Page 116 of The Bronze Garza

You won’t see my men, but they’ll be around.

We’ve had security on us the entire time.Of course.

Annoyed by this, I glower at the line-backer-built man. He’s unphased.

“...are you doing here?” Holly is asking me. “And who’sthat?”

“We went sailing,” I answer distractedly, bringing my attention back to Torin, who’s now striding down the boardwalk behind the couple that bumped into us. “Oh, and that’s, um, a friend.”

“The way he was holding you didn’t seem very ‘friendly’ to me,” she says with a giggle. “Ly, that man isfine. Are you dating or something?”

A tall, muscled man, in all-black—just like the one shadowing us right now—appears out of nowhere and starts down the boardwalk behind Torin.

“No, I—” I glance away from the boardwalk and give her my full attention. “What are you doing here, Holly?”

“Did you forget we have a beach house here?” she replies. “Mom and I drove down for the weekend. I just came here to pick up food we ordered for dinner when I saw you.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot.” The Wilsons, her parents, have both a beach house and a fifty-foot yacht here. I’ve even spent several weekends here with them in my early teens. But I’d been so wrapped up in Torin I didn’t even remember that.

“Ly, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for over a week now, but your phone’s been going straight to voicemail. What the hell happened that day on the phone?”

“I got kidnapped.”

Her eyes blow wide. “What? Are you seri—”

Collective gasps from the patrons on the deck of the restaurant snags both our attention. When we glance up to the deck and see everyone gaping in the direction of the boardwalk, we jerk our attention there, too.

Holly and I gasp at the same time.

Torin is standing outside a docked yacht, along with the man who’d bumped into us earlier. And that man has a freakingguntrained at Torin’s head.

Dread settles in my stomach, a scream trapped in my throat. Yet Torin’s stance is nonchalant, his hands still in his pockets.What the hell is he doing?!

Tall Man In Black who’d been trailing Torin, stops halfway down the boardwalk, looking just as calm.

The gun pointer is shouting something at Torin, but they’re too far off to make out the words.

Torin says something back to him, then the man whips the gun skyward and a shot rings out.

I jump.

People scream.

With that sliver of distraction, Torin lurches forward, seizes the man’s hand, and twists his wrist until he yelps and the gun falls to the ground. In one swift move, Torin sweeps the man’s feet from under him. The hardthudof his fall can be heard even from here.

Twisting the man’s arm behind his back, Torin presses one knee down on his neck to keep him from moving.

“Oh, my God!” Holly gasps out.

Tall Man in Black runs down the boardwalk and hands Torin something. When Torin twists the man’s other hand around to his back, I realize it’s handcuffs.

What on earth is going on?

After cuffing the man, Torin jerks his head to the boat, then gets out his phone from his board-shorts and lifts it to his ear.

Tall Man in Black climbs into the yacht, then emerges a few minutes later with the drunken girl in his arms, her limbs dangling, her head hanging.

And it’s then that it hits me...