Page 89 of Iron Willed Warrior

I glared up at the man, gritting my teeth around the gag. So he didn’t know my real identity or my mission. If Cole could get to me…

“Nobody’s coming for you,” he said, as if he could see the hopeful thoughts running through my brain. “Get that through your head, Brianna. Your jealous boyfriend? O’Hanlon and Manning already tracked him down. Cameron’s dead. Who knows, maybe you’ll be thanking us.”

No. He was lying.

Ryker smiled. First time I’d ever seen that expression on the man’s face. “He was up on the roof, of all places. Cameron liked to play the tough guy. He even had a gun. Twoof you both put up a decent fight. But in the end, Cameron went down easy.”

I’m going to watch you die, I said through my eyes.And I’m going to enjoy it.

He angled his head, studying me like a bug under a microscope. But he’d forgotten about my arms. They were still bound, but in front of me. My hands shot up, claws going straight for his eyes. My nails scraped his skin before he shoved me down and pinned me, his face an ugly scowl.

“I’m not supposed to damage the merchandise, but there’s plenty I can do to cause pain that won’t leave a mark. Trust me, you’re going to find out.”

The door to the hallway opened again, and a new face looked in. It was that hotel clerk.Lance. I shouted around my gag. But he didn’t look the least bit surprised to see me there.

Lance was sweating. Breathing hard. “The van is waiting for the dry-cleaning pickup. The driver’s antsy because of the false alarm. We diverted the fire department before they got here, but the van driver says he’s not going to stay much longer.”

“Then get over here. Hold her.”

Lance crossed the room and tried to keep my shoulders down, while Ryker pulled something from his pocket. A needle. I struggled against both of them as Ryker stuck the sharp point into my skin. But he wasn’t injecting me with anything.

He was drawing my blood into a vial. What the hell?

Ryker withdrew the needle. The vial of my blood disappeared into his pocket. A bag went over my head, and everything went dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Cole

The ground shook beneath me.I blinked away the fuzzy haze in my brain. The world kept moving, jostling me back and forth. My head bumped against something. Fuck, that hurt.

I tried to remember what the hell had happened.

I recalled being up on the roof. Waiting for Brynn to show, but she never had. I’d swallowed down my panic as I packed up the syringe and tucked my gun into my waistband. My footsteps had been silent on the stairs as I’d gone to look for her…

I heard voices. Not in my memory, but in the present moment. “Holy shit,” O’Hanlon said. “Look at what he had with him. What do you think is in this syringe?”

“Don’t know,” Manning responded. “Drugs, maybe. But Ryker had it right. The two of them were definitely hiding something.”

I realized where I was now, and the irony struck me. I was tied up in the trunk of a car. The exact position that I had intended to have Westwick in by now. Instead, I was the prisoner. Shit had goneverywrong.

My memories cleared further, the fog lifting.

I remembered running down the stairwell to the ground floor. The fire alarm had still been going off. When I’d pushed open the door, a couple of resort employees had run past, not sparing me a glance. But as I’d taken a few more steps, Manning came around the corner.

Ryker’s got Brianna, Manning said.Give yourself up, and I can take you to her.

His statement stunned me for half a second, and that was enough for O’Hanlon to sneak up behind me. I went for my weapon. Threw an elbow, catching O’Hanlon in the chest. But then Manning was on me. He put his gun to my head, forcing me to drop mine. Then O’Hanlon lifted his own weapon and brought it down on my temple.

Ow. That explained the throbbing I felt in my head with every heartbeat and bump in the road.

From there, my recollections got fuzzy again. They’d clearly gotten me into a vehicle. It was dark, but this was a bigger space than the trunk of the car Brynn and I had driven to the resort.

They had my bag in the front seat with them. They would have my weapons as well. The laptop. I was sure River would’ve encrypted it with every security feature known to man. Could be bad though. I had to assume Stillwater had its own hackers with all the dark-web stuff they were into.

Where was Brynn? What were they doing to her?

I tested my wrist restraints, my thoughts growing sharper with every moment. They hadn’t bothered to bind my feet. My left leg felt oddly pinched in the socket. They’d been throwing me around. But that was the least of my worries. I had to get back to Brynn.

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