The Payback (Team Zulu 2)

3

Sage

Sweatyandfatiguedfromtraining and the twenty-minute jog home, I slowed to a walk to cross the busy street, holding my breath as I stepped over a putrid-smelling sewer drain.

I paused at the door to my apartment building and searched through my backpack for the entry swipe card.Aha!Found it.

“Hey!” I thought I heard someone call out.

I glanced up and pulled the AirPods from my ears, replacing the Foo Fighters with the sounds of Philly and— Wait. What was that noise?

But then I was distracted by a flurry of movement farther down the sidewalk.

A blond woman yelped and leaped to the side, her shopping bags flying through the air. A man wearing a pissed-off expression lunged to flatten himself against the wall of a building while shaking his fist. The stream of startled, scrambling pedestrians drew ever closer, along with the increasing sound of an engine.

What the…?

A motorcycle sped down the sidewalk, the helmeted rider weaving wildly through the busy foot traffic.

My pulse pounded like a snare drum in my skull. Frozen in place, all I could do was stare as danger approached.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

Not again. Please, not again.

I pinched my eyes shut, and for the briefest of moments, I stood on a different sidewalk. The one outside Romano’s store.

Kieran knelt to tie his shoelace. A black sedan approached, and its tinted window rolled down. The barrel of an assault rifle appeared, gripped by a tattooed arm, and—

“Watch out,” came a deep, urgent voice.

A hard body crashed into me. Strong arms curled around my torso as my feet left the ground. In a flash, the man spun us. His back slammed into the wall as I collided with his chest. His firm hold was the only thing stopping me from rebounding and stumbling to the sidewalk.

The bike tore past with a deafening roar.

My breaths came rapidly. Had the rider been aiming for me? Would they come back?

A siren wailed as a cruiser raced by in pursuit. The bike hightailed it around a corner and disappeared from my line of sight.

A police chase. That was all it had been. My lids closed, and my shoulders sagged with relief.

I’m safe, I told myself when my head swam and my legs threatened to buckle.

Breathe, Sage. Just breathe.

When I opened my eyes, the broad chest of my rescuer filled my view.

Holy hell.

This guy was tall and seriously built. Although my feet were back on the ground, he still held me in his secure embrace, probably because I was clinging to him like a cat stuck up a tree while my panic subsided.

Ugh, how embarrassing. What had happened to me? Freezing in terror was exactly the behavior I’d worked so hard to avoid.

The big guy cleared his throat. My gaze traveled from the vee of his black T-shirt, over tan skin covering his corded, muscular neck, then up some more until I landed on a face that could rock the cover of GQ magazine.

Wow.

When our eyes met, I couldn’t look away because his were…captivating. There was no other word to describe them. Set below dark brows, they were so blue it was like staring into the shimmering waters of the Mediterranean. Maybe he wore contacts, because who even had eyes that color? All I knew was those stunning blue orbs bored right into mine, studying me as if I were an intriguing puzzle that needed to be solved.