually peed myself. The arm of the big guy snaked around my neck and elevated my head until I was on tiptoes and barely able to breathe.

“Big mistake,” Xavier said. “You could have walked away with your life if you hadn’t touched her.”

Scared was a word you attributed to movies with creepy music and a villain lurking around unsuspecting characters. Right now, I was absolutely petrified. My heart hammered in my chest, my stomach was in knots, and my ass cheeks were eating my panties.

“I really fucking wouldn’t,” Jordan threatened when one of the men behind me moved.

The rest happened in quick motion that left my head reeling and my pulse pounding in my ears. A guy behind me pulled a gun and shots fired from somewhere on my right. I’d seen it on television, I’d read about it in books, even took lessons a few years ago. But nothing prepared me for the noise and the faint aroma that accompanied a gun firing.

I jumped and screamed, my movement giving Xavier the opportunity to attack the man holding me. One of his hands grabbed my arm to push me behind him, the other hand shot up so that the heel of his palm broke the guy’s nose. Blood spurted free and I landed on my ass on the floor when my legs finally decided they refused to hold my weight. My arms and legs scrabbled backward as I tried to escape what was happening around me.

The injured man tried to reach his gun, but Jordan stood on it, the gun in his hand pointed at his head. He didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger a second time. It gave the other two men time to get their weapons out. One fired at Jordan, but he ducked, firing back and hitting his assailant on the shoulder. The other paced toward Jordan’s hiding area with his weapon trained on his position.

Xavier’s foot connected with the jaw of the man who’d held me. His head snapped back, even as Xavier’s knee connected with the sensitive area between his legs. He groaned and staggered back a few paces. Xavier took the opportunity to kick the man with the wounded shoulder in the face. He landed on his ass on the floor.

Jordan appeared from further down the room, his arm wrapping around the throat of the man stalking him. His hand grabbed the wrist that held his gun. Another shot echoed, the bullet lodging in a monitor beside where I sat on the floor.

My focus moved to that hole, and the way the monitor fractured around it. That could have been my head, that gaping hole left in my temple. I retched onto the floor; my hands braced on the ground. Feet moved in my peripheral vision.

Every instinct in me told me not to look up, but that didn’t stop my eyes from travelling from the remains of my pizza to the men fighting in hand-to-hand combat. Xavier had the massive man on his knees, his arm around his neck while his other hand held it in position. The man struggled, his arms flailing, eyes bulging, and mouth opening and closing.

My attention moved and I couldn’t look away from Xavier’s face. Gone was any semblance of the man I’d spent two months with. In his place was a stranger with a tight jaw and fixed expression on his face. There was no emotion. He was strangling a man, and his reactions were dead.

A strange crack sounded and the man struggling with Jordan let out a muffled cry. His right shoulder hung at a strange angle. My breathing turning into gasps as Jordan’s arms around his neck moved rapidly before the man slumped to the floor. I’d watched action-adventure films, and they always depicted that loud crack when someone’s neck broke. They lied because it was surprisingly quiet.

Jordan calmly walked over to the unconscious man on the floor and fired a round into his head. My mouth opened in a silent scream that refused to vocalise. His body jerked and fell back, blood pouring down his forehead.

I must have screamed or made a noise, because Xavier released the man and was knelt in front of me in an instant. My eyes never left Jordan as he wandered over and casually felt the pulse at the side of the man’s throat. I wanted to ask if he was dead, but I was too terrified to know.

“Breathe, Cas. You need to take steady breaths since you’re in shock.”

I turned disbelieving eyes to Xavier. He’d returned to the man who’d stolen my heart, heat and compassion in his eyes.

“She good, or do we need to talk?” A voice sounded to my right.

“Fuck off, Jay. She’s in shock.” Xavier kept staring into my eyes, all the while rubbing my arms.

“I don’t fucking need this tonight,” the maniac with the gun muttered. My eyes would not leave that gun because I wasn’t sure who was going to be his next target.

Jordan was always so cold and detached. I used to think it was because he was one of those men who knew he was gorgeous so he could afford to be aloof and arrogant. Now I realised it was because he was a psychopath.

My hands gripped the front of Xavier’s T-shirt, the fabric soft under my fingertips. “They’re dead,” I finally managed to grate out between my chattering teeth. “Dead.”

Xavier lifted me, his arms strong and solid around me, his lips on my forehead. “It’s not the first time that men like this want us because they think they’ll get a big payday.” He sighed and it sounded like it came from the depths of his soul. “This is the reason why Dad wants me to have a constant security presence around me. Money tends to draw the human cockroaches out of hiding.”

I closed my eyes as he carried me away from the room filled with death. Cool air surrounded me in the darkness of wherever we were, the sound of Xavier’s heart in my ear. If I hadn’t just witnessed what happened in that other room, I’d think everything was normal right now.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

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