Page 76 of Broken Trust
He pivoted, but the barrel was already pointed at her.
The world stalled.
“Don’t.” Liam’s voice was low and tight, a live grenade with the pin half pulled.
Kent’s hand shook, and his eyes were wild. “You don’t understand—”
“You’re not really going to shoot someone in the Pentagon, are you?”
Kent’s hand didn’t waver. Elin’s eyes narrowed on his finger, hovering just over the trigger. One move and that bullet would find its target. In her.
“Think about that for a second.” Liam pitched his voice lower.
Kent’s expression fractured along with the last of his sanity and the gun went off, the sound deafening in the small room.
Liam jerked, his body folding back as the bullet struckhim.
Not her.
For a split second, he stayed upright, then he fell backward into the filing cabinet, his head striking the metal with a sickening crack before he slipped to the floor.
“No!” Elin’s scream of fear and rage tore from her throat. She rushed toward the man she loved, her instinct to help him overriding all of her reason. Kent swung the gun toward her again, but she was already moving, driven by pure fury.
Her hand closed around the nearest object on the desk—a pencil.
Before she could think, she drove it forward hard.
Her arm vibrated with the shock of the wood sinking into the side of Kent’s neck.
He roared, stumbling back, one hand flying up to the wound. The pencil wobbled grotesquely, jutting at an angle just short of where she’d aimed for his jugular. Blood slicked his collar, spreading along the light blue cotton like something out of a horror movie.
“Son of a—” He yanked it out, teeth bared.
Elin darted for the gun he’d dropped when she stabbed him, but he got there first, kicking it across the floor. It spun across the tile and slid under the desk.
She turned to face him, fists raised, her adrenaline spiked.
He came at her in a fast rush, slamming her into the wall. Air punched out of her lungs and pain exploded through her ribs. She gasped, trying to suck in a breath. She tried to think, but her mind responded too late.
He grabbed her by the wrists and pinned them above her head. She felt strong plastic dig into her flesh.
The room spun, but through the haze, she was able to make her mouth work. “Where did you get the zip ties?” She stared at his face. Up close, he was just as plain and nondescript asSilverton. A normal guy anybody would pass on the street, with no indication of the life he led or the threat he posed.
“Contingency plan. I always keep a few in the trunk.”
She twisted and fought to bring a knee up, but he was stronger and fueled by panic and desperation. He punched her in the stomach, and her vision blurred at the edges.
If the wind wasn’t knocked out of her before, it was now. Her mouth worked as she fought to inhale, to bring precious air back into her suddenly starved lungs. A terrible croaking noise came from her and finally, thankfully, a tiny breath filled her lungs.
It wasn’t nearly enough, but it put the fight back into her. She kicked hard. Her boot caught his shin, dragging the hard sole down the bone the way she learned in self-defense class.
He cursed and grabbed her by the hair, twisting the strands hard enough to make her eyes water. Then he hauled her forward, half dragging, half shoving her toward a stiff-backed chair in the corner.
“Let me go!”
“Shut up, bitch!” Blood pumped from the wound in his neck.
His face popped in and out of her vision as her mind blinked on and off. She was finished kidding herself that she could walk away from Liam. She loved the man, and walking away from him would tear her apart. He was still going to run into danger with or without her in his life…but she would be here for him, dammit. She would be here to support the most important person in the world to her.
