Page 27 of Queen of Blades

“You make no goddamn sense. You know that, right?” she said as she sat on the couch and offered her arm to him. “Aren’t you going to kill me before I could develop an infection?”

Disregarding her comments, he tightened his lips into a thin line. It was a graze but pretty deep. He’d definitely have to close it.

“It’s not going to be pretty,” he commented as he stepped back and scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. He hated the scratchy feeling. “But I’m gonna have to fix that for you.”

“Whatever,” she groaned.

15

Harper

ThenumbingcreamPaulhad applied to Harper before sliding the needle through her flesh did fuck all. It hurt like a son of a bitch. She howled extra loudly in his ear as he worked on closing her wound.

Yes, it was nice of him to do, but he was hired to murder her, so he deserved some ringing ears. She was under no obligation to be nice or grateful. She’d eyed him skeptically when he’d offered her the Tylenol pills for the pain. He insisted that if he were going to kill her, he wouldn’t use pills to do it.

That would take too long—as opposed to his current plan?

Ultimately, she knew he wouldn’t poison her. It wasn’t his way.

She reluctantly took them.

An hour later, sitting on the couch, bored as fuck, wearing his shirt, her arm still throbbed in pain. It wasn’t quite excruciating, but it still fucking hurt. Paul had disappeared after his little sewing project, leaving her unattended in the front room.

Harper should try to run. There was nothing between her and the door or any of the multiple windows. She didn’t recall there being a locking noise after they’d entered, so as far as she knew, it wouldn’t take much effort to leave.

But where would she go?

She couldn’t see the main road from the house. There was a slew of trees between there and the street. Paul would definitely figure out she’d left before she could get too far. Besides, her shoes weren’t for running, and going barefoot would be worse. With her luck, she’d fall and twist an ankle.

Blowing out a breath, she considered her options—sit here and wait for Paul to shoot her in the head or figure out some sort of escape plan. Maybe she could wait for him to go to sleep. He clearly had let his guard down around her.

She had that going for her. He didn’t take a ton of precautions he should have for someone keeping a hostage. For one, he hadn’t restrained her. Two, he took his eyes off her. Really, he did a piss-poor job at this whole kidnapping thing.

Aclompingnoise outside, toward the front of the house, drew Harper’s attention. Stiffening, she snapped her focus to the windows, but the curtains didn’t allow her even a glimpse of outside. Her pulse picked up as she stood, eyeing the door.

Should she call for Paul? What if someone else had arrived to take her out?

Swallowing hard as she backed toward the kitchen, she tried to put as much distance between her and the next hired gun.

With a beep of alarms, the door opened, and she held her breath.

A bulky, older version of Paul with a blondish-reddish beard and ocean-blue eyes walked through the door. His hands were weighed down with several shopping bags. Obviously, he wasn’t a threat, but who was he? He was familiar, like she’d seen him before, but she couldn’t place him.

“Harper.” He grinned. “Nice to see you again. How have you been?”

“Well, I’m not dead,” she snapped. Of course he knew who she was. He was in on Paul’s harebrained scheme to kidnap her and then kill her.

He chuckled, closing the door behind him with his foot.

None of this made any damn sense. What in the hell was going on?

Frozen in place, caught off guard by the pleasantry, she watched as he strode into the room, stopped at the coffee table, and dropped the bags.

From a small hallway, Paul emerged with a crisp clean black shirt. How nice of him to get dressed. “What took you so long?”

Snorting, the other man rummaged through the bags, seeming to separate them by contents. Harper continued to keep her distance.

“You had quite the shopping list. It took time,” the new guy said.

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