Never Gonna Happen - Cynthia Eden Page 0,67

it. Then she backed the hell away from the door because if bullets started flying, they’d come through the wood and hit her.

She wrapped up in the towel. Wished she had clothes with her. A robe. Something else. And she held tight to the gun.

***

“What in the hell happened to your weapon?” Dex demanded.

“Alyssa has it.”

Dex grunted at him. “Stop this hero complex crap.” He bent and hauled a second gun from the holster on his ankle.

It was still dark in the bedroom because they didn’t want to turn on the lights and alert the perp, but Sebastian’s eyes had adjusted, so he could see easily. He took the backup weapon from Dex.

“The guy is taking one from your playbook,” Dex said. “He’s scaling the wall. Only he doesn’t quite have your stealth.”

“Who does?” Sebastian whispered back.

“I’m going to disable the secondary alarm.” He tapped on his phone. “See, if I’d had this on earlier, your ass never would have gotten inside. But did you thank me for letting you—”

“Do the freaking job,” Sebastian groused.

“It’s done. Now you go to the right. I’ll go to the left. When he comes through, we take him out.”

They both moved into position.

Sebastian flattened his body against the wall even as his gaze jumped to the bathroom door. No one will get to her. “You said there were two of them?”

“My team is taking out the second perp now. Still no freaking response from Baylor.”

Then there was a soft creak. The window began to open.

Things happened pretty fast after that. The dumbass aimed his gun at the bed. Just acted like he was going to fire from right there.

Dex caught the guy’s wrist. Twisted it. The gun fell, bones snapped, and the perp would have fallen his ass right back out of the window if it weren’t for the fact that Dex hauled him inside.

The perp twisted and rolled, then he came up, cradling a knife in his left hand. His right hand—now broken, or at least, the wrist was broken—hung near his side.

Sebastian stepped forward and aimed his weapon at the intruder. “Gun trumps knife, asshole. So unless you want me to put some bullet holes in you, you’ll drop the weapon, right now.”

He didn’t drop it. He did throw the knife. What in the hell? Sebastian jerked to the side, and he heard a grunt from Dex. Dex had been partially behind Sebastian so—

Hell. The perp had turned and was running, but not heading for the bedroom door. He was running straight for the closed bathroom door. The door that had a thin stream of light shining from the bottom, in that thin crack between the wood and the floor. The light that showed someone might be inside.

Alyssa. The perp was going for Alyssa.

The hell you are.

Sebastian didn’t fire. The last thing he wanted was for a bullet to go through that door. He lunged forward and slammed his body into the perp’s. The guy’s head pounded into the door. But the punk didn’t stop. He twisted his body and came up swinging at Sebastian.

***

Alyssa jumped when something—or someone—slammed into the door. She’d wrapped the towel around herself and tucked the edge between her breasts. She crouched in the tub with the gun held tightly in one hand, and she kept her eyes on the door.

She could hear grunts. Thuds.

“I’m fucking bleeding over here!” That had been Dex’s bellow.

Then the wood of the bathroom door exploded in as two men—Sebastian and some fellow with sandy blond hair—came crashing inside.

The stranger hit the tile floor. He groaned. And Sebastian’s fist slammed into his face. “What in the hell did you do to Baylor?” Sebastian demanded.

“Wh-who?”

“The guard who should have been keeping a watch on this side of the building! What did you—”

“S-stabbed him…dr-dropped his body behind…dumpster…”

Sebastian swore. He leapt to his feet. “Dex, get your team to find Baylor, now!”

But the guy on the floor started to laugh.

She didn’t think laughing was good. Not at all.

Then his laughter stopped. “Boom,” he said.

Boom?

She pointed her gun at him. “Why did you say that?”

Sebastian’s head snapped toward her.

“I’m…the distraction,” the man on the floor said. He spit out some blood. “My buddy…he was wiring this place.”

Sebastian grabbed the perp by the shirtfront and yanked him to his feet. “We have your buddy. He never made it inside the building.”

She kept her gun aimed at the fellow.

Another rough laugh. “Didn’t…just come with one friend.”

She shook her head. Okay. She had to be misunderstanding. “He didn’t basically