Seducing the Accomplice by Jennifer Morey Page A

We know many in the area. You were seen at the Afrodita Boutique. From there, it was easy.”
    It was already obvious that they were well-connected, but all the way into Montenegro? Just how far did their tentacles go?
    “Tell me where the money is or she dies.”
    “Sorry. I can’t do that.”
    The man’s face hardened and he turned to her and the man who held her. Sadie saw Calan move his aim and felt his gaze pass hers to meet the man’s who held her. Was he going to try a shot like that? It was too close! Oh, God. She was going to be killed!
    “Calan!” she all but screamed.
    “Kill her,” the man in the hat said.
    Sadie screamed, “No!” as Calan fired his weapon. The man holding her dropped, dragging her down with him. Another gunshot went off as she landed on top of the man and she realized it had been his gun. She didn’t think she’d been hit. She didn’t feel anything anyway. On her hands and knees over the man’s limp form, Sadie came face to face with a dark red hole in his forehead and dead eyes staring at nothingness.
    She screamed again, gutturally this time. Bile rose in her throat, made sicker by her heavy, horrified pulse. Scrambling off the dead man, she crawled backward like a crab, falling on her rear. Calan and the man in the hat were locked like wrestlers. She scooted out of the way when their brawling feet almost mowed her over. Calan broke his arms free and hit the man with the handle of his gun. The other man’s hat went flying and he staggered back. But he managed to unsteadily swing his gun around.
    Using that to his advantage, Calan chopped the man’s wrist with an upward movement of his hand. The man still held his weapon. Calan jabbed his throat with the side of his hand before he could recover. The man doubled over and Calan rammed his knee upward, gripping the man’s gun hand and squeezing. The man went to his knees. Calan pressed his gun to the man’s forehead.
    The man let go of his gun and Calan kicked it across the floor toward Sadie. Automatically, she lifted the gun. Standing, she aimed it and hoped she appeared threatening.
    Calan banged the barrel of his gun against the man’s head.
    “Who sent you?”
    The man looked up at Calan with feral eyes, blood oozing from his nose and a cut on his lower lip.
    “Who?” Calan repeated.
    Sadie backed toward the door and stopped when she felt she was far enough away and close enough to the door to escape if she needed to.
    “Kill me, more will follow,” the man said, spitting blood onto the floor.
    “Who sent you?”
    The man continued to stare up at him in that eerie way. “Give me the money and no one else will come for you. It will end here. Now.”
    “No deal. Who sent you?”
    After a momentary stare-down, the man dropped into a low roll. Springing to his feet from a crouch, he reached under the hem of his pant leg at the same time and his hand came up with a knife.
    Calan fired.
    The unexpectedness of it gave Sadie a jolt. Dropping the gun, she covered her mouth with a gag, looking away as a hole similar to the one in the other man appeared in the man’s forehead.
    Unaffected, Calan knelt before the man and began searching his clothes. He pulled something out, a business card. Next came a cell phone.
    Not wanting to be in the room anymore, Sadie headed for the front door. She couldn’t stay here anymore. She had to get away from all this violence. From the death. But most of all, from Calan. Facing his troubled past was one thing, but this was the final straw. Seeing those men killed had pushed her over the edge.
    At the villa door, she grabbed the door handle and yanked. It didn’t budge. She yanked and yanked and then realized the door was locked.
    With shaking fingers, she unlocked the bolt.
    Opening the door, it slammed shut before there was more than an inch or two of space. Turning, she leaned her back against the door and met Calan’s intense face. His hand was still on the door above her head and she