Page 91 of Iron Willed Warrior

Flames seemed to lick at the undersides of my skin.

I am going to tear them apart.

Manning held me while O’Hanlon stepped in front of me, enjoying the chance to rub their plan in my face. “When the police find you with a gunshot to your head, and the residue of Brianna’s blood on your floor mats, they’ll see a nice story tied up in a bow. Your girlfriend was flirting with other men, so you killed her in a jealous rage, and disposed of her body in the desert. But you couldn’t handle the guilt afterward. Bye bye, Cameron Clay.”

“Nobody’s going to believe that.” But I could think of one person who’d support their story. Molly would tell the police that Cameron was a possessive, toxic jerk who’d left bruises on Brianna before. Guys like that snapped all the time. Even without her body, the police would take the easy explanation.

How long had Westwick been planning this? Because there was no way they’d put this together at the spur of the moment.

Lance stepped away from my car. O’Hanlon gestured at the front seat. “Get behind the wheel, Clay,” the Stillwater guard said. “Give yourself a last few moments of dignity and take this like a man.” He dug into his pocket and produced the syringe I’d meant to use on Westwick. “Or I can inject you with whatever’s in the needle. Who knows, maybe you reallywereplanning to do your girl in.” He laughed, making eye contact with Manning. “Wouldn’t that be fucked up? If we interrupted his kidnapping plan with our own?”

You have no idea, I thought.

“I’ll walk,” I said. “But I wouldn’t be driving my damn car with my wrists tied.”

“We’ll untie them later,” O’Hanlon sneered.

“Then the blood flow will be all wrong.” Who knew if that was true or not. I was no forensics expert. But I threw every bit of my meager acting ability into it. “And there won’t be gunshot residue in the right places. Coroners look for thatstuff when they do autopsies. Not to mentionmy leg is twisted. I’m supposed to walk with dignity like this?”

Cursing under his breath, O’Hanlon said, “Lance, you cut him loose. Let him fix his damn leg. I’m sick of hearing about it. Manning, keep your gun on him.”

Lance and Manning approached. I heard the snick of a blade through the ties at my wrists. Felt the binding loosen.

I didn’t waste a second. Turning to grab hold of Manning’s arm, I twisted it in front of me. Forced his finger down on the trigger.Bang. The shot hit O’Hanlon in the chest. O’Hanlon had gotten off a shot of his own, but it went wide, hitting the car behind me.

Lance was shouting. I twisted Manning’s finger hard, feeling the bone pop. Manning screamed. I got a better grip on the gun and yanked it, pushing Manning in front of me at the same time. He careened into O’Hanlon. The two men landed in a heap.

Lance ran off into the desert. My next bullet caught him in the calf, and he went down with a screech of pain.

Then I returned my focus to Manning and O’Hanlon. Manning pushed himself up, levering himself against his colleague. O’Hanlon was coughing up blood. Didn’t look like he was going to be breathing for long. Manning reached for the other man’s gun, but hesitated. His right trigger finger was bent at an angle. Broken.

“Go for it,” I said. “Pick it up.”

Manning reached with his left hand. But still, he hesitated.

“What’s the matter, you don’t want to go out and blaze of glory?” I asked. “What kind of Stillwater guard are you? You’re one of them, right?”

“You know about Stillwater?”

“I know there’s no way you’re as dumb as you seem. You have two choices. Either go for that gun, like you want to,and you can die right here with your friends. Or you can take me to wherever Ryker has Brianna.”

“If you know about Stillwater, you know what Ryker will do to me if I mess with his plans.”

“I do. It’s a question of getting screwed over now, or getting screwed over later. Personally, I would always choose the second. At least then you have a chance.”

Slowly, arms shaking, Manning raised his hands in the air. “Look, I don’t buy into this secret-society bullshit. Ryker’s wife is my cousin. She asked him to give me a job. I didn’t know it was going to get this heavy.”

“Sure, a real hardship taking all that money. Save me the excuses.” I raised the gun.

He held out his hands, palms out. “Don’t shoot! I can take you to where they’ve got Brianna. We were supposed to head there next! After we’d gotten rid of you.”

“And what about him?” I nodded at Lance, who was moaning and crawling several yards away. “Does he work for Stillwater too?”

“Hell no, he’s nobody. Ryker just paid him off. The clerk arranged a dry-cleaning pickup to smuggle your girl off-premises for Westwick. We were supposed to dispose of Lance on the way.”

I scowled at the hotel clerk. He probably felt extra stupid now that he knew Stillwater had planned to kill him all along. They wouldn’t want any witnesses.

And that alone made me want to spare the guy. Because I wasn’t Stillwater. I saved my vengeance for those who’d truly earned it, and I wasn’t going to execute some unarmed hotel clerk. Even if he’d been an accessory to kidnapping Brynn.

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