Relentless by Cherry Adair Page A

going’s g—”
    He shouldn’t have been so goddamned self-satisfied,because he felt a rush of air. There was someone he hadn’t seen. The man rushed him, knife gripped as an extension of his arm.
    “Grab my gun on the ground behind you!” he yelled to Isis. “Hell. Any fucking gun! Move! ”
    He and New Guy danced around in a circle, stepping over sprawled bodies as the knife wielder slashed. Thorne kept his distance while also maintaining his balance. He spun to block another attack on his flank, saw just in time Isis’s wide eyes, and grabbed his weapon from her proffered hand. In one smooth continuous move, he turned the weapon on his attacker and fired.
    The sound reverberated and echoed down the length of the tunnel. And then there was nothing left but pulsing silence.
    Boom. Done. Only the adrenaline remained.
    “You all right?” he demanded, crouching to feel for Stinky’s and Robes’s pulses at the same time. Both out, and unfortunately alive, as Isis walked around each man doing God only knew what, bending to pick things up off the floor.
    “To say I’m more scared than I’ve ever been in my life is an understatement,” Isis snapped, voice shaking. Thorne heard the shimmer of anger there, too. She was holding it together, but he suspected that wasn’t going to last.
    “Here, do something with these.”
    These were three guns and a heavy wooden object meant to splatter his brains on the walls. Thorne took the weapons and stuck them in his belt.
    “Let’s not stick around to ask questions.”
    “Or call an ambulance?”
    “Or call an ambulance,” he repeated dryly. The underpass had stunk before—now with various new body fluids leaking all over the place it was no wonder Isis had her palm over her face. Thorne slid his arm around her waist and propelled her from the tunnel at a trot.
    They emerged into the street, where there were lights and people. Still, he kept his eyes peeled for more trouble as they sprinted toward the mosque, where he knew they’d find a taxi, even at this time of night. “How you holding up?” Adrenaline was leaking out of him, and he was aware of the agonizing pain in his thigh, the sharp sting of the deep cut on his arm, and the bruising ache of broken ribs.
    “Oh, I’ve never been better,” she assured him, sarcasm thick in her voice. Her eyes looked dark and huge in her pale face. Snapping open her camera case, she removed her glasses and shoved them with some force onto her face. She was filthy, but he didn’t see any blood on her. Her respiration was erratic, and a pulse throbbed hard at the base of her throat. She turned her head to give him a hard look. “We’ll be arrested when people see you covered in blood like this.”
    “Trust me, no one will even blink.” He kept to the shadows of a stand of trees looking for a cab. Looking for more trouble. He’d look for answers later.
    “Hang on…” She rummaged in her bag, which somehow hadn’t been dislodged from her shoulder despite her recent activities. Isis handed him a wad of tissues and atiny bottle of hand sanitizer, shoving them into his chest. “Here. Do the best you can. I can’t afford to bail either of us out of jail right now.”
    Thorne cleaned up as best he could, the alcohol in the sanitizer providing a bracing sting in his cuts and abrasions as he scanned the vehicles passing and weighed their options.
    How had Yermalof found him?
    More important, did Yermalof know about Isis? Or had his men just been instructed to take him out? Were they even Yermalof’s men, or had they been followed from the airport by opportunistic thieves?
    He spotted a cab and stepped out of the shadows to wave it down. After stuffing Isis inside, he got in, too, slamming the door and giving the driver the name of their hotel.
    Thorne kept watch in the rearview mirror as the cab pulled into the street. He considered if the attack had really been ordered by Yermalof.
    “What…”
    He shook his head. Not in