Counting On Cole (Wilde Ways #8) - Cynthia Eden Page 0,42
rushing toward her.
Cole gripped a gun in his right hand.
The man holding her yelled, “I will slice her open!” He put a knife to her throat, but kept one arm locked around her body.
Cole didn’t stop. He ran forward. “And I will put a bullet in your brain. Let her go!”
Cars were still passing by. As if this was a normal occurrence. Nothing to see here. Just keep going. The taxi driver was gone. She was in the middle of the street. Tears were on her cheeks. A knife was at her throat. She wanted to punch back at her attacker, but that knife was already pressing into her skin. Could he slice her neck open before she escaped him?
“Evie.” Cole’s voice. Flat. Calm.
How could he be calm?
Chase stood just a foot or so behind him. Like Cole, Chase’s expression was completely controlled.
“Evie, you’re going to be okay,” Cole told her in that steady, calm voice of his.
“Get the fuck back!” Her attacker yanked her against him. The blade slipped over her skin. “Get back or I will let her bleed out right here!”
Cole’s gaze didn’t leave Evie’s face, but he said, “You won’t get paid if she’s dead. I’m sure that’s part of the deal.”
“You don’t know a damn thing! Get back!”
A woman saw Cole’s gun and screamed.
Oh, sure, scream at that. What about the creep with the knife at my throat?
Evie’s attacker tried to drag her back toward his car.
“I want you to duck and run to me, Evie,” Cole ordered.
What? He wanted her to run—like, right then? There was a knife at her throat, and she couldn’t get her elbow free to drive at her attacker in order to loosen his hold.
“Duck and run,” Cole told her again, his voice harder.
“No!” Her kidnapper’s voice blasted in her ears. “We are getting in the car and getting—”
A motorcycle was hurtling toward them. She saw it from the corner of her eye, and Evie screamed. So did her attacker. He let her go.
Duck and run. Run to Cole.
She ducked, and she ran.
“No!” Her attacker’s bellow followed her as he grabbed for her arm. “You aren’t going to get—”
Bam.
One blast of a gunshot.
She kept running. Cole grabbed her and hauled her against him, twisting his body at the same time so that he was shielding her. He shuddered against her and held Evie in a death grip.
She held him just as tightly.
“Check the bastard!” Cole roared.
She could hear sirens. Their screams were growing closer and closer. Someone had called the cops. Maybe it had been that nervous-looking taxi driver. Whoever it had been…thank you!
“Baby, are you hurt?”
She lifted her head. Blinked. “Little…dizzy. They…he put something over m-my mouth and nose. Knocked me out.”
“It’s clear,” she heard Chase shout out. “Car is empty. Attacker is down.”
The motorcycle’s engine growled.
Her head whipped toward it. That fast movement made her dizziness worse. The man on the cycle swept his gaze over her.
“That’s James,” Cole told her quickly. “It’s okay. He’s with us.”
Her attention darted back to her attacker. He was still on the ground. He was…
Oh, God.
“Who shot him?” she whispered. Everything had happened so fast.
“I did.”
Her gaze jumped back to Cole.
“He was going to stab you, Evie. You didn’t see it, but he was swinging the knife down at your back. I had to stop him.”
He’d…She stumbled away from Cole. Her horrified attention went back to the man sprawled on the street. The man who wasn’t moving at all.
When Chase had said her attacker was down…
Had he meant that the man was dead?
Her knees buckled. Maybe from whatever drug her attacker had used to knock her out. Maybe because she might be staring at a dead man. Maybe because she’d just been freaking abducted. Whatever the reason, they buckled. Before she could hit the pavement, Cole grabbed her and scooped Evie into his arms.
“It’s all right,” he reassured her quickly.
It was not all right. It was a million ways from all right.
“I’ve got you.”
He’d just shot a man because of her. Killed a man…because of me.
Feeling numb, no, icy, her attention drifted around the crowd. People were gaping at her. Some were lifting their phones and filming the scene. Filming this nightmare?
A police cruiser raced toward them and braked with a jolting stop. The officers jumped out with their guns drawn. “Freeze!”
Cole’s hold tightened on her. “Everything is going to be okay,” he promised her. “Just trust me.”