Page 45 of The Hunter

Argent’s only response was an attack.

With his free hand, Dorshaw seized Argent’s knife arm, his fingers digging into the smarting wound while simultaneously stabbing at Argent’s torso.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Argent plucked the man’s wrist mid-slice, keeping his skin unmarred and his organs right where they preferred to be.Insidehis body.

Trembling muscles on both sides locked each man in a momentary impasse, but Argent had a few advantages the other assassin did not. The first being an almost inhuman tolerance to pain. Second, superior size and strength. And tertiary, a knowledge of the body’s reflexive tendencies and how to manipulate them.

A slight press on the right point of his wrist, and Dorshaw yelped as his fingers sprang open and the knife clattered to the floor. A shift in weight alerted Argent to the incoming kick aimed between his legs.

None of that; he was planning on using that particular part of his anatomy in a short while.

His foot shot out to block it successfully before kicking at the man’s other knee, buckling it from under him.

Argent followed him to the floor and impeded Dorshaw’s attempt at gaining the upper hand by rolling them both once before pinning the man beneath him, the knife levered toward his adversary’s wide eyes.

“The world is well rid of you,” he murmured as he pressed down with his weight, some of the blood from the wound on his arm dripping onto Dorshaw’s already wounded cheek. The man used both arms in a fruitless struggle to push Argent’s knife arm away.

A muffled sob startled him, and Argent looked into the magnified, tear-reddened rims of wide, blueberry eyes.

“Look away, boy,” he snarled, cringing at a softening—no—a pause in his cold, lethal ferocity.

“No, do watch.” Dorshaw laughed maniacally. “You and me, Argent, we’ll create the next generation.”

Argent punched him in the throat.

“Look. Away.Now,” he ordered softly over Dorshaw’s wheezes.

The child nodded, hugging his art supplies closer and squeezing more droplets out of his eyes as he clenched them shut with all his might, using his round cheeks to help.

Satisfied, Argent went in for the kill.

“Stop right there!” The door bounced off the wall.

Argent squeezed his own eyes shut and let a hiss of breath out of his throat, swallowing a surge of intense irritation. If there was one thing worse than a useless, provoking, bothersome, inept, ill-timed policeman, it was a gaggle of them stuffing themselves into the dressing room door, preventing him from carving Dorshaw’s defective brain out of his skull.

CHAPTERTWELVE

Argent stood with Inspector Ewan McTavish of Scotland Yard in silence, both their eyes following Dorshaw’s shackled progress out the door. The smile on the psychopath’s face could only be identified as serene.

“Watch that one,” Argent warned. “He’s escaped us before.”

“We’ll take extra care,” the Scotsman promised. “Not often ye find a murderer at the scene of the crime.”

“A few more minutes and you never would have found him at all,” Argent muttered, then McTavish’s words struck him. “The scene ofwhatcrime, exactly?”

McTavish turned to him, waiting for the other coppers to clear the room before he spoke in a whisper so as not to let Jakub overhear. “It’s Hassan… we just found him in the alley.”

Something surged through Argent that surprised and alarmed him.

Anger?

“Is Dorshaw one of your contracts, Argent?” McTavish asked.

Argent shook his head. “He’s after the boy and his mother, who’s under my protection.” Surreptitiously, he motioned with his eyes to Jakub, still standing in the corner next to a knocked-over easel, clutching the same art supplies. He looked very small and very lost.

Aware that he was no longer being ignored in the chaos, the boy took a tentative step forward on unsteady legs. “W-where’s Mama? I want her here.” His chin wobbled and his eyes began to leak again, but his voice was clear and sure, if hesitant.

McTavish crouched down to the boy’s eye level, and the child regarded him with anxious uncertainty. He kept glancing over at Argent as if with an expectation gleaming in his eyes, but buggar if he could tell what the child wanted.