Page 8 of Taken With Trouble

I’m going to have to come up with a shorter title.

I glance around the room, but he wisely removed anything resembling a weapon from the area, except for an empty coffee mug. I consider the options. If used right, it could work.

Make that one hundred and eighteen ways to kill a man. Or just Liam Hawthorne.

I swipe the mug and tiptoe to the door. Cracking it open, I slip out of the room and into the main living area. I originally thought I was in a suite, but this looks like an apartment.

My body stills when I see feet dangling off the edge of the couch. I tip-toe farther into the room to confirm that the man lying dead asleep is Liam.

A smile forms on my lips. I could run, but I didn’t get drugged and taken to Paris to let this man get away. I have the upper hand, for once. And I’m going to take it.

I quickly scan the room, searching for a better weapon. An ancient-looking knife sits propped up on the entertainment center, beckoning to me like a beacon.Use me.

Don’t mind if I do.

I wrap my fingers around the cool metal handle, adjusting my grip to fit within the waiting grooves. This thing is nice. I hold the blade out as I sneak around the back of the couch.

I can’t really kill Liam. I’d get in huge trouble.

Unless… I do a good job and hide the body. I shake my head. No. Dreaming about his demise is all I can do for now. But it’s quite comforting.

I bring the rusted metal toward his neck. It will barely scratch him. But maybe he’ll succumb to tetanus on our journey to the States. Then I can claim I didn’t kill him. It’s the perfect plan.

Liam’s eyes pop open, and he snatches my hand, twisting my wrist. Pain engulfs the entire right side of my body, momentarily paralyzing me. Until he yanks me on top of him.

“Were you about to kill me with Mother Theresa’s Dagger?” he asks, unamused and holding my wrist so tight it’s like I’ve fallen subject to him… which is the most dangerous of circumstances, seeing where I am now.

I get my knee under me and attempt to dig it into his crotch, but he anticipates my move and rolls. I fly off the couch, smacking into the hard floor. The air evaporates from my lungs, and I gasp at the pain in my chest.

Liam kneels over me, brandishing the knife.

“Thisis a relic. Worth fifty thousand dollars.”

A fifty-thousand-dollar knife that was no doubt stolen. I’ll have to write that down.

I swallow in a mouthful of air. “You drugged me.” I swing at him, but he takes advantage of my still weak state to pin me to the floor, the tip of the knife pointed at my head.

“Isavedyou.” He swirls the knife in the air.

The nerve of this man. “You put me in acoffin!” I yank my knee free, and this time I make contact. He groans and rolls off me into the fetal position. I’m on top of him in an instant, twisting his arms behind his back, making it clear I have the upper hand. “You kidnapped a federal agent. You’re under arrest.”

“Do you have authority in France?”

“Good point. I could turn you over to one of the hundred people who want your head on a platter.”

“Now that would just be heartless.”

“Says the man who killed me.” I pull his arm tighter, and he chuckles.

“You’re clearly alive.”

“I was in a coffin!”

“Again, alive. And, might I say, looking better than ever?”

I pinch his arms, annoyed by his satisfaction.

He laughs, his arms relaxing under my hold, and I wonder if he could break free, but he’s playing along to irritate me. I dislike this man more with each passing second. All I have to do is get him to the authorities and go home.