Page 92 of Seducing a Stranger

Prudence managed to look back in time to see one of the men nearest a window drop to the crate he’d been bent over.

Missing the top of his head.

She covered her open mouth with both of her hands to contain the scream bubbling up from inside of her. It escaped as a raw, strangled sound.

Another crack resounded through the warehouse, shattering the window beside where a grizzled man reached for his weapon.

The bullet sheared through his neck.

Pandemonium erupted outside the warehouse as day laborers and dock workers scattered at the unmistakable sounds of a rifle.

Prudence was sorry for their fright, even as her chest expanded with elated, overjoyed relief.

He was here. Her Knight of Shadows.

He’d come for her.

William dropped the crowbar and drew his pistol as he and the two remaining men scrambled to find from which shadow the gunman fired.

“Don’t fucking stand at the windows, you bloody imbeciles!” he screeched.

The hired thugs took longer than was wise to recover after the initial volley, and Morley was able to clip the wing of a third man before they scrambled to take cover behind the very crates they’d been searching.

A deafening barrage of bullets pinged everywhere from the floor to the few skylights above. Prudence dropped to her knees, covering her head with her hands as slivers of splintered wood rained down on her.

Eventually, they ran out.

Her heart skipped several beats in the eerie silence that followed.

Had they gotten him? Had they shot the man she loved? Her one hope at salvation?

Right when happiness was in their grasp?

The sound of glass breaking behind them stole their attention to the far end of the warehouse by the loading bay. One more man dropped to his death before the echoes of the gun blast finished rebounding in her head.

“William,” she hissed, tucking her legs beneath her so she could loosen the rope around her boots. “Let me go now, or this will end very badly for you.” Her foot popped free on the last syllable, roughening it with strain.

He opened the cylinder of his pistol and shoved his shaking hand in his vest pocket, extracting two bullets and angling them into the chambers. “Do youreallythink it’s wise to threaten me?”

“I’m not threatening you, I’m warning you,” she cried. “My husband was a long-distance rifleman in the army. He’s going to shoot every man in this room. He’sgoingtokillyou.”

“Not before I kill you.”

Prudence spied the crowbar he’d dropped next to a container and lunged for it, hoping to get it before he had the chance to reload that gun.

He surged up, caught her by the hair, and wrenched her back against him, using her as a human shield.

The cold kiss of the pistol against her temple matched the metallic taste of fear in her mouth.

“Either we both get out of this alive. Or neither of us will,” he yelled to the unseen gunman before whispering to her. “Not that you deserve to live.”

He dragged her so his back was against the stone wall, clutching her to his front with an arm locked around her neck.

Any tighter and she’d choke.

“I didn’t kill George,” she panted, both hands pulling at his arm to keep her throat from being compressed. “I swear. There’s no reason to hurt me.”

“I’ve known that all along, you idiot cunt. Who do you think plunged the knife through his neck?”