Chapter 24: Chapter Twenty-Four

Again, Cullen cursed himself. This was the exact situation he’d always been terrified of.

He had planned the job, tried to keep everyone safe, and it had turned to shit. Worse? He’d finally given in to trusting Kara, to thinking she could possibly be safe in their world, and what had it gotten them?

At gunpoint and facing off while severely outnumbered.

“Let’s all just take it easy,” Thompson said, his lips pulled into an arrogant grin that said he was thrilled to have won. “Hands up, please.”

Cullen followed the direction, same as Reese and Damon. Kara remained against Kash’s side, and the wavering of the alpha said that if she moved, he’d topple.

Two of the armed men came forward and checked the alphas for weapons. One took the pistol from Cullen, and he let it go. He had to pick his battles, and while that gun was useful, a bullet in him from fighting would end things right there.

They patted down Reese and Damon, taking their weapons as well. Reese cast a cutting look but otherwise kept his mouth shut.

The alpha let out an unhappy roar before he teetered, unsteady on his feet and suddenly upset—probably because of all the testosterone and aggression.

They went down, and the alpha’s bulk took Kara, too. Cullen moved fast, trying to catch the alpha before he crushed the much smaller omega beneath him. Kara fell against him as well, and it only took a split second before one of the guards grabbed Cullen by the back of the neck and knocked him to the ground.

He stifled his need to react, to bare his teeth and snarl at the rough treatment. Instead, he only growled softly as he watched another armed guard grab Kara and shove her against the wall. He frisked her, his hands taking far too long on her ass.

Which did cause a snarl he couldn’t hide.

“Calm down,” Thompson said. “Now that we’re all unarmed, let’s go for a more private conversation.” He looked over at one of the guards. “Take the subject back to his quarters, please.”

Cullen hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the man who had thrown him down in exchange for casting a murderous glare at the one who had frisked Kara. He’d take bruises any day over someone putting their hands on her.

She was his.

The alpha made a few unhappy sounds as the guard escorted him back, and Cullen was reminded again how frustrating it was that Kash couldn’t be more useful. Right about now, a very angry prime alpha would have been exceedingly helpful.

“Let’s go,” one of the guards said before smacking his hands against the back of Cullen to get him moving.

As Cullen moved forward, he noted an odd weight in the left side of his slacks. He frowned but said nothing, following the bodies as they moved through the warehouse.

As they turned the corner into one of the rooms, Cullen risked lowering his hand to his left pocket, subtly shifting the new item there. A gun? A small, compact pistol.

One of the guards twisted Kara hard and shoved her down into a seat. She cast a sickly-sweet look up at the man who had touched her. “Aren’t you charming?” After the man huffed, she turned a side-eye glance to Cullen, and to anyone else it would look like the same smirk.

To Cullen, he knew it was to him. He recalled her falling against him while the alpha had toppled. She’d slid the pistol into his pocket then, since he’d already been searched.

It meant they had a chance, no matter how small.

Thompson removed his jacket and draped it over a chair. There was no table in the room, and the chairs were all folding ones. Cullen considered the fact they were all easily washable before he realized that was an unhelpful train of thought.

Thompson sat in the chair and crossed his foot over his other ankle, silent for a moment as he studied them. “I’ve been at this for two decades. I’m not sure anyone has given me as much trouble as you all.”

“You’re like forty?” Kara asked, that same mocking tone she liked to use that implied she took nothing seriously. “Your skin looks great. Not much time outside?”

The man lifted an eyebrow in her direction before dismissing her and turning his gaze back on the alphas. “While I don’t care for being bested, I’ll admit I hate having to destroy people who have shown such promise. If you weren’t the noble type, I’d have hired you in a heartbeat.”

The man’s words seemed favorable, but Cullen knew better. That if was a sticking point. He might have the sort of personality that made him want to look into the faces of the men he was about to kill, but he’d still kill them, no doubt.

The room was less crowded than the last had been. It seemed that with them unarmed, Thompson wasn’t as nervous. He’d kept only two armed guards in the room with him, and no doubt he had a weapon of his own.

One small pistol against three?

Not ideal. It meant waiting for the perfect moment when it would give them a worthwhile advantage.

“Get to the point,” Reese said.

Thompson let a soft laugh escape his lips. “We all know how this is going to end. Let’s not play games. You put up a good fight, got much further than I’d ever expected you to, but it’s over now.”

“Shooting us earlier would have been a quicker solution,” Reese pointed out.

“Quicker? Yes, but not as thorough. First of all, I didn’t want to risk the subject being harmed. Secondly, I need to find out exactly what you know and who else you’ve told. That is something for a much longer conversation.”

Longer meaning torture, no doubt. The fact Thompson didn’t look gleeful about it scored him no points, however. He said it with the same inflection as a person said they had to do laundry, as though it were an unpleasant task that nonetheless needed to be done. He rose from his seat after undoing the buttons at the cuffs of his shirt and rolling the sleeves up.

Doing that to sleeves never signaled anything good. He pulled a knife from its sheath at his belt, the black of the blade at least looking clean.

That Cullen was able to laugh at his predicament meant Kara had rubbed off on him far too much. The only good thing? The man seemed to have his attention locked on Cullen.

Not that getting carved up seemed like a good thing, but he’d rather take it than endure watching the other alphas or Kara suffer. Given Cullen’s normal ‘in-charge’ attitude, he made a smart choice to start with.

Thompson stopped just in front of Cullen. “This doesn’t have to happen. Tell me what I need to know, and it can be quick.”

Kara’s laugh broke the tension. “Do you really think it’s going to be that easy?”

Thompson finally turned his gaze to her, an annoyance there like a child was interrupting his work. “Someone should have taught you to know your place. Females shouldn’t get themselves into this much trouble.”

Damon snorted softly at that, a reaction Cullen had to fight as well.

Still, it seemed to distract Thompson enough to put the whole knife-torture thing on hold for a moment.

“People have tried,” Kara admitted. “I’m just a really slow learner, which should make it all the more embarrassing that I’ve won every time we’ve faced off.”

Thompson pointed the tip of the knife toward Kara. “You didn’t win. They did. You were merely lucky.”

“Really? Because I recall bruising your goods the first time we tangled.”

Thompson’s lips pressed together, the first sign of any of this affecting him. “I had been trying to save your life. I don’t care for slaughtering females when I don’t have to, and I thought you were some innocent woman caught up in someone else’s plan. If you’d have simply told me who hired you, I would have left you be. You escaped that only because I’d been kind.”

“And round two? When I outwitted you when you tried to abduct me?”

“They saved you that time.” He lifted the knife again when she opened her mouth for another point. “And the third time dumb luck had you hit by a car.”

“Luck, skill, are they really that different? The truth is that you keep getting your ass handed to you every time you come up against me.”

Thompson’s knuckles whitened, signs that Kara had managed to get under his skin, which Cullen had to admit might be one of her best talents. Of course, when Thompson moved away from Cullen and toward Kara, it reminded him that it wasn’t a good plan.

He went to stand but one of the guards lifted their gun in warning. It pulled a snarl from Cullen, but he sat. A hole in his chest wouldn’t help the situation.

“You are a stupid girl playing in a sandbox far too big for you. No doubt you rely on those around you to do everything, surviving on their good will alone.”

The statement was so preposterous that Cullen was the one to snort this time. Funny how Thompson could so wildly misunderstand Kara. The girl didn’t reach out even when she really should, choosing to face things on her own instead of asking for help.

Kara’s laugh mirrored Cullen’s feelings. Even when Thompson stood just in front of Kara, when his knife hung in his hand by his side like a clear threat, Kara’s smile wasn’t wiped away.

Was she really that crazy? Did she have some plan Cullen wasn’t aware of? Was he supposed to be in on something? The gun taunted him in his pocket, making him wonder when exactly he was supposed to do something.

“You just wait around for a man to ride in and save you, I bet.”

Kara leaned forward, lips pulled into a grin that flashed her teeth. “Well, for once, you’re right.”

A sound upstairs had them all freezing. It wasn’t loud, not a gunshot, but rather like something heavy dropping.

Thompson moved his gaze to Kara. “You’re bluffing.”

“I don’t bluff,” she said, which Cullen knew was a damned lie. He still couldn’t read her, though, still had no idea if this was a bluff.

Thompson cut his gaze to one of the guards. “Go check that out.”

The guard nodded and left.

Only two armed enemies now.

Thompson wrapped his fingers in the front of Kara’s shirt, leaning down into her space. “This is going to end very badly for you, no matter what. We could use more omegas in our labs, and my boss would love me to put you there. The tests you had done with us show you could be very useful. Behave, and I’ll kill you before you have to go through that.”

“I’ve never been good at behaving.”

Another crash outside, this one louder. A gunshot echoed through the walls.

Thompson turned a furious look on Kara. “What have you done?”

“What you said I’d do. Wait around until a man came to save me. Or, well, a couple of them, and trust me, they make me look like a kitten.”

Thompson’s face turned red, the look of someone who had just realized they held no cards. He hauled Kara up so fast it was like they were back in that safehouse again. He slid the knife into place and pulled his gun instead, pressing the weapon to her temple.

Cullen was on his feet, the pistol Kara had slipped into his pocket out and in his hand, aimed at Thompson, a heartbeat later.

They’d moved into an interior room with no windows, making the door the only exit. He had just one guard inside the room and no idea what sat outside it.

He was backed into a corner with a gun to the temple of the omega Cullen loved.

Thompson was in a very bad place.

Kara could have laughed at the repeat from before if it wasn’t for the lump in her throat. She wasn’t an idiot.

Last time they’d wanted her alive. This time? Thompson was done playing.

There was nothing keeping her brains nicely kept inside her skull other than him wanting her as a human shield.

Cullen had the pistol she’d planted on him out, his arm steady.

Outside the room, no doubt, there were few guards left. Erik, Liam and Kane would have done away with them quickly and quietly.

And again, it reminded her that perhaps having other people around wasn’t the worst thing.

While she didn’t normally call for backup, she’d never had something she was afraid of losing before, either.

Thompson and Cullen faced off, just like they had in the safehouse, when Kara had told Cullen not to take the shot.

Her fingers moved, deft and agile, as she managed to get her fingers around the knife from Thompson’s sheath. Pickpocketing had its uses.

Another crash outside, closer.

She had the knife in her hand. She could act, sinking the blade into Thompson’s thigh. Her angle would drive it deep. She tried to plan out how it would work, if she could twist away in time to finish him off, but she knew better.

He could pull the trigger well before she was able to do enough damage to put him down.

Cullen met her gaze, the question in his green eyes. Did she trust him?

Even after he’d broken her heart, after everything, did she trust him? Could she put her life in his hands, to do nothing and have faith he’d come through?

Kara took a deep breath before offering the slightest of nods, putting herself in the hands of the alphas she loved, giving in for the first time in her life.

She closed her eyes and twisted her head a hair to the side, trying to give Cullen the largest target—she really did not want to end up with a decorative hole in her face—a heartbeat before the sound of Cullen’s gun shattered the room.