Calculated Risk (Blackbridge Security 5)

“Stand up, you stupid bitch.” Rough hands yank me from the ground, and I hate my size for the millionth time in my life. I hate how small I am and how that seems to give people the urge to literally jerk me around.

Angered, I attempt to twist out of his grasp, but I can’t. Despite my mighty will, my strength is no comparison to his.

“Nice try, bitch,” he growls in my ear. “I’m just gonna put this bitch down right here and get video so Mr. Pierce knows that it’s done.”

I cry out again when I’m shoved to my knees, and everything seems to calm. Something is pressed to the back of my head, and I hear a click, the sound I’m now familiar with having spent so much time recently at the gun range.

This is it. This is the end.

My eyes have been wide open even though I have a blindfold on, but now I close my eyes, my lips moving in prayer. I whisper my love for Quinten out loud for the first time. I ask God for forgiveness for wasting my life until recently. I pray for strength for the people who care for me. I pray that Quinten is able to move on even though the thought guts me. I pray that Parker finds true happiness and resolves whatever it is she’s been struggling with.

And then the shot rings out, and death isn’t as painful as I’ve imagined.

Death is noisy and a flurry of activity, and as I fall face first on the ground, I don’t even feel the concrete against my face. I smile, grateful that discomfort is a thing of the past, but then hands grab at me, and I realize I didn’t die, and he must have missed.

Now is the time to fight. I roll my body as best I can, the strong arms on me pulling away for a second before grabbing me again. I snap out at them, teeth bared and feeling feral. I won’t give up. I won’t leave Quinten to find someone else. I can’t. Things aren’t supposed to be this way. Life isn’t so fucked up that you find love only for it to be yanked away.

“Hayden! Hayden. Baby, stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

I’m so fucking beyond people telling me what to do. I pull against the ropes at my back, but strong arms wrap around me from behind. Although I’m no longer on the ground, I’m in no better of a position when I’m lifted off the ground.

“Jesus, fuck!” someone hisses when my foot makes contact with something in my scramble to get away.

Pain radiates all the way up my leg, but I keep on kicking.

“Fuck, dude, are you okay?” the man holding me asks, his voice rumbling through my body.

“Both,” someone moans. “She got both my balls.”

“I’ll kill you!” I roar, wiggling until the guy behind me holds me tighter, making it impossible to move.

“It’s Jude,” I hear in my ear. “Calm down and let Quinten take the blindfold off.”

“You’re okay, baby. Listen to my voice. Hayden, do you hear me? It’s over.”

The fight leaves me in an instant, my arms and feet dangling loosely.

Sunlight nearly blinds me when the fabric is pulled free of my face, and I begin to sob the second my eyes are able to focus on Quinten. His face looks as wrecked as I feel.

“Baby,” he whispers, his arms open to me the second Jude lowers my feet to the ground. I don’t have the strength to stand and Quinten seems to understand because he’s right there to catch me before I fall.

The ropes are untied from my wrists, and although both arms scream in pain, I wrap them around my man, crying uncontrollably into his shirt. He lifts me, my legs going around his waist, but we don’t get far.

His face is buried in my neck as he falls to his knees on the hard concrete. Both of our bodies jolt with the force, but we don’t stop holding each other.

“I love you,” I blurt, because I don’t want to live another second without him hearing it from my lips.

“Fuck, baby.” He pulls back, his face stained with tears. “I love you, too.”

“I was so scared,” I sob.

“Me, too.”

He pulls me to his chest once again, and when he holds me too tight, making it nearly impossible to breathe, I don’t even complain. I never want to be out of his arms.

Sirens blare around us, and we just ignore all of it for long moments.

When we do finally pull away, I see one guy prone on the concrete, face pointed to the sky with unseeing eyes, and another man face down with his hands cuffed behind his back.

I cringe when I see Brooks, a guy I met days ago at the Blackbridge office with a pained expression on his face and a hand covering his pelvic area.