Page 88 of Insidious Threats
The blonde’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. “I don’t believe you.”
Sasha shrugged and kept talking. “Suit yourself. But if I’m telling the truth—and spoiler alert, I am—your boss isn’t going to be happy with you. Because from what I’ve seen Leith Delone doesn’t like loose ends or messes.”
The countdown clock in Sasha’s head hit zero. Petra had either uploaded the Mjölnir Killer worm by now, or she’d failed and been locked out of the server. Either way, time was up.
The blonde grabbed Sasha’s right arm and yanked it up behind her back, then she jabbed the knife into the side of Sasha’s neck. “Let’s go find your husband. I hope for your sake that we’re not too late to stop him.”
She’s not going to kill you. She wants to use you as a bargaining chip, and she can’t do that if you’re dead.
As Sasha was being marched forward, she tracked the women’s abandoned coffee mug from the corner of her eye and willed herself to be patient.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Now!
Sasha stretched out her left hand, grabbed the blonde’s abandoned coffee mug, and swung it up and back over her shoulder in a high arc in one swift motion. The hot liquid splashed over the woman’s face, and she howled.
Sasha twisted out of the woman’s grip and wrapped her hand over the knife. She slammed the woman’s wrist down into the edge of the counter to dislodge the knife from her grip. It clattered to the floor, and Sasha kicked it under the refrigerator.
Now it wasn’t a knife fight, it was just a fight.
The blonde whipped her elbow up and smashed it into Sasha’s cheekbone. The sting of contact sent Sasha stumbling back a step. She raised her fists in a defensive gesture.
The woman laughed. “I read about your Krav Maga training. It’s cute. I guess you’re not bad … for a civilian.”
Sasha aimed a kick at the woman’s knee.
She blocked it easily, as if she’d anticipated the maneuver, and Sasha realized she had training of her own.
“Israeli Special Forces?”
The blonde spat on the floor. “Mossad.”
That was arguably worse. There was no move Sasha could make that this woman wouldn’t see coming.
Then flip the script. If she knows what you’re going to do, do something else.
Sasha’s stomach lurched at the thought of ignoring her training, but in this instance, following her training guaranteed defeat. Her instructor Daniel always said the most dangerous part of a street fight against an untrained opponent was the unpredictability. There was no telling what they’d do. She just had to act the part.
Sasha grabbed the woman’s hand. She couldn’t believe what she was about to do. She shoved the hand into her mouth, biting down on the webbing that connected her thumb and index finger until she tasted coppery blood.
The woman’s blue eyes widened in surprise and pain. She hissed and pulled back her free hand, then drove it forward, executing a powerful palm strike that connected squarely with Sasha’s breastbone.
Sasha released her bite and gasped for breath.
The woman shook her hand, spraying droplets of blood across the floor.
They circled one another like cage fighters. The woman moved first. She clenched her arms around Sasha’s neck, raised her right knee, and started to force Sasha’s head down while pulling her knee up.
Sasha threw out both forearms and jammed them into the woman’s hip to block the knee strike, then she wrapped her elbow around the woman’s knee while she pushed her head up against the woman’s neck with as much force as she could muster and drove the woman backward.
Connelly ran into the room with his gun drawn just as Sasha head-butted the woman’s forehead. The blonde stumbled, and Sasha kicked her left leg out from under her. Her opponent crumpled to the floor.
“Took you long enough,” Sasha panted, still winded from the palm strike.
“You were supposed to meet us in the car,” he reminded her.
