When He's Bad (Walker Security Adrian’s Trilogy #2) - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,2

my arms. “I’m claustrophobic, very claustrophobic. I’m—bad. It’s bad.” She sways.

I catch her around the waist and mold her close. “Easy, sweetheart. Don’t go down on me now. We have to move.”

“I’m trying.” She buries her face in my chest. “I’m trying. I just—” She looks up at me. “I fell in a hole as a kid. I have triggers. They’re rare but—apparently,” she makes a choked sound, “another hole is one of them. I’m sorry. I hate that I’m this weak.”

I cup her face. “You are not weak and I understand, I do. But Pri—”

“I know,” she says. “We’re in a hole. We have to get out of the hole. I need to shake it off.”

And there she goes, proving me right: she’s not weak. “A half-mile,” I say. “That’s all you have to make it, but we have to go now. I don’t know how Deleon found us, but if he knew about the cabin, he could have known about the tunnel. Outside of me, and until I told Walker, Rafael was the only living person who knows about it.

“How did Deleon know?”

“That’s a question for later,” I say, when the truth is that I feel certain it was my older brother, the one Pri doesn’t know about. The one who is now dead. Alex, who was not only a dirty Fed, he became a Devil. “A half-mile,” I repeat. “You walk further to work every day.”

“I know,” she breathes out. “I know.” Without further ado, warrior princess that she is, she rotates forward.

One of my hand settles on the low ceiling and the other at her waist, letting her know I’m here, I’m at her back. I shine the flashlight over her shoulder, lighting our path and she starts walking.

I’m calm, my pace even with hers, but adrenaline pulses through me, and because Pri matters to me, I’m focused on how we get out of this alive. Even if Deleon knows about the tunnel, Walker is protecting us, and the exit isn’t easy to find.

Pri and I fall into silence, walking forward, but Pri’s breathing is raspy and too shallow. We’re about halfway to the exit when I halt her and lean into her. “You’ve got this. We’ve got this.”

“I can’t seem to catch my breath.”

“Just breathe in, sweetheart, long and full. Remind yourself you can do it.”

She inhales, pulling in the breath, and my hand slides to her belly. “Now breathe out.”

Her breath gushes from her lips. “I’m good,” she hisses. “I’m fine. Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

My lips curve with approval. “Let’s go.”

She steps forward, and I have no idea how she just defeated her demons, but I need lessons because she’s in full charge, now in control of her baggage. With our new pace, we’re at the exit quickly and I catch her hand, pulling her around to face me. “I need you to stay here while I clear the path. You have your gun?”

“In my purse.” She pats it at her hip. “I grabbed it when I grabbed my gun.”

“Pull it out and use it if you have to, but take my lead. Got it?”

“Yes.”

I rotate us in the small space, pressing our bodies close as I take the lead. When I’m in front, she grabs my arm. “Do not get killed. We have things to discuss, you and me.”

She’s right. We do. Things like those times when I’m bad. And it happens far more often than she wants to know.

Chapter Three

ADRIAN

I head up the steel steps implanted in the tunnel wall, but pause at the top, just beneath the door. Smart man that my father was, he’d placed our exit location in the center of a circle of bushes, but that coverage does me no good if someone’s waiting on us above.

For just a moment, I consider swinging back to the cabin, but I talked to the Walker team before we ever left Austin. We have a plan. They know my underground location and if the coast were clear to return to the cabin, they’d drop a light in the tunnel as a signal. And since that hasn’t happened, I can only hope we’re safe ahead.

Drawing my Glock, I ease the sliding door aside just enough to do a survey of what is directly in front of me and above, which is rain, a pounding, steady rain. The only good thing about rain, at least at this particular moment, is the extra coverage it offers. No one