Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

I took one shuffling step forward.

“Don’t fuckin’ move.”

Lifting my gaze to Barrett, I realized I could barely see him through my swimming eyes.

“I’m going to kill you now, Miro, and put you right here on the floor next to the dog.”

I shivered, but not for me. It was for Chickie Baby, who I would miss even in these last few seconds.

“It’s a shame about the dog. I really liked him.”

I couldn’t tell that from how lifeless he’d left him.

“Now Ian will suffer like Kerry did.”

What was I supposed to say? He already knew Ian loved me, loved Chickie too. That was the whole point of him and Lochlyn doing all this.

“I really wanted to fuck you.”

Like anybody cheated on the love of their life.

“I’ll make sure to comfort Ian when I blame all this on Eamon and say I got here too late to save you or Chickie.”

“Go to hell,” I spat out.

“You first,” he said, lifting the gun.

“Well, now, this is embarrassing.”

We both froze, and then I looked toward the back door for the second time that night, and there, with a gun in his hand, was the last person on the planet I thought I’d see.

“Who the hell are you?” Barrett barked at the intruder.

“Oh, I’m Dr. Craig Hartley,” he said in the velvety tone people always mentioned whenever they spoke of him. It was always on the Internet or in the paper about how refined he sounded, how rich and silky his voice was. “And you have something of mine.”

I honestly had never had reason to use the saying, “out of the frying pan and into the fire”—until now. It was like when you woke up from a nightmare only to find yourself in another, and then when you came to the second time, only then did you realize how fucked up dreams could be.

I was about to be killed in cold blood, only to have it stopped by a man who wanted to torture and maim me before he too ended my life. It was a mindfuck.

Barrett glanced at me and then back at the immaculately dressed doctor—in his three-piece herringbone tweed suit under a chocolate-brown wool overcoat, five layers in all with a pocket square—who was at the moment a wanted fugitive.

“And what’s that?”

“Well, Marshal Jones here, of course,” Hartley replied drolly. “He most assuredly belongs to me, and before you even have time to turn that gun on me, I’ll shoot you with mine.”

Barrett stared wide-eyed at him.

“You don’t believe me, and us without the time for you to google me,” Hartley mused, brows furrowing in consternation before he lifted them and his face brightened. “Oh, I know.”

Without a flicker of hesitation, he put four bullets in Eamon Lochlyn, ending his war on the men left in Ian’s old unit.

Barrett screamed, and Hartley lifted his hand to quiet him.

“Now,” he exhaled, “let me tell you a little about my gun.”

I saw the fear and horror cross Barrett’s features then as he regarded Hartley, who’d just killed someone but was preternaturally calm. Really, it was unnerving.

“What I have here is a .50-caliber Titanium Gold self-loading Desert Eagle that has a six-inch barrel and holds seven rounds. It is, I’m told, one of, if not the most powerful handguns in the world, and, as you can see, makes quite a mess.”

With a .50 caliber bullet, no way it wouldn’t.

“It was a gift.”

“From Aranda?” I offered because Hartley I knew, Barrett I certainly didn’t. Of the two of them—and it was crazy, but still—I’d rather the doctor have the power. Hartley didn’t give a damn about Ian or the girls or anyone else but me. Barrett was the only one in the room who would hurt people I loved.

“Oh, you heard about that?”

I nodded, swallowing quickly, not wanting to retch, so afraid that I would and then Hartley would know how terrified I was. It wasn’t that he would kill me—that wasn’t my fear—the horror came from imagining that he’d make me leave with him and then we’d be alone. I never wanted to be alone with him again. “I did,” I managed to get out.

“It’s always good to have friends.”

“It is,” I agreed.

We were just talking like we always did, and it would probably have been weird to other people, I was sure, but I was used to the rambling. Barrett was not, and he was very frightened. It was all over his face.

“I don’t care who the hell you—”

“I’m not to be trifled with,” Hartley instructed icily. “I’ll shoot you dead where you stand if you don’t drop the gun into the sink on the count of three, and take five steps back.”

“No, I—”

“One.”

“I can’t just let—”

“Two.”

Barrett let the gun slip from his right hand into the stainless-steel sink and took the requisite steps away.

“Oh, you’re lovely, bravo,” Hartley praised before he walked over to me, reached out, and put a hand on my cheek. The muzzle of his gun was pointed directly at my heart. “Why are you crying?”