When He's Bad (Walker Security Adrian’s Trilogy #2) - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,1
and gives a choppy nod, rushing away. I knot the hell out of Deleon’s wrists and make damn sure he’s not going anywhere.
I rotate, grab my gun, and shove it in my pants. Pri’s presently using tape and one of my T-shirts from the overnight bag to stop Pitt’s bleeding, which tells me what I need to know. He’s alive. He’s also in the doorway. “I have to move him,” I say. “We need to shut the door.” I don’t wait for her reply. “Call Savage. Tell him Pitt’s condition. Now.”
“I have to finish wrapping—”
“Now, Pri, or someone is walking through the door and killing us.” I grab her arm and pull her to her feet, pressing the cell into her hand. “On speaker,” I add.
She nods and I grab Pitt’s feet, dragging him further into the cabin, blood pooling around his body as Pri punches in the call. Savage answers on ring number one. “We’re ten minutes out,” he announces.
“It’s Pri,” she says, kneeling next to Pitt again, and setting the phone on the ground. “Pitt showed up here at the cabin,” she adds, applying pressure to his wound. “Deleon stabbed him. He’s bleeding badly.”
“Pitt?” Savage snaps. “And fucking Deleon? What the hell? Where’s Adrian?”
I shut the front door and lock it. “I’m here,” I say, kneeling next to Pri and taping up Pitt’s wound. “We’re going underground, so listen up because I’m leaving you a shit show.”
“I love a good shit show,” Savage jokes. “Bring it.”
“I stabbed Deleon and tied him up,” I say. “I saved his vital organs. We need to save him and turn him against Waters.”
“He’s alive?” Savage wonders. “I thought you wanted him dead?”
My eyes meet Pri’s as I respond with, “You have no idea how fucking much I want him dead.”
Pri cuts her gaze, a rejection in the action I feel like a blade in my heart. I stabbed Deleon, it’s true, but there is no question he struck first, cutting me via Pri, and he knew it.
“All righty then,” Savage says. “He’s alive. We want him dead. What else?”
“That wasn’t an invitation to kill him,” Pri snaps. “I need him alive.”
“No one needs that bastard alive,” Savage grumbles, but he says, “Note to self: keep the piece of shit alive. Got it. What else?”
The alarm at the right side of the house sounds and I disconnect the call, launching myself to my feet while Pri, now covered in blood, smartly scrambles for her weapon.
“What’s happening?” she calls out, gripping it and scanning the rear of the cabin.
“We need to go,” I say. “That’s what’s happening.”
Pri hesitates on the “we.” It’s in her face, her body language, her damn energy. “Adrian—”
“I will pick you up and carry you out of here if I have to,” I promise her, not leaving room for her questions or contempt when I’m trying to save her life. “You decide.” Another alarm sounds and this one is trouble, this one tells me how close trouble runs, which is too close. There’s an explosion, a tripwire booby trap has been set off, which has Pri yelping while our enemy is waylaid at least for now. I grab her hand and start walking.
She doesn’t fight me, at least not now, but thanks to Deleon, I know she will.
Chapter Two
ADRIAN
Our destination is the cabin bedroom, where I yank up the rug by the bed and pull open a hidden door. All the while my mind is processing the situation at hand. Only a handful of close people knew about this cabin. Those people include family, and the Walker team, who I just told, and yet somehow, Deleon and Pitt knew. That doesn’t make me feel good about the tunnel we’re about to enter, but we really have no options.
There’s a crash at the front of the cabin, and Pri gasps and flattens against me. Certain that blast was the door being blown off, I pull her toward the steps leading into the tunnel. “Go! Go! Go!” I order.
She rushes into the darkness and I follow. With a practiced effort, I shut the door and flip the rug so that it falls back into place. Pausing at the top of the wooden steps, I grab the flashlight lodged on a piece of wood in the dirt wall and turn it on. Pri is at the bottom of the steps and I join her, eager to get moving down the narrow path. The less time we’re in this hole, the better.