“Please.” Begging, running—even with her energy reserves low she would try anything.
“You are done causing problems.” He scraped the knife’s tip over her skin.
She flinched and felt a prick. If there was pain, it didn’t register. Not with the adrenaline coursing inside her.
But he just stood there, staring at her. Her fingers went numb from the desperate clenching around his arm. Her heart thudded hard enough to echo in her brain.
Lying. She went with lying. Her breathy voice barely rose above a choked whisper. “I’ll tell you what you want.”
“That’s a good girl.”
She pretended to cough. Let the rasp in her voice back up her lie. “Can’t breathe.”
As if she weighed nothing, he threw her into the chair. Her back slapped against the cushion and she gripped the armrests to keep from slipping down on the material.
The plan was to spring up and out of the seat again, screaming and flying at him as she attacked. Nails, feet, hands, she’d use them all and bring the lamp with her as a weapon.
As soon as she moved, he clamped a hand over her wrist. Trapped it against the chair and pressed down. Put his weight into it. The intense pressure had her crying out.
The knife flashed again. “Not one sound or I break it.”
His head turned toward the door. One minute he was in front of her. The next she was up and he stood behind her with the knife touching her throat. “Sounds like we have company.”
* * *
BEN SMILED WHEN he saw her number light up his phone. Putting the car back in Park, he let the engine idle as he stopped in the middle of her apartment complex’s parking lot. “Change your mind about letting me come in?”
Silence greeted him. No, not silence. Shuffling and footsteps. And something that sounded like a muffled shout.
Everything inside him stilled as he strained to hear. All his years of training came roaring back, from the navy to NCIS to his current position with the Corcoran Team. He beat back the urge to race in, gun firing. He needed to know what was happening, if anything even was. And the nerve pulsing by his temple suggested it was.
More moving and a loud crinkling sound as if the phone was breaking in two. After a few seconds her voice boomed through the confusing thuds.
Who are you?
Ben didn’t bother to turn off the car. Reaching over the center console, he pressed his index finger in the lock reader, and the compartment next to his radio popped open. With a gun in his hand, he got out.
One in his hand. The other at his ankle. That should do it.
Without looking down, he hit a series of numbers on his cell and lifted it to his ear. After two rings, the line clicked and he started talking. “Apartment six. Now.”
Without hanging up, he slipped the cell in the front pocket of his black pants. That would be enough. His teammate Joel Kidd would track the phone, and someone, or a whole group of them, would come blazing in. Until then, it fell to him to assess and rescue.
Crouched and running, he slipped down the pathway that ran through the center, stopping one apartment down. Constantly scanning the area, he looked for trouble. Except for the muffled voices from a television and the wail of a child a few doors up, everything stayed quiet in the comfortable suburban area.