Page 12 of Cherished by the Sinners (Sinners Never Die #4)

Mason

M ason had never run so hard in all the years of his very long life.

He’d monitored his brother and Darlene as they sat together in the restaurant, but Magnus was called away to deal with the testosterone fest going on inside and outside the hotel’s main entrance way.

Then three of the Chinese ladies from this morning joined Darlene just as the vice cop was talking to her.

The slimy smile on his face said it wasn’t anything nice.

The ladies stayed with her, and then a bunch more showed up, with a table full of Japanese guests as well.

He’d breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Darlene laughing with the ladies. They had tea and desserts, and everyone seemed relaxed. Except for the vice cop’s two friends. They looked like they’d eaten something that didn’t agree with them.

Things got busy out on the street. The number of emergency vehicles multiplied. SWAT was on the scene now along with the bomb squad.

Magnus was dealing with some of them. They broke apart and Magnus pulled his phone out.

Mason’s phone rang. “What do they want?” he asked his brother.

“To use our lobby as a staging area and command center.”

“Did you give them permission?”

“Yes, any other response would have been as good as admitting we do shady shit on the side.”

“Did you tell Darlene? Ask her to go to her room?”

“I tried calling her, but no one picked up. I think she left her phone in her room.”

“Shit.” Mason watched the Chinese and Japanese guests herded Darlene out of the restaurant and toward the elevators. “Wait, our out of town guests are with her, heading for the elevators.”

“I asked Anna to ask the Chinese ladies to keep Darlene company. They probably got orders to return to their rooms as well.”

“Okay, they’ve split up. Darlene is taking the staff elevator up to her level.” Mason relaxed a little.

The two men who’d been sitting with the cop slipped around the corner and were waiting at the staff elevator. Where did they think they were going?

Mason texted a quick message to the security staff in the main lobby, asking them to escort the two strangers off hotel property.

He checked on Darlene’s progress. She got off on her floor and strolled toward her door. She looked tired, but there was a small smile on her face. He liked that smile. He liked it a lot.

The two men got on the elevator. It wouldn’t go anywhere without an employee badge. Were they just going to wait inside for a staff member and hitch a ride?

Darlene pulled Magnus’s suit coat around her and dipped her head down to suck in a deep breath. She stopped walking for a moment.

Did she like his scent? Both he and his brother loved hers. She smelled like sunshine and apple pie.

The elevator door on Darlene’s floor opened, and the two men got off. As soon as they exited, they broke into a sprint toward her.

What? How did they manage to operate the staff elevator?

She wasn’t paying attention, was fumbling with her door keycard.

The men ran at her.

She wasn’t going to make it inside her room before they reached her.

Adrenaline screamed through Mason’s system, leaving behind an electric trail of pain. He threw open the door to the surveillance room, the door crashing against the wall and sticking to it. He sprinted to the stairs.

He pulled out his phone and called his brother as he took the stairs three at a time. “Two men are about to grab Darlene outside her room,” Mason shouted into his phone. “Head for the emergency exit on the other side of the building.”

“Fuck,” Magnus said. The sound of him running came through the call just fine. “Keep the line open.”

Mason dropped his phone into his pocket and focused on running. Staff had a stairwell they could take as far as the third floor. Access was in the restricted area of the hotel on the main floor. It meant he could get there faster than the elevator could have.

He was still too late. No one was in the hallway.

He raced past Darlene’s room, and hit the door to the emergency exit stairwell.

He paused as soon as the door opened as the scent of blood hit him broadside.

It was everywhere, the concrete floor, handrails, and the inside of the door.

He tried to avoid it as he made for the stairs, but paused again when he saw the body on the landing below him.

It was one of the two men. He lay in a heap, his body twisted in ways inconsistent with life. There was blood all over him, but the highest concentration was on the right side of his head. It was streaked down his suit only as far as his shoulder, then gravity took it across his chest.

A messy death. Who killed him?

Darlene?

He could investigate more later.

He leaped down the stairs, clearing a distance impossible for any human without injury, and tore open the door to the street. A van was pulling away from the curb, and Mason could hear screaming coming from inside it.

Darlene .

Mason didn’t hesitate, he sprinted after the van, going faster than anyone should have been able to go on two feet.

It accelerated hard, then braked as something rolled into the street in front of them. That gave Mason a chance to catch up.

It was a white working van with two doors on the back for ease of pulling tools or equipment out of it.

He grabbed one of the doors with enough force to tear it right off the vehicle. He didn’t throw it away though, he kept it, using it as a shield as someone inside the van fired shot after shot at him.

Darlene was screaming and shouting obscenities. A man shouted something unintelligible, and the shots paused.

Mason used the door as a battering ram, forcing his way inside.

The van started forward again, almost fast enough for momentum to drop him out of the back of the vehicle, but he grabbed the edge of the other door with one hand.

The shooter started up again, but this time the door wasn’t positioned right to shield him. Shot after shot hit him in the chest.

He shoved the door harder into the shooter, hard enough to crumple the front passenger seat. The shots stopped.

The van took a hard right and Mason nearly fell out again, then the vehicle swerved left and something hit the vehicle on the front right side. Or the vehicle hit something.

Mason pulled the bullet-ridden door back and threw it out onto the street behind him. He finally had a view of Darlene.

She was lying on her back with one of the cop’s friends under her, his arm around her neck, a gun to her head. She had blood all over her face and down the front of her top. And she was screaming and thrashing her arms and legs, smacking the guy haphazardly.

“Stop moving,” the gunman said. “Or I will shoot you in the head.”

“Bullshit,” Darlene snarled. “You have orders to take me alive or you would have shot me already. I would rather die than go wherever you’re supposed to take me.”

“Let go of her and I might let you live,” Mason said, his clenched teeth shredding the words.

The driver jerked his head around, saw Mason, pulled a gun up, and took a couple shots at him.

At the same time, the guy holding Darlene switched his aim to Mason and also started shooting.

Fuck. He wore body armor to explain why he didn’t die from gunshot wounds, but no one was going to believe his armor was good enough to stop this many bullets.

Someone smashed the driver’s side window, reached in, and yanked the man out through it. Magnus. The driver’s scream was high pitched, and it got higher as he was pulled out of the vehicle.

Heh, maybe some broken glass snagged something delicate.

The guy holding Darlene tried to crane his head around to see what was happening in the front, and Mason made his move.

He launched himself over to the gunman, grabbed the guy’s hand holding the gun, and lifted it so the weapon was pointed at the roof of the van.

Then, Mason crushed the hand and the gun in his fist.

The guy screamed.

Darlene ripped herself out of his grip, scooted forward a bit, then slammed her elbow into his groin.

A strange wheezing sound came out of the man’s throat and his whole face turned a blotchy red and white.

“Fucking asshole,” Darlene yelled at him as she scrambled away from him and toward the rear exit.

“Darlene, wait,” Mason said as he flipped the asshole over onto his gut and twisted his hands behind his back.

“He’s got zip ties in his pockets,” Darlene told him, poised to hop out the back, but waiting as he requested.

Mason found them and tied the kidnapper’s hands together, then he tied the asshole’s ankles together too.

A thump reverberated through the van as Magnus tossed the driver onto the hood of the vehicle. He punched the driver a couple of times, demanding to know why they took Darlene and where they were planning to take her.

Mason grabbed his asshole by one arm and jerked him over onto his side. “Why did you take Darlene?”

“I’m not telling you fucking anything,” the man spit in Mason’s face.

“Kidnapping and attempted murder is going to put you in prison for a very long time,” Mason said, and he smiled. “We have people in every prison in the country. You won’t last a week.”

The man didn’t say anything.

“Where were you going to take her?” Mason asked.

The asshole laughed. “To the police station.” He laughed some more. “We were supposed to drag her in there under a citizen’s arrest for solicitation.” He grinned at Mason. “You’re fucked.”

“We have you on tape grabbing her in the hallway outside of her room.”

“She’s a whore, and we’re here in New York City on a business trip. Who do you think the police will believe?”

“You followed her from the restaurant onto an elevator and grabbed her outside her room. She kicked and screamed and bit your dead buddy’s ear off.” He leaned closer to the creep’s face. “And my phone,” Mason added, “has been recording everything we’ve said.”

Magnus roared a few colorful words in Russian at his asshole. He punched the idiot a couple more times.

“Come on, Darlene,” Mason said as he helped her out.

She had bruises under all the blood covering her face and torso.

“Let’s show Magnus that you’re...” he almost said okay.

That was a lie. She vibrated with rage, and probably terror, and she likely had injuries she wasn’t aware of thanks to all the adrenalin in her system. “... out of harm’s way.”

She took one step, then spun around and tried to get back in the van.

“What—”

“I need Magnus’s coat,” she said. “I’m not leaving it in there with him .” She said him like it was a dirty word.

“I’ll get it,” Mason said, reaching in and grabbing it. He shook it out and draped it over her shoulders. “Better?”

She looked up at him with a smile that shook.

“Yes, thank you.” Her gaze drifted down from his face, over his neck, then seemed to snag on something.

Her eyes went wide and she grabbed him by the lapels of his suit jacket with both hands.

“Mason?” Her voice sounded breathless. “Are you—” The last part of the word was lost in a high squeak, as if her throat had closed up.

“What?” he asked.

Her hands slipped under his coat, feeling their way across his chest.

Her breathing sped up and shallowed as she lifted her gaze to meet his. Her pupils were tiny points. “You were shot so many times,” she breathed out. “You should be—”

Fuck, the bullets . Not all of them had been aimed at his body. Any normal human would have blood all over, but not him.

He couldn’t make any explanations while his phone was on and recording. He pulled it out of his pocket and shut it down.

Mason put his arms around Darlene and pulled her into his body.

Partially to hide the evidence of how many times he’d been shot, and partially to protect her from the incoming crowd of law enforcement officers.

None of the bullets that hit his suit had penetrated, but they had left divots in the nano-fabric.

“I’m okay,” he whispered against her temple. “I’m wearing the best body armor in the world. I promise to explain everything later.” He lifted his head far enough to meet her gaze. “I see some bruises under all this blood. Do you need medical attention?”

Her expression didn’t change. “The blood isn’t mine, it belongs to Thug One. I bit part of his ear off.”

He dipped his head again and whispered, “Well done.”