And if he gets mad at me for hurting you, I’ll just tell him it’s your fault for running away.” He spun her around and marched her back into the remains of the living room. “Now, you’re going to start cooperating. Because if ya don’t, I’m going to hurt you so bad you’re gonna wish I’d just shot ya.”
An ugly grin spread across his flat face. She closed her eyes and prayed.
A crash sounded from the low roof above. Brick swore. She opened her eyes in time to see a snow-covered form in jeans, a brown leather jacket and snowmobile helmet swing down through the open doorway. Brick grabbed her hard around her neck and yanked her back in a headlock, pressing her body back tight against his like a hostage. The tip of the sawed-off shotgun pressed into the soft flesh at the base of her skull just behind her ear.
“Look man, whoever you are, I’m just a guy looking for the same thing you are!” Brick shouted. “The trunk’s not here. We don’t have it and we don’t know where it is! So there’s no need for any problems. Just turn around and pretend you never saw us.”
“No can do.” The man in leather moved forward. “Drop your weapon, and I’ll let you leave. But you’re going to let her go.”
He pulled off his helmet. Her breath caught in her throat.
It was Alex.
Theresa’s jaw dropped as her former fiancé stepped toward her through the ransacked cottage. How was he here? It’d barely been twenty minutes since Castor and his thugs first attacked her. There was no way Alex could’ve driven around the lake in that amount of time, and the ice on the lake was hardly safe. Snowflakes clung to his body. Jeans and a leather jacket hung on his tall, muscular frame. A long scarf looped around his neck and hung all the way to his waist. His blue-eyed gaze brushed her face.
“Hey, Theresa.” He took another step forward with that casual saunter of his that always made it look like he was all joints and yet totally comfortable in his skin. Brick tightened his grip. Alex stopped. His hands rose slightly. But his smile never faltered.
What was he doing, strolling casually toward the armed man who held her captive like he was some action hero?
“Look, clearly your buddies have taken off and left you all alone without any backup. So how about you drop that shotgun and we talk this out?” Alex asked. Something she’d never seen before flashed in his eyes, an edge that was as firm and unrelenting as steel. “Because there’s no way I’m letting you hurt her.”
The wind outside grew louder. The cottage seemed to shake on its foundations.
“I’m the one in charge here!” Bravado and uncertainty pushed through Brick’s words in equal measure, and it wasn’t clear which one was going to win. “Me! Not you. Not Castor. Not anyone! I’m going to take her with me and find that trunk, and nobody’s going to stop me!”
Alex shrugged, and as he did his whole body seemed to shift forward in one smooth motion. “You sure about that?”
Panic crawled up Theresa’s throat. Alex was going to get them both killed. He meant well. He was a great guy. But was he really equipped to handle any of this?
The headlock tightened until all she could feel was the pressure choking the oxygen from her lungs. “Look, man! I’m not playing! She’s gonna die. I’m gonna kill her. You got that?”
“Loud and clear.” Alex leaped. In one quick motion he struck the weapon away from Theresa’s body and yanked Brick’s arm around behind him. Theresa fell free and stumbled forward. Brick yelped in pain. Alex wrenched Brick’s arm upward, using the pain and leverage to force him down onto the floor.
“Theresa, are you okay?” Alex stood over Brick. Concern filled his eyes as he searched her face. “Did he hurt you?”
She blinked. It had all happened so fast she’d barely been able to see it happening. But there Brick was, groaning on the floor, while Alex stood over him, keeping the huge thug down through pressure on his wrist alone. Her mind swam. This couldn’t be happening. She must be dreaming. Her former fiancé had always been an athlete, and Zoe said he excelled at his private security training, but she’d never expected...
“Theresa!” Alex’s voice rose. “Look at me. You’re in shock right now. I need you to focus. Are you hurt? Can you move?”
The word shock snapped her mind back like a jolt to the system. She spent a lot of her professional life explaining to clients that the surreal, frozen feeling people went through in a moment of crisis was perfectly normal. Not that knowing that had prepared her in the slightest for suddenly having her dashing ex come swinging in like an action hero.
“I’m okay. Not hurt.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Thank You, God.” A quick prayer slipped through his lips, then his eyes locked on her face again. “Check him for weapons. Then grab the shotgun. Point it at buddy here. And tell me everything you know about his friends, where they’ve gone, who this Castor he mentioned is and whatever trunk he thinks I was here to steal. Quickly.”
“There were three of them.” Quickly she patted down Brick’s jacket and the legs. No weapons. Then she pulled the shotgun from a puddle of melting snow and trained it on Brick. Still Alex didn’t loosen his grip. “They’re looking for a trunk. Castor and Howler left while I was locked in the closet. I don’t know where they went. This guy’s named Brick. Castor asked me if I knew where Mandy and your sister were. He mentioned Mandy by name.”
“Well, as long as Josh is serving overseas we can’t ask him what he thinks his second cousin might be mixed up in.” Alex’s mouth set in a grim line. “Josh’s grandfather was in the military, too. Maybe Mandy’s side of the family inherited some old war medals or weapons, or something valuable from his tour of duty. Because, for me, a military footlocker is the first thing that springs to my mind when somebody mentions a trunk. But Mandy’s brothers are pretty well-off. Maybe one of them was storing something at their parents’ cottage that was worth stealing.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Castor seemed to think I should know something about it, but I don’t. You and Zoe know Josh’s family better than I ever did. I wondered if the intended target was Emmett or Kyle, too, not that an old trunk is the usual place a guy who’s almost thirty would keep his valuables.”
“Did Mandy say anything at all that would shed some light on any of this?” Alex asked.
Theresa shook her head. “No. Mandy was upset, but nothing to make me think she was afraid, let alone of something like this.”
“Doesn’t mean she wasn’t.” Alex took a step back, but his grip on Brick’s wrist didn’t falter.
“Do you have anything to add to this conversation?” he asked. “How about you tell me what you know about who this Castor is and why he hired you?”
A gun blast shook the air.
“Theresa, get down!” Alex shouted.
She turned toward him. For a second the world froze as she saw the strength that shone in his eyes. Then time sped up again and suddenly it was as if everything was happening at once. Alex dropped Brick’s wrist and pulled Theresa to the floor, knocking the couch over in front
