Explosive Attraction - By Lena Diaz Page 0,72
know if she could, but she had to try. Rafe had saved her too many times to count. And he was fighting for his life right now—and hers.
She had to try.
She ran to Nick. “Forgive me,” she whispered. She bit her bottom lip, and slapped Nick hard across the face.
* * *
RAFE CIRCLED SONNTAG, desperately looking for an opening. Damn it. He didn’t have time for this.
Darby and Nick didn’t have time for this.
The welcome sound of sirens screamed up the road toward them.
Sonntag waved his knife, laughing. “They won’t get here in time. Your brother will die, if he isn’t dead already. And so will the girl.” His lip curled in a sneer. “You’re going to find out what it’s like to lose everything that matters to you.”
Like hell he would.
Rafe lunged at him. Sonntag dove out of the way and whirled around, hacking with the deadly blade. Rafe dodged him, but not fast enough. The blade sliced his arm, like an electric shock shooting across his bicep.
“Don’t worry,” Sonntag said as he stood above him. “I won’t kill you yet. An eye for an eye.” He pulled a phone out of his pocket.
And then Rafe knew. The timer on the bomb was fake. Sonntag wanted to control when the bomb blew, down to the second, to make Rafe suffer. He was going to use the phone to blow the bomb.
Rafe aimed a vicious kick at the other man’s knee. A loud crack was followed by a howling scream as Sonntag fell to the ground, holding his leg. The phone and knife went skittering across the grass in different directions.
Rafe rolled and came up with the knife, but Sonntag grabbed his foot. Rafe twisted around, slashing down with the blade, stabbing the other man’s arm.
Sonntag’s roar of pain echoed through the trees but he didn’t let go. He wrapped both his hands around Rafe’s leg and yanked him back. Rafe lost his grip on the knife and fell to the side.
The sirens stopped. Car doors slammed. Voices echoed from the trees.
“Over here!” Rafe yelled.
Sonntag tugged the knife out of his arm. He shimmied away from Rafe, army-crawling across the grass.
Rafe’s right arm hung useless, blood dripping down his fingers. He spotted Sonntag’s goal, the phone, a few feet away.
“No!” Rafe lunged at Sonntag just as he turned with the knife in one hand, and the phone in the other.
Rafe ignored the knife, reaching for the phone. Burning, tearing pain sucked the air out of his lungs. He landed with a jarring thud. His teeth cracked together. Sonntag’s skull slammed against the hard ground.
“Here they are,” someone shouted. Another man cursed. “Medic!”
Rafe dragged himself into a sitting position. He clutched the phone in his hand, cradling it against his chest with his good arm. Beside him, Sonntag lay unmoving, staring up at the sky, a tiny line of blood running out of his ear and down his cheek. Rafe didn’t know if the man was alive or dead, and he didn’t care.
All he cared about was reaching Darby and Nick.
Buresh was suddenly standing over him. “Don’t move. You’re leaking all over the place.”
An EMT knelt beside Rafe and reached for the phone. “I’ll take that, sir.”
Rafe twisted away. “Don’t touch it.” He motioned for one of the bomb techs. “Here.” He handed the phone to him. “Be extremely careful with that. It’s the remote detonator to the IED inside the mausoleum.”
“You got it. We’ll get the robot.”
“Help me up, Buresh. Darby’s inside with the bomb, and Nick. He’s hurt. We need to get the gate open.”
Buresh hauled him to his feet. The burning pain in Rafe’s chest and arm had him gasping for breath.
“I don’t suppose I can convince you to wait in the ambulance.” Buresh gestured toward the emergency vehicles lined up on the grass several hundred yards away.
“Not a chance.” He and Buresh followed the bomb squad to the mausoleum. A quick snip with some bolt cutters and the lock gave way.
Rafe rushed inside first, shoving past the others.
Buresh followed behind him, then stopped suddenly, looking around. “I thought Nick and Darby were in here.”
A ragged line of blood zigzagged across the concrete floor to an opening in the mausoleum wall. “I didn’t think she’d really do it,” Rafe said. “I didn’t think she could do it. I didn’t...” He rushed forward, ignoring the burning pain across his ribs. He squatted in front of the square.
“What are you talking about?” Buresh knelt beside him.
Rafe braced himself for what