Page 12 of Marked

Black spots dotted my vision and a trickle of what I assumed was blood slid down the side of my face, but I didn’t panic. In a move I’d practiced hundreds of times, I planted my feet on the ground, thrust my hips up, knocking him off-balance at the same time I locked my arms across his and rolled over, reversing our positions.

Scrambling to my feet, I scanned the room for a weaponsince my gun was downstairs in my purse. There was nothing of use.Noah.I needed Noah, but I wasn’t sure if my abused throat was capable of a scream. Grabbing the lamp from the table, I swung it at the fucker’s head when he tried to get off the floor, knocking him out. Then I threw it against the closet doors, making enough ruckus to alert my partner downstairs.

“Lanie!”

Noah’s bellow was music to my ears and when my bedroom door flew open seconds later, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“What the fuck is going on?” Gun raised, his eyes came to me, then shifted behind me where they blazed with lethal intent as they landed on the unconscious man slumped on my floor. It would have been comical if there wasn’t a dull throb building in my head. “Motherfucker.”

“There was someone in my room.” My voice was scratchy when I spoke, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would.

“You’re bleeding.”

Noah ate up the space between us, keeping his Glock aimed behind me as he yanked me into his arms. Resting my head against the wide expanse of his chest, I was temporarily lulled by the sound of his rapidly beating heart. It grounded me; made me feel secure…safe.

“I’m okay.”

The lie fell easily from my lips. I’m not sure who I was trying to convince more; myself or Noah. Either way, I was the furthest from okay I’d ever been in my life. In the span of an hour, my world had been flipped upside down. Marked for death; forced to run from the same people I swore to put behind bars went against everything I stood for.

“You’re not, but you will be.” He kissed the top of my head. “We need to secure him. Do you have a set of cuffs up here?”

“There’s an extra set in the closet. Top shelf in the wooden box.”

Noah didn’t waste any time procuring my cuffs. Stalking across the room, he grunted and muttered to himself while dragging the hit man by one foot to the cast-iron radiator bolted to the base of the wall next to the window. After winding the handcuffs between one of the slots, he snapped the metal bracelet around the man’s wrists then stormed past me, raising his gun on the way to the door.

“Stay here,” he ordered over his shoulder. “I’m gonna check the rest of the house to make sure there aren’t any other uninvited guests.”

Great job, Lanie.

Clearing the house was the first thing we should’ve done. It was a rookie mistake, one we couldn’t afford to make again, but in my defense, I’d had a shit day. With all the noise swirling around in my head, I was lucky I remembered to breathe.

For the five minutes Noah was gone, I didn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t. Numbness had infused itself throughout every pore of my body, which I suppose was better than the rapid crash of an adrenaline dump.

“We need to get the hell out of here.”

“We’ve gotta give a statement to the cops.”

“Fuck that,” he growled, threading his fingers through mine, pulling me toward the en suite bathroom. “We’re not waiting around to see if there are any more assholes waiting in the wings. We’ll call in our statements to Waverly once we’re on the road.”

“Are we just going to leavehimthere?” I glanced over my shoulder.

“Since you knocked him out and the law is clear about me killing an unarmed man, yeah, he’s gonna stay right there until our people arrive to clean up this shitshow of a night.”

“All right, then why aren’t we leaving?”

“You’re bleeding.” He flipped the light on.

“You said that already.”

“I don’t like it.”

Sweeping me off my feet—bridal style—he sat me ever-so-gently on the counter next to the sink. Then he began feverishly searching through drawers and cabinets until he found my first aid kit.

Popping it open, he whispered, “I’m sorry,” before pressing a few pieces of gauze to my eyebrow to stem the flow of blood. I gritted my teeth, sucking in a sharp breath at the sudden sting. With his other hand, Noah dampened a washcloth and began wiping the blood from my face in carefully measured strokes.

“This is my fault,” he seethed, his jaw clenched tight. “They shouldn’t have been able to touch you.”

I batted his hand away when he moved in for another swipe. He glared at me, the little space between his eyes wrinkling out of frustration or confusion, maybe both. Nonetheless, I glared right back. Ignoring my ire, he lifted the gauze and started cleansing the wound with peroxide.

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