Runaway (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 4)

“Come on,” Jasper said suddenly.

Molly jerked and followed him when, gun drawn, Jasper waved her into the building. Molly warily stepped inside. Jasper paused only long enough to take one last look at the street they left before he closed the door and joined her. Together, they went to find Oliver and he rest of the men. Several minutes later, they left the warehouse by the Rigley Row door.

“Wait,” Molly breathed as soon as she stepped outside.

Everyone froze. A little defeated from having found nothing but an empty building, they all turned to study the area, and try to identify what Molly had seen. Minutes ticked by. Molly’s heart began to pound.

“What?” Jasper prompted when nothing moved.

“I saw someone move,” Molly replied. “Down by the house that stands alone.”

As if to prove she was right, a man suddenly appeared from beside the house and began to walk toward them. Jasper edged Molly into the shadows and pressed himself against her. He placed a finger over her lips and remained in place, tense and watchful, and waited for the man to pass them. Thankfully, he hadn’t a clue they were there, but was no less wary as he glanced around him the whole time that he walked down the street. Before any of the Star Elite could move men of all ages and sizes suddenly appeared all around them. Several ambled arrogantly out of the alley beside the warehouse, others came out of a couple of houses from the long row of terraced properties. At least three appeared to come out of the waste land shrubbery. By the time everyone emerged from their hiding places, the Star Elite were surrounded.

Jasper watched them converge in the street and realised just how stupid he had been to agree to Molly accompanying them to Rigley Row in the first place. He hadn’t just put her life in danger. He had hand delivered her to a kidnapping gang the likes of which England rarely saw. A kidnapping gang that were as ruthless as the worst cut-throats already serving time in gaol, and as much a risk to Molly now as the Thames had been to her yesterday.

“What do we do?” Molly whispered.

Jasper was busy making hand signals to Oliver to pay her any attention. Molly was safe right now because she was wedged between the solid brickwork of the warehouse wall and himself. What he had to focus on was getting them out of there.

“Now, we run,” Jasper murmured. “We have to be quick. We have to keep going. Do not look up or try to speak. Just run beside me and keep going. This lot are going to come after us, but do not panic. Whatever happens, never allow panic to take hold of you because it will make you foolish. Do you understand?”

“Are we going to die tonight?” she whispered. It was a serious question. She had never seen such a lethal group of people as those who were now edging toward them.

Jasper suddenly grinned at her. “No, we are most definitely not going to die tonight. Not if you do as you are told in any case.”

Right there and then, he lowered his head and captured her lips in a kiss that left Molly breathless and yearning for more. He then turned to watch Oliver for the signal to move. Bereft that it was over just as swiftly and unexpectedly as it had started, Molly grabbed his shirt. Before she could warn herself against it, she stood up on tiptoe and tugged Jasper’s chin around until he faced her again. When he opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, he could do nothing more than gasp when Molly settled a kiss upon his lips that stole his breath.

“Damn,” he breathed when she released him and side-stepped around him in preparation to run.

Oliver and Niall grinned. Jasper barely remembered the thugs whose weapons were on bold display only a few feet away from them. His stunned gaze remained locked on the woman who was about as confoundingly wilful as anybody he had ever met. Strangely, in anybody else he would find that an unappealing characteristic that would make him stay away. In Molly, it was infinitely reassuring because it meant that life with her would never be boring.

“Go,” Oliver breathed. He didn’t bother to check who was doing as they were told. He lifted his gun, picked a target and pulled the trigger.

Grabbing Molly’s hand, Jasper tugged her after him and began to run as fast as his feet could carry him down the road toward safety. Behind him, several loud bursts of gunfire shattered the silence, interspersed by the angry protests of the men whose comrades fell. Shockingly, returning gunfire showered them all in a hail of bullets that strayed far too close. Walls exploded in a shower of shards and dust as they raced past. The ground beneath them was littered with the debris, but Molly, Jasper and the men from the Star Elite hunkered low and picked a way through it as they raced for their lives. Molly couldn’t even find the breath to scream when one bullet strayed particularly close to her right ear. Jasper hauled her against him, doing his best to protect her with his bulk, but it was difficult given they were darting left and right as they ran down the darkened street toward another group of men.

“In here,” Phillip ordered everyone suddenly, and darted into a narrow alley nobody had noticed before. Once inside the sheltered safety of the narrow space, Oliver replaced the shot in his gun and took aim again. He took that shot the first time someone appeared in the entrance. While he reloaded, Phillip took aim over his shoulder. When he had taken his shot, and accurately picked off another blackguard, Niall took aim over Oliver’s other shoulder. Together, the men from the Star Elite worked in sequence to keep a steady hail of gunfire aimed at their enemy. Anybody who appeared in the alley’s entrance was shot, it was as simple as that.

“Stay here,” Jasper gasped. He shoved Molly behind him and checked the shot on his gun before he looked around the yard at the back of the house, and the small path beyond. “Clear.”

The men in the alley immediately began to back toward them, still firing at anybody who appeared. Together, they took a matter of seconds before they reached Jasper.

“Quickly,” Jasper warned.

As one, the men surrounded Molly, who found herself facing their backs as they nudged her out into the street at the end of the path. When she did gather the strength to try to look between the narrow gaps in their bodies she was sickened by the sight of sinister looking thugs appearing at either end of this new road.

“We are going to die, aren’t we?” she whispered.

“Not tonight,” Jasper replied firmly.

The group made their way toward the road that would take them out of the area. Jasper eyed the back of the house that he suspected Oscar currently called home, possibly with the rest of the kidnap victims. He would come back at some point, with more of his heavily armed Star Elite colleagues, but that would happen another day soon, preferably before the victims were moved on and probably disappeared forever.

“Ready?” Oliver asked.

“I am about out of shot,” Niall replied.

“Me too.” Phillip shook his head as his anger grew.