Page 174 of Blood Stone

Nial snorted. “Overkill.”

“Whoarethese people?” Roman demanded.

“Doesn’t matter for now,” Nial said sharply. “For now, our aim is simple. Find Garrett and Winter. Kate—”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said.

“They’re SEALs.”

“Don’t care. I’ll hang back behind Roman, if that will make you happy, but I’m not sitting here in the car and letting my imagination go into nuclear meltdown.”

“You understand that you’re the only one vulnerable to bullets and blades in there?” he replied.

She rolled her eyes.

“Very well.”

“Shit, Nial,” Roman said. “You cave too easily.”

“I’ve been married longer than you.” He gave a small smile. “I know when it’s a lost cause. Besides, Winter would take one of my testicles, if she found out I stopped Kate from coming in and that is a judge and jury I have no intention of facing.” He rolled up the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing. “Everyone ready?”

Sebastian handed Nial a long knife in a scabbard, which he took and held down at his side so that passers-by wouldn’t notice it so easily.

“Let’s go.”

* * * * *

Kate hung back as she had promised she would do, a step or two behind Roman, as he split apart from everyone else and eased around the back of the neighbourhood block, looking for the back entrance to the house. They jog-trotted down the lane at the back of the houses, looking for a gate or drive leading to the backyard of their house.

A hundred yards down the dark lane, a shadow rose up as Roman ran past and grabbed him from behind.

Roman staggered back, his arms reaching up toward his neck. Kate realized the figure had a choke hold on him. She jumped on the man’s back. It wasn’t an impossible leap and adrenaline made the jump even easier. She landed high and wrapped her legs around him. It was ridiculously easy to whip her own arm under the guy’s chin, jam it against his throat until she felt the adam’s apple give way, then lock her wrist with her other hand and haul on it. She let her body weight fall backwards, which put even more pressure on her arm.

The guy instantly began to choke and gasp. He let Roman go and scrabbled at her arms, trying to wrench her loose. But she had locked herself in tight and the more he swung about and staggered, the more pressure he put on his own windpipe.

He ran backwards and at the last second, she realized he was going to ram himself into a fence to try and dislodge her. She straightened up her back, taking the impact across her whole back and ass. It didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. And it didn’t dislodge her.

It was the guy’s last effort. He slowly sank down to the ground as his strength ran out.

“Stay on him,” Roman murmured. “He could be faking it.”

“Yep,” she replied. She tightened her grip, waiting it out. “Test him.”

Roman pulled out his knife, picked up the guy’s hand and drove the point into his thumb. It wasn’t a hard jab, but hard enough that he should have twitched.

He didn’t move.

“You can let him go now.”

She unlocked her arms and Roman helped her to her feet. She pushed at the comatose man. “The bastard!” she hissed. “We could have been two kids out sneaking a cigarette! He didn’t eventryto identify us!”

Roman pulled her around to face him. “Where in hell did you learn how to put a choke hold on a grown man?”

She blinked. “On TV.”

Roman scrubbed at his hair. “We’re running out of time. C’mon.”

“Shouldn’t we take away his stuff?” Kate asked. “So he can’t warn the others?”