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“Knox,” I whispered, “please get here, you stupid idiot.”
I didn’t know if Vane was beatable, but I knew one thing: if the Devils didn’t stop him, I would be trapped alone—and that scared me shitless.
Vane couldn’t leave this warehouse alive.
Suddenly, a door banged open, and footsteps pounded closer. My heart lurched into my throat with such relief that I wanted to weep.
Knox and Jackson.
“Finally, the fucking cavalry,” I breathed, my voice cracking, gripping my gun until my knuckles turned white in the ugly fluorescents above.
More chaos ensued—and then I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Vane and Jackson ran by. I watched them beat the ever-living shit out of each other. Vane was my target and I tuned everything else out. I had to wait until he was alone without anyone in the crossfire.
Still, I barely heard the footsteps crashing up the stairs.
“Caroline.”
Knox.
I wanted to run to him—but I kept my cool. I couldn’t be emotional. I had to focus. We met gazes, and it was as if he read my mind.
He nodded in understanding. I thought he would leave, but he stepped forward and held out a bloody knife.
I took it. Our fingers brushed. A spark between our skin turned into a shiver down my spine. Suddenly, there were a hundred things I wanted to say to him.
I opened my mouth, but Knox closed the distance in one step, sealing my lips with a desperate kiss.
When he pulled away, he ruined the moment.
“You can’t do shit up here, baby girl,” he said quietly, intensely.
“Hell I can’t,” I snapped immediately. “I have the perfect vantage point to?—”
From below, Jackson roared, “Knox!” and then the sound of bone against bone.
Knox’s eyes flashed, turning wild. “Downstairs, Care. Shoot when it matters. I?—”
“Come out, Caroline!”
My blood turned to ice. Knox’s expression turned so dark with hate and rage that I feared him for the briefest moments.
“Come out, Royal Flush,” Vane crooned in his deep, mocking voice. “I have unfinished business with you both. I have a knife to your president’s throat, if you want to come see.”
Knox’s already stiff posture stiffened impossibly further. His fingers tightened on his gun.
“I’ll give the count of ten before I slit his throat like a pig.”
Fuck. No.
Knox looked sharply at me with such authority that I felt compelled to obey whatever he said next. I would have preferred it in the bedroom, but that wasn’t a luxury we could afford right then. Blood now. Sex later.
Vane kept taunting. One of the Devils shouted, “Get your asses down here!”
“Ten!”
“Get up,” Knox ordered in a hiss, not entirely unkindly, “and stay behind me. If you have a clear shot of him, shoot.”