Chapter 34
“Get up! Get up!”
Emma jumped awake at the crash of the heavy door opening and groaned. Trouble floated like air scum overhead, creating a milky pall in the light from the hallway. Rough hands grabbed at her shoulders and hauled her to a sitting position.
“Don’t touch ‘er!” Christopher threatened, already standing. He held his palms outwards in front of him but his eyes flashed dangerously in the semi-darkness. The man next to him jerked the handgun and Christopher shook his head. “No, I’m not turnin’ round for yer, ya wee shite. Make me and tell yer buddy to get his hands off her!”
“Let her go!” the bald man told his mate, his cockney accent enhanced by the grogginess of exhaustion. They were tired too. The rough hands released Emma and she slumped face down into the mattress, trying to recapture some of the lingering warmth from it. Failure brought misery and hopelessness.
“Em,” Christopher said softly. “Come here, sweetheart.” He kept his hands outstretched against the threat of the gun but jerked with his head and encouraged with dark eyes. He smiled, his white teeth incongruous against the blackness of the room. “Come.”
With a gargantuan sigh, Emma heaved herself upright and stumbled round the bed, skirting the man who watched her progress with gimlet eyes. She saw his bulging eyes flick towards her breasts and allowed the revulsion to twist her face. He looked away, embarrassed and she knew she read him right in the nightclub, a sex predator. “In your dreams, little man,” she muttered as she passed and Christopher shook his head at her.
“Behave, Emma!” he warned and she pouted, falling into his side without coordination and jolting him sideways. Christopher grunted and jerked his head at the aggressor facing him. “The wee girl wants to use the bathroom,” he said, his face expressionless.
“No time!” the man protested and Christopher gave him a dirty look.
“She wants the toilet!” Christopher took a step forward and the barrel of the gun touched his shirt.
“Oh let her go for a bloody piss!” the other man shouted.
“You’re not coming in!” Emma protested and stood rigid.
“We can’t separate them,” the man with the gun argued with his friend. “And I’m not looking after him by myself.” He waved the handgun towards Christopher and took a step back.
“Fine! Send them in together!” the other man snapped. “But be quick. He’s on his way now. This isn’t what we were told, it’s turnin’ into a nightmare.”
Christopher smiled, evil undertones in his voice. “Oh yeah! It’s gonna be your worst nightmare, for sure. You’ve made the Actuary angry, how dumb is that? I wouldn’t wanna be youse guys in about an hour’s time. Nice knowin’ ya!”
“Shut up! Move!” Their captors moved the couple down the hallway and stopped outside a wide oak door.
“In!” the bald one ordered. “I’m warnin’ ya, no messin’ around or I’ll just shoot the pair of ya!”
“Whatever!” Christopher pushed the door open and walked inside, pulling Emma behind him.
“Leave the door open!” the bald man shouted and stuck his foot in the gap.
“Pervert!” Emma whined, panicking she wouldn’t get her jeans down in time at the inviting sight of the toilet. “Turn around!” she complained to Christopher.
He put his finger to his lips and then waved his hand in a circular motion telling her to keep it going. After a moment of confusion, Emma caught on and began talking in a moderately loud voice, whining and complaining. “I thought you were my friend,” she droned on. “How could you do this to me?” She used the toilet while Christopher searched around the room for things he could use as weapons.
“Ach, you mean nothin’ to me, ya silly wee girl,” he intoned with a wink, flushing the toilet as Emma stood buttoning her jeans. He cast around the small room without success.
“Shut your face!” she yelled, covering the sound of Christopher opening a squeaky vanity cupboard and closing it again. He raised an eyebrow in victory and pushed the long screwdriver down the back of his pants, so the handle nestled against the small of his back.
“Get out here, now!” came a voice from outside. Emma moved towards the door, blocking the view of the bathroom while she sulked and Christopher worked behind her.
“I’m just havin’ a piss!” Christopher bit back, urinating into the toilet bowl incredibly loudly.
“I’m sick of this!” Emma worked herself up into a full blown tantrum, the panic of the situation communicating itself through this play act. Her body occupied the space between the door and the frame, blinding the men to what Christopher was doing. “I want to go home!” she sobbed, finding the tears were real.
“Just shut up!” The bald man grabbed her arm, forcing her out between the gap as Emma felt Christopher’s comforting presence behind her. He looked up at the tall Irishman. “You didn’t flush, you dirty bugger!”
Christopher slipped next to Emma and took her arm. “Go do it yerself then, eejit!” he offered. The man pulled a face and shook his head.
“It’s not like it matters!” the other man complained and they left the bathroom and headed downstairs. Emma glanced back and saw water pouring down the front of the high cistern and flooding the floor. She looked up at Christopher and he winked at her. His hands were wet up to the elbow. He had stood on the seat, hence the loudness of his toilet and broken the ball valve, making the cistern fill endlessly. He was slowly flooding the upstairs. Futility got hold of Emma in a vicelike grip. Why would these men care about a flooded house? Would it be enough to cause them to divide even momentarily? Her eyes raked the face of the confident man next to her. Christopher’s fingers felt freezing through her jacket sleeve and she laid her hand over his and tried to infuse warmth into him.
The two men forced them down the wide sweeping staircase, pushing until Emma almost fell. Christopher’s temper seemed close to snapping and the darkness outside the building fastened around them, oppressive and terrifying. “Touch her again and I swear, I’ll...” Christopher began and received a gun in the back for his pains. He gritted his teeth, his eyes flashing with barely controlled violence.
The air downstairs was stale and damp as the couple were pushed into a room near the front door. The bald man acted as the mouthpiece, telling them what to do and how. “Sit!” he told Emma, indicating a dining chair in the centre of the room. “Put your hands behind you and don’t speak.”
Emma shivered and shook as she stumbled over to the chair. The frigid air made her blood run cold and it was an effort to place her arms in the right position. She cried out as a pair of metal cuffs were fixed around her wrists and tightly closed.
“You don’t need to do that!” Christopher shouted and both man attacked him simultaneously, tripping him and putting him face down on the wooden floor.
“Stop!” Emma begged, unable to leave the chair and help because of how she was restrained. “Leave him alone!” The chair tipped towards her as she tried to stand up, trapping its seat at the back of her legs.
Christopher’s nose bled as he was hauled to his feet, his smart shirt stained from filth and his hands wrenched behind his back. The sound of a mobile phone chirped into the room and the men stopped abusing the bound man with their kicks and punches, while the bald man answered the call. He held his index finger up to silence his comrade. “What? He’s coming himself? Well, yeah, everything’s ready.” He sounded pleased and puffed himself up before the assembled party. “Ok. See you soon.” He rang off and stuffed the phone back into his inside pocket, punching the air with his fist.
“What?” the other guy asked, looking nervous.
“The Actuary’s nearly here but the boss is right behind him!” the man whooped, seeming to forget his role as psychotic kidnapper and prospective killer. “He wants to thank us for bringing the leverage.”
“Awesome!” the other man grinned, shoving dark, greasy hair out of his face. He dragged his fingers though his fringe, trying to
shove it backwards and flatten it to his head as it was at the nightclub. “We still gonna get paid?”
“Yeah sure!” the bald man reassured him, forgetting his prisoners observing the congratulatory celebration.
Christopher’s loud laugh stopped them both in their tracks. “Yeah, sure, you’re gonna get paid, so ye are! If yer boss is who I think, you’re not leaving here ever!” He snorted and Emma’s eyes widened in fear. A strange electrical pulse washed through her body, instantly recognisable as adrenaline. She tried to lift her arms over the high back of the chair and failed, a deadening pain spreading out from her armpits as the cuffs clanked behind her.
“Shut yer face!” the bald cockney retorted. “You don’t know nothin’, so shut it!”
“Aye, whatever!” Christopher replied and grunted as the handgun was swiped hard across his face. Emma gasped and moaned in misery. She pleaded out loud to Nicky’s God, sobbing his name over and over for help, absolution and an end to the terrifying situation.
“Emma! Em!” Christopher saying her name came as a faint prod into her desperation and then louder as she latched onto his voice. He spluttered her name through a cracked lip and Emma took shuddering breaths and listened. “Emma, calm down, sweetheart. Take deep breaths, darlin’, hold on, it’s gonna be fine.”
“Not for you!” The bald man waited until his companion scraped another chair next to Emma’s and then pushed Christopher backwards into it. The tall Irishman folded at the knees and sat down, the chair rocking so violently it almost tipped him over backwards. Emma turned sideways and pushed her face into Christopher’s bicep, crying quietly and without shame.
“Hush, hush,” he whispered to her, kissing the top of her head with sore, gentle lips. “It’s gonna be ok. Just hold on, Em. Calm down and wait.”
“What’re you sayin’ to her?” The bald man slapped Christopher around the head again, drawing a hiss of pain from him and a wail from Emma, who was cruelly jolted in the process. Her arms were dragged sideways, the heavy cuffs pulling them down and a moment of clarity made her realise something. Trying to lift her arms painfully upwards and lean forward had failed to release her. But if she tipped sideways enough, she could lean slightly and allow her arms to move to the right and forward, placing her hands carefully on the seat behind her. The chair back no longer separated them from her body.
She sighed and groaned as her numb bones reacted to the release and looking sideways, she saw a nod of approval from Christopher. “Good gal,” he mouthed.
A sudden arc of light flashed through the room, two beams; headlights. Emma’s heart stalled in her chest as she sensed the tension in the room hike. Her frantic eyes sought Christopher’s and she heard him whisper, “Game on,” as much to himself as anyone else. One of the men left the room and Emma held her breath.
The vehicle outside drew to a halt on the loose gravel and a car door slammed. Footsteps ran up the stone steps out front and the front door flew open. A dull light bulb flared in the room as the dark haired man entered and flicked the switch, holding the handgun at Rohan’s head. A moan of defeat left Emma’s lips.
“We’re screwed!” Christopher whispered, observing the Russian through dispassionate eyes. Rohan looked beyond exhausted, a thick covering of beard forming a tight blonde fuzz around the bottom half of his face. His eyes were red rimmed and dull and he held his body in a tight knot of tiredness. He let the dark haired man push him into the room, offering little resistance.
Christopher acknowledged him with a sharp upwards jerk of his head and only Rohan’s eyes changed in his still face. Emma watched her husband, refusing to let the tiny bud of hope die in her breast. Rohan’s eyes glossed over her as though she were little more than an ornament and she felt her heart clench in disappointment. She hung her head and closed her eyes, not wanting to witness his dismissal of her any further.
“So, this is the famed Actuary, is it?” the bald man postured, enjoying himself thoroughly. “How disappointing. We’ve been crapping ourselves, certain it would be harder than this.” He moved to stand in front of Rohan and eyed the giant of a man from his disadvantaged stature. “So, before my boss gets here, how about you hand the flash drive over to me and save yourself some trouble?” He held his hand out.
Rohan sighed and narrowed his blue eyes. “I apologise for the disappointment, but you’ll have to wait.” His voice sounded lusciously deep and attractive, laced by his Russian accent. Emma peeked, keeping her head down so as not to draw attention. Christopher laughed and Rohan’s eyes roved to him over the top of the bald man’s head. Both men sized Rohan up and in an unspoken agreement decided to leave the frisking of the giant man to someone else.
“Oh. Well, the boss is gonna be stoked with this anyway!” the dark haired man sniggered, waving the gun in Rohan’s back. “I can’t wait to see him.”
Christopher laughed harder and Rohan smirked. The bald man looked from one to the other, realising he was suddenly the butt of an unknown joke. “What?” he asked, moving from foot to foot, unsure of himself. “What’s funny?”
Rohan tipped forward slightly, bringing his nose level to the bald man’s. “You wanna know?” he asked, his voice hushed. The bald man nodded and looked back at Christopher with doubt standing out in the set of his jaw. In the split second in which he removed his eyes from Rohan’s face, the tall Russian flipped his head backwards, catching the dark haired man across his nose. There was a sickening crack as bones gave in his face and Rohan stood upright, faced with the startled eyes of the bald man. Seeing his mate fall to the ground behind Rohan, the bald man aimed the handgun and shot Rohan in the leg. Emma screamed. The shot took Rohan by surprise, but he managed to bend from the waist, snapping up and head butting the bald man in the forehead. His opponent went down with a grunt.
Rohan groaned and grabbed at his knee, releasing a storm of swear words in mixed dialect. He stood up straight, nudging the bald man with his toe as moans and spluttering emerged from the bloodied face. “Your boss is a woman, durak!” he hissed. “And now, she’s your palach.”
“What’s that?” the bald man screeched. “What is it?”
“Executioner,” Emma said, hopelessness breaking into her words. Christopher looked sideways at her and raised his eyebrow, releasing his wrists easily from the handcuffs. He stood up and eyed Rohan.
“Thanks for nothing!” the Russian spat. “Why this?” He waved his arm around the room in anger. “Seven hours of driving, only to find two half-assed duraki and you!” His eyes moved over Emma without interest and her heart sank lower into her stomach, bringing sickness with it.
“He shot you?” Christopher looked concerned and Rohan gritted his teeth.
“Yeah. Nice.” He moved his prosthetic leg back and forth and Emma released her breath, realising it took the force of the gunshot.
“My boss is coming!” stammered the bald man and Rohan eyed him with disdain.
“Ooh, goody!” His blue eyes sought Christopher again and hate poured from them. He set off walking, his limp much more pronounced. “You did this on purpose!”
Rohan was half a head taller than the Irishman and furious. It made him appear invincible as they squared off to each other. Christopher placed the redundant handcuffs neatly on his chair seat, making Emma clink hers in case there was a secret switch for removing them easily. She doubted it, even as she felt around the casing.
“They jumped me,” Christopher said with a smirk easily discernible in his voice. “It seemed like a good opportunity for catching her out so I bargained with them. I knew she’d come personally for this one. We need to get her off our backs. Sorry about your sister being involved...or should I say, your wife?” Christopher cracked his knuckles and Emma looked up at the side of his face, hurt making a dramatic revisit.
“I trusted you!” Emma stood up and forced her way between the men. Her dark eyes were wide with indignation and her arms behind her back forced her to dip slightly forwards. The metal cut into her wrists but a
nger made her forget to care. “My son’s miles away and I’ve just disappeared! I thought you had no choice but you set this up!” Emma rushed Christopher and barged him, using her full body weight. He didn’t budge and she only hurt herself, resorting to kicking him hard in the shins. Rohan grabbed her from behind, wordlessly seizing her upper arms and Emma used the leverage to increase her flurry of kicks, landing one on Christopher’s knee and an opportune one in his groin. Christopher gasped and bent over double and Emma was thwarted from inflicting further damage by Rohan spinning her around behind him.
“You fool!” he said to Christopher. “Did you think she’d come alone? What’s your plan then, mastermind?” He spoke through gritted teeth and Emma writhed, pinned by his painfully strong grip on her arms, grunting as she struggled to break free. The bald man made a grab for her foot so she kicked him instead, getting him in the stomach and glaring at him. The dark haired man lay on the ground behind them, still static.
“I knew you’d bring the crew,” Christopher said, standing up gingerly and rubbing at his crotch. He shot Emma a nasty look, smirking at the end in true Christopher style and betraying his admiration. “Someone’s telling her what we’re working on and she’s coming behind us. She’s had her fun. We need to take her out!”
“It’s you! You’re telling her! And that’s not how I operate!” Rohan increased his pressure around Emma’s shoulders, preventing her movement. Her neck began to ache and she wiggled until he finally let her go. He turned to face his colleague, forgetting about Emma with frightening speed. “She’s linked to the Triads. You don’t just eliminate people like that; you learn to work around them. You know that! Why now? Pochemu? Why the big double cross?”
Emma saw Christopher shrug as she backed slowly away from them, skirting the men on the ground and keeping her footsteps light. “I’m sick of it, right! We case a job, we do the ground work and they turn up hot on our heels with a bigger price. I’ve had enough! And you know it’s not me. We both know who the leak is but you won’t sort it out.”
“So bail out!” Rohan shouted. “Not this!” Emma saw him run his hands through unruly hair. He reached in his pocket and responded to a quiet vibration from his mobile phone. “I know!” he snapped. “Clean it up and get ready!”
Christopher smirked. “See, you always come equipped. Now we can get rid of a little problem and keep going the way we are.”
“You reckon?” Rohan’s body language set in a stubborn stance and Emma watched as Rohan lashed out at Christopher, hitting him hard in the jaw. Emma slipped towards a rear wall and leaned against it, feeling sickened.
“Is that because you’re pissed or because you realised I dated your wife in that hot, red dress?”
“It was you?” Rohan’s eyes strayed to Emma fractionally. “That’s for trying to screw my wife!” Rohan landed another punch, his ego overriding their bizarre surroundings and imminent danger.
“Well, you didn’t exactly want her!” Christopher licked at a cut which bled from the corner of his mouth. “I’m not fighting you, you eejit! So back off!” He raised the back of his hand to touch the spot and blood came away on it. He looked at it as though not believing it was his. “Besides, I thought she’d tell you and you’d be sure to come, not her! If you weren’t such a dick, and spent less time playin’ with that wee school secretary, you’d have asked the right questions and been straight onto it.”
“What questions?” Rohan lashed out again and Christopher ducked.
“Like why I used my real name, when it was clearly me. We agreed at the start, we don’t do that. Working names only! And I used yours, like, fifty million times. You didn’t think that was odd?” Christopher shook his head in disbelief. “You didn’t even ask her, did ya?”
Rohan took a step back, his shirt untucked and a line of blood running down the front of it. His face had an odd grey tinge and he wavered on his legs while he thought for a second. Then his left fist shot out and put a bone crunching punch into Christopher’s right eyebrow. The skin split easily like a sausage and blood spurted. Christopher leaned forward and Rohan pushed him back, like a boxer sizing up for a second go.
“Ah, shite! I never followed through with her.” Christopher raised himself to his full height, finding he was a few inches shorter than his opponent. He smirked. “I did have a go with yer wee girlfriend though, so. She wasn’t that good. Yer not missin’ much. Bet she never told you about that now, did she?”
Rohan’s fist shot out again, blocked this time by the side of Christopher’s arm. The smaller man bounced back on the balls of his feet and egged Rohan on further in his sense of outrage. “She faked all her orgasms, mate. She’s fake right through. See, I’ve released yer now. You can get rid once and for all. You can do the right thing; before I do it for ya!”
Unguarded, Rohan took a blow to the ribs, collapsing forwards in a spasm of pain, but he managed to stay on his feet. Christopher got into his face, shoving him hard. “Anton said you were an idealist, Andreyev. Yer never saw what was right in front of your bloody big Russian nose. Life happens like that and it’s all over that quick!” Christopher clicked his fingers and took a step back. “You know that already, man, so yer do. What’s wrong with yer?”
The handcuffs clanked as Emma moved and pain reverberated up her elbows and into her shoulders. Her nose became blocked with the onslaught of her silent tears and breathing got increasingly difficult. She began to gasp as her body hyperventilated, her constriction finally getting the better of her.
“Look at her!” Christopher yelled into Rohan’s face. “Look what yer did! You make it right with her or I swear I’ll take her and that wee boy of yers and you’ll never see them again!”
“Over my dead body!” Rohan shouted and lurched for Christopher again.
Emma stumbled down the hall and into the wide lobby. She almost made it to the front door when a hand snaked around her mouth preventing the inevitable scream of shock. Emma’s breath caught in her chest and she looked down at the legs dressed in combat pants and black boots. Another face came into view, a pair of male eyes peering from a black balaclava. He signed something with his hands to the man holding Emma and crept towards the door of the room, where Rohan and Christopher fought. A long, black gun led his way, pointed around the doorframe and he slipped through. Emma squealed a fruitless warning which never made it past the gloved hand. She struggled and the cuffs dug into her flesh. Biting at the heavy gloves over her mouth yielded only empty material between her teeth, which choked and suffocated her. The hand shifted, unscathed and gripped harder over Emma’s mouth.
Tears of frustration and fear coursed down her face as she heard no more of Rohan’s raised voice and her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs as a gag was fixed over her mouth. She was dragged sideways and handed over to someone else who shoved her over his shoulder, fireman style. The movement was excruciating, her arms behind her back and her shoulders pulled almost out of their sockets as she bounced and shook over the stranger’s shoulder. Through the house he ran, exiting into the freezing cold through an open side door. She watched dark tussocks disappear underfoot and lines of straight tree trunks whip past on either side
Finally he set Emma down with care, but she overbalanced and hit her head against the side of a large dark vehicle, gasping with the pain. “Sorry,” the man whispered into Emma’s face. “You ok?” He turned to the dark shape waiting by the truck, at the same time as releasing the gag. “What’s the plan? You hear all that?”
The heavily camouflaged man to Emma’s left nodded once. Over six feet tall, he carried himself like Rohan with an ingrained military bearing. As soon as he spoke, Emma whipped her head round in surprise. “Yep,” he said softly in his gentle Yorkshire accent. “We got company about a mile out. Tell the Actuary and let him know it’s the Contessa. She’s actually come herself.”
“So Hack was right?” The man kept his hand on Emma’s forearm and looked up at his commanding officer.
&nb
sp; “Hack’s a dick and he’ll get what’s coming to him.” Frederik nodded at his subordinate. “Plan B and make sure you follow through. The Irishman provided the water so pull the electrics and let’s get this done quickly.” Susan’s husband looked down at Emma, the black smudges under his eyes frightening in the pitch darkness. “If I don’t get this lady home safe, the wife will kill me.”
The other man sniggered quietly and headed off back towards the building, disappearing into the darkness like a sylph.
Frederik spun Emma round and fiddled with the handcuffs behind her. She heard and felt the click as they fell apart under his ministrations and she turned, falling backwards against the truck again and hitting her head in the same place. “Christopher’s got a screwdriver and he’s going to hurt Rohan,” Emma gasped, struggling to stand upright in the ice underfoot.
“Na, he won’t,” Frederik replied. “Get in the truck, Emma and shut up. Please,” he added. He pressed his ear and listened to something else coming through the curly wire spiralling out of his dark shirt collar. His body tensed and he re-fixed the dark goggles down over his eyes. Holding a radio up to his mouth he whispered instructions into it. Emma heard clicks, whirs and disjointed voices from somewhere.
Frederik trusted Emma to get into the truck and she almost did. He was distracted by a set of vehicles arriving and took his eyes off her. Emma moved around to the driver’s side of the truck and waited, listening to the night noises from the dark surrounding forest. The truck was hidden in the trees, camouflaged by its dark matte colour. Emma heard the sound of slamming car doors. She felt insignificant, foolishly inconsequential in the unfolding drama. She helped Christopher get the screwdriver and a sense of responsibility crawled across her flesh. The Irishman set Rohan up and her husband had all the hallmarks of a man who hadn’t slept for weeks. Frederik wasn’t interested in Emma’s opinion and she experienced the overwhelming urge to speak to Rohan, to find out why he disregarded her earlier as though she didn’t matter. Surely she was more than collateral damage to him, wasn’t she?
Emma crept sideways, rubbing the blood back into her arms and keeping level with the vehicle so Frederik didn’t pick her up in his strange night-vision goggles, as he watched a car crawl up the driveway with only its side lights showing. She kept low to the ground and used the trees to hide herself, heading back the way she came, slipping in through the side door and navigating her way around the downstairs of the house. Twice she got lost. Her foot bumped a hefty block of wood in a corner, underneath a set of ragged, once ornate curtains and it began to slide down the wall, scraping the plaster as it moved. Emma stilled it with a panicked hand and then wielded it, knowing it could come in handy. She swung it in a couple of practice arcs, wincing at the pain in her arms but certain she could do it.
Creeping closer to the front of the house, Emma heard no sound but saw the occasional flash of metal as one of Frederik’s men moved around up ahead. She didn’t know how many there were but worked hard to stay out of their way.
Hiding behind a set of display curtains, Emma watched a shape slide past her. He didn’t look to be cut from the same scruffy cloth as her wounded kidnappers, more of a snappy dresser, but he carried a lethal looking gun in his outstretched hand. Emma slipped from behind the curtain, hearing her ruined boots squeak against the wooden floor. The man turned in surprise. He was thin and oriental looking and he gaped in surprise at the harpy with the block of wood raised above her head. “Sorry!” Emma whispered as she swiped at his face. The look of amazement stayed fixed to his lips even in sleep as he slid down the wall. Emma struggled to hold onto the wood, imagining the fierce clunk it would make throughout the house if it hit the floor.
With great difficulty, Emma dragged the man into her hiding place and hid him there. Then she snatched up the handgun from where it bounced, luckily into the folds of the copious curtain. She looked at it in the darkness, working out how to hold it by feel and placing her finger over the trigger. Wrinkling her nose, she shoved it in the pocket of her borrowed jacket and favoured her wooden block, holding it firmly in her right hand and flexing her wrist. She batted it against her left hand a few times to regain balance and crept on.
It felt like a video game Nicky liked to play at Fat Brian’s house, sneaking around in the dark and wiping out the enemy. He hated playing Emma because she was far superior with her hand-eye coordination to most of the regular players. Emma hit another man in the hallway, sneaking up behind him with incredible skill and knocking him out with the wooden block. She collected his gun also, switching it to a different pocket when the first gun clanked against the second noisily. She ran out of luck creeping past yet another hall curtain, when a gloved hand shot out and grabbed her around the neck and mouth, pulling her behind the folds of cloth.
“This is not a game!” an aggravated voice breathed in her ear. “Fred told you to get in the truck!” The soldier clearly felt he wasted his time and energy carrying the delicate female out to the vehicle and he pouted under his balaclava, narrowing his eyes in disgust. “Now stay here and shut up!” he demanded. “They’ve had a good look round and they’re coming in.”
“I’ve taken out two,” Emma stage whispered and the man shoved his hand over her mouth again.
“I know! Fred told me to watch you so I watched you! Nice technique. Now shut up. It’s important!”
Emma exhaled in temper and peered at her wooden block, convinced she saw a dark bloody edge in the growing light.
“Put it down!” the soldier hissed at her and snatched it out of her hand, placing it next to him.
“Don’t care. I’ve got this anyway.” Emma yanked the handgun from her pocket and the soldier ducked and pointed it away from his face.
“The bloody safety’s off!” he squeaked and confiscated that too. Emma fondled the other gun in her right pocket and pursed her lips like a stroppy teenager.
The sound of the front door slamming made them freeze in place, Emma wishing she’d got comfy instead of engaging in chit chat with her new friend. Her legs ached underneath her and she watched through a chink in the curtains as a tall, elegantly dressed woman clicked past in a set of high heels. She was flanked by two thick set men toting guns. Emma pulled the curtain back at the sides so she could gape some more but her companion nudged her painfully in the leg. She pushed his hand away and admired the cut of the suit drifting elegantly into the room. The woman was beautiful. At the last minute, Emma saw the glint of the metal blade in her manicured right hand.
“Ah, my gorgeous Russian adversary,” Emma heard her silky voice intone as she greeted Rohan.
“Oh shit!” the soldier mouthed, spotting the knife.
“Why did he just wait there to be killed?” Emma squeaked and the soldier hit her again, harder this time. The dull slap sounded loud in the silent hallway and the gentle hum in the room halted.
“Check it out!” the woman rapped, her oriental tongue making the words sound exotic. Emma experienced a flash of jealousy at the thought Rohan might have actually wanted to see the beautiful woman. Rage lit a fire in her belly. That’s why he’s not bothered about me! I’ve ruined his fun!
Emma heard the sound of Rohan talking to the woman as quick steps heralded the arrival of the first bodyguard, dispatched to investigate the slap which still stung on Emma’s thigh. The soldier stood quietly and curved himself into the corner of the window frame, hearing the big male turning on the spot. He made a small enticing noise and the wide face turned towards them in the half light and held his gun out front in a menacing stance as he searched for the noise. The soldier was slick in his movements, surging forward from the curtains like water as he shoved a metal blade upwards into the man’s throat and twisted. Liquid showered Emma and she bit down on the emerging scream as the soldier slithered the body behind the curtain and clamped his hand over her nose and mouth, suppressing breath as well as noise. It was over in seconds without sound but the soldier’s glove was wet and Emma’s imagination ran wi
ld.
She heard the gentle hum of a woman’s unconcerned voice framing her struggle for air and saw in her mind’s eye, the slender fingers moving over Rohan’s naked body. Her rational mind told her it wasn’t real but very little about Emma Harrington-Andreyev was ever completely rational.
“Sorry about this,” came the soldier’s voice close to her ear. Then Emma felt a sharp spiked prick in the soft flesh of her neck and the world was sucked away from her in a single, ragged flush.