Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(311)

I grin through the nausea and the throbbing pain in my gut as I look up at him; “Wait, aren’t you the crying guy that offered to pay me not to hit you again back at the restaurant?”

Logan snorts from the wall next to me, and I watch Anderson’s piggy red face go a shade darker as he turns and slams a fist across Logan’s face. He turns back to me, wiping his hand off with a towel; “Yeah, Benson, I’m gonna have to take my time here.” He leans in close, his black-rimmed eyes narrowing at me and making him appear ghoulish; “But I ain’t gonna take my time with that little lady friend of yours, you get me?”

The grin drops from my face, and red mist clouds my eyes. Instantly, I’m thrashing at my chains, heedless of and ignoring how fruitless a motion it is, because all I can think about it killing him with my bare hands in that moment.

Anderson laughs, stepping just out of reach of my bound fists and grinning wildly at me; “Oh yeah, me and her? We’re gonna have a real good time together.” I jerk forward again, snarling at him as the chains bite into my skin. Anderson laughs and then swings again, connecting with my face and knocking me back against the wall as he lets out a laugh.

“OK, enough of this.” Benson steps forward and pushes Anderson aside, and as I shake my head clear of the hit, my eyes suddenly focus on the glass and metal in his hands and I freeze.

He grins at me as he holds the needle out; “Hold him.”

Anderson storms towards me and doubles me over with another slug to the gut before he slams his forearm across my neck and holds me hard against the wall. My arms are chained outstretched on either side of me, and I start to roar as Benson steps closer to me, the needle in his hand and his eyes on my open, outstretched arm. Logan is thrashing at his restraints now, his eyes wild as the look of helplessness washes over his face.

“Remember what I promised you, Connors?” Benson steps closer and taps the needle against my arm. And suddenly, I don’t even need Anderson holding me down, because I can feel that suffocating, arresting feeling of helplessness start to grab ahold of me. I’m frozen, breathless and drowning as the metal and the sweet release it holds inside drags across my skin, and I’m staring at it with a mind-numbing blend of fear and hunger.

“I’m gonna ask you one more time, Connors; where the fuck are my diamonds?”

“Get the fuck away from him!” Logan growls, but I barely hear him as the rest of the world slides away into darkness. There is nothing except Benson’s voice and the sweet release the demon inside craves just millimeters away.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t- I- They’re gone.” I force the words from my mouth.

“Wrong answer.”

The needle moves up my arm to the crook of my scared elbow where the veins stand out the most. And I can feel it, and Goddamn if I’m not ready for it.

The door to the cell slams open and a man in a Blackriver tactical vest runs in; “Sir?”

Benson whirls, fury on his face; “What is it?”

The man swallows; “Sir, there’s- uh, there’s something heading right at the front gates you should come see.”

Benson frowns and starts to turn back to me; “Then deal with it, captain.”

“It’s a tank, sir.”

Benson turns sharply; “Excuse me?”

“A tank sir, and it’s headed right at us.”

And then I’m laughing. Logan looks at me like I’ve lost it, but I just grin and wink at him as Benson runs from the room; “Your sister is Goddamn nuts, you know.”





29





Peyton




We’re coming.

The tank bellows and rumbles around us like some sort of nightmare creature, belching black smoke and probably leaving a trail of nuts and bolts from here back to Fairuza Kartal’s house. But that doesn’t even matter, because the looming double-door to the fortressed monastery is coming right for us.

Or rather, we’re about to crash through it.

We can’t shoot it - as if we even knew how in this thing - but we’re barreling at it as fast as forty-five tons of steel and iron wrapped around a diesel engine can. And I’m pretty certain that when push comes to shove between a Soviet-era metal tank and a 12th century wooden door, the tank is going to smash some shit up.

Or at least, let’s hope so, or this is going to be the most embarrassing rescue attempt of all time.

“You ready for this, darling?” I glance over towards Sasha, who looks absolutely insane sitting in the driver’s seat of the tank. With the goggles, the scarf around her neck, the cigarette dangling from her lips, and that persistent aristocratic accent, she almost looks like some sort of eccentric fighter pilot ace from the same war that this tank is from.