Page 66 of Turn the Tide
She couldn’t let herself get boxed in or taken. “A fire escape?”
He shook his head with a sympathetic frown. “Leads to the alley.”
Maybe they’d only have two guys out back as a precaution, one if she was lucky.
It was her best bet. She hustled down the stairs, queasy and light-headed. Bypassing the large foyer, where more of Hans’s men stood guard outside the front door, she headed for the stairwell on the south side.
Blood thundered in her ears as loudly as the raging water of the Eisbachwelle crashing against rocks. Pulling out the Tomahawk knife concealed as a comb, she drew an unsteady breath. Could she stab someone, slit a throat to survive?
She steeled herself with Knox’s words ringing in her brain:Kill or be killed, it might come to that.
He’d boosted the basics of her hand-to-hand skills—essential moves under the right circumstances that might save her life—and taught her a little Israeli knife fighting.Very little.She was no expert, more of a butcher than a surgeon, but she could handle a blade thanks to him.
If she was backed into a position that left her no choice, then it’d be self-defense. Not murder. She could take a life to save her own.
Ashley slipped off the plastic comb teeth, revealing a four-inch blade, and pushed through the door to the basement. Her nerves were raw from the running and hiding, Glasses turning up everywhere she went like a tenacious horror-movie villain.
The heavy steel door closed behind her with a soft thud. The dim stairwell was pitch-black in the corners. Anyone could be waiting for her on the ground level below. She’d be easy pickings on her way down.
There was a tightening between her shoulder blades—that flare of intuition—before she heard it. Movement from the corner over her left shoulder—in a blind spot. Rustle of feet against concrete, measured breathing.
She whirled, slashing out with the knife.
The shadow—a hulking, male figure—danced back, torso concaved, stomach drawn in away from the reach of her blade. Close, she’d been so close, but had missed. She couldn’t outrun him down the stairs, and if she made the mistake of turning her back, he’d have her.
He lunged toward her, but she parried with the knife, forcing him back.
This guy would kill her the second she gave him a chance. She shuffled to the right in a fighting stance. He mirrored her step, and she slashed at him with the blade.
Thewhooshwas a zing in the air. Zero contact. She’d missed entirely.
Her body tensed as she prepared for an opportunity to end this. She sensed a split second of hesitation on his part, an opening, and feinted to the left.
The air moved when he deflected her blow. She crouched into a somersault—praying there was room so she didn’t slam into the wall—and as she sprang out of the roll, she kicked his right leg out from under him.
He lurched, snatching her arm, throwing her to the floor, and landed on top of her.
Oh God.Her thoughts darted around like a mouse in a cage looking for a way to escape. She tightened her hold on the knife, ready to stab his groin and launch a fist to his—
“Ash, it’s me.”
Her heart squeezed.Logan?
It’d been almost two years since they’d last spoken, but she went weak at the sound of his deep, smoky voice. If she wasn’t flat on her back, her knees would’ve buckled.
He took the knife from her hand and vaulted to his feet. Lifting her from the ground with an effortless jerk, he shoved her against the wall, sending tingles racing through her body.
Up close, even in the shadows and haze of confusion, she made him out.
Still, she palmed the right side of his face, ran her thumb over his wounded eye, checking that he was real. She relished the leathery texture of his eyelid, the outline of his beautiful mouth, his warm breath on her face, and she melted inside.
Longing to hug him, she settled for gripping his shoulders as though he was the only thing keeping her from falling off the side of a cliff. Through his wool coat, the hardness of his well-muscled body and the solid, familiar feel of him was a comfort, the weight of him an anchor grounding her. He was bigger than she remembered, standing close in the deep shadows of the stairwell with her heart pounding so hard it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said with a determination that masked her desperation.
He let out a quiet sigh. “I can always tell when you’re lying.”
