deserved a life with a guy who could give her a family.
Last night she’d said they weren’t through. He wanted that to be the case, but worse than never having her, would be only having her because she felt sorry for him. That, he couldn’t deal with.
Finally, he’d done all he could do to waste time in the office. It was time to man-up and go home.
He shut off all the lights in the building, double-checking the locks on the various doors. As he stepped outside the hangar, he was surprised that the exterior light was out. He’d have to fix that tomorrow. He could see the faint trace of moonlight reflecting off the black of his truck and headed toward it.
Suddenly the skin on the back of his neck prickled and he turned around, searching the darkened shadows around the building. A lighter flared to life and he spotted five guys ambling casually toward him. This wasn’t good. Chris searched the empty parking lot, but his was the only car left.
The guys ranged in height, but all of them moved like they spent time with weights regularly. He’d grown up with Colton and Jake, so he knew how to fight, but these odds didn’t look good for him. He tried to look casual and easy-going. Maybe they weren’t here to cause any problems. Yeah right, and he was about to turn into the Easter Bunny. From the looks of it, a bruised and battered one.
“Hey boys,” he gave them a friendly smile, “it’s a little late to be hanging out at the airfield isn’t it?”
The guys exchanged smirks as they eyed him. They approached steadily toward him and now only stood about six feet away as they quickly surrounded him.
The guy in the center shot him an evil grin. “Man, you have fucked up somewhere. Someone wants you out of the way and the job has fallen to me and my boys.” He spread his hands out to encompass his friends.
“Really? I can’t imagine someone having a problem with me. I’m a really nice guy. You must have gotten the wrong person. Who are you after?”
“That would be you, Chris Roberston.”
Damn, it would have been so nice if it had just been a matter of mistaken identity, but he couldn’t be that lucky, could he? Guess he should have taken the attacks before now more seriously. Stupid, and now he would pay for it. He shook his head. “Honestly, I have no idea what I’ve done to tick someone off. Maybe you could share with the class who your boss is. Then I could work on fixing whatever I did to hurt his feelings.”
“Now friend, you don’t seem to understand. You don’t have to fix your ways. We’re here to fix them for you.”
“Aw, I see, y’all are giving that way aren’t you?” Maybe if he could keep them talking, he could figure a way out of this mess. He fingered his cell phone in his pocket, but dammit, he’d let the battery die while on their flight and hadn’t charged it when he got back to the office.
“Unfortunately for you, we’re not that giving.” The leader instructed, “Get him.”
Chris started swinging as soon as they began to rush him. He managed a couple of good punches, with gratifying accompanying grunts from his targets before the sheer number of them overtook him. Fists seemed to land everywhere on him and the pain was immediate under the sheer force of the blows. So far, he’d managed to stay on his feet, but when he heard a growled, “Take out his knee,” he knew that wasn’t going to last long.
He heard a crack and howled as he went crashing to the ground. Blinding spasms of pain ricocheted up from his knee to his thigh and groin as the brutal kick of the steel-toed boots hit their mark on his poor battered knee.
“Finish him,” the dark voice instructed and a flash of silver gleamed in the moonlight. Aw, damn, these guys weren’t playing around. They honestly planned to kill him here.
As the throbbing pulsed through him, he suddenly wondered why he’d been so picky about why Julie wanted to sleep with him. At least then, he could have died with final thoughts of her loving his body. He tensed for one final desperate fight as the guy came at him with the blade, when a flash of light made him wonder if he’d begun hallucinating.