Blindsided (Sentinel Securities) (18 page)

****

Brie felt the car lurch to a sudden stop and breathed a sigh of relief that the battering would now stop…until she remembered what the car stopping indubitably meant…they’d reached their final destination.

Rolling herself onto her back she withdrew her legs up tightly against her chest—ignoring the burning of her wrists against her back, and prepared to lash out as hard as she could against her attackers. She heard a car door open then shut and one deep voice snarl to the other to ‘get the woman.’ Taking a deep breath she prepared to strike out the minute the boot was opened. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears—so loudly that she couldn’t even hear anything except its rapid pounding and her frantic breathing as she lay in the darkness inside the back of the car. Then moonlight—so bright against the complete darkness of the confined space flooded in as the boot was opened. Brie lashed out with her feet—blindly kicking at anything that approached and she heard the hiss of pain as her kick caught her attacker unexpectedly, connecting with something hard.

She was not going to let them kill her without a fight!
She thrashed around and screamed—her fury giving her a renewed momentum but she found herself pinned by one set of hands, while the other roughly dragged her out of the car.

“Just do it here,” one of the men snapped, wiping the corner of his mouth where Brie had managed to connect with her foot.

“You know what the boss said—discreet. I’ve seen what happens to people when you don’t follow orders,” the other man said, before turning his cold gaze upon Brie. “Now get up and walk,” he snapped.

Brie rolled onto her side and attempted to stand, but it was obviously not fast enough for the men because she was soon heaved none too gently to her feet and stood upright.

“Move!”

The car had pulled off into a small clearing that edged thick bushland, and the men shoved Brie across the dirt road to head into the scrub. The heavy scent of eucalyptus filled her nose as she stumbled ahead of the two men over the uneven ground, moving deeper into the bush. Frightened tears blurred her vision making it difficult to see where she was going.

She was going to die…out here all alone.
She didn’t want to die—damn it!
Well do something,
a furious voice demanded from deep inside her.
What would Jason do?
  She had no idea—but it sure as hell wouldn’t be to walk obediently like a lamb to the slaughter! She couldn’t fight—not effectively and not with her hands tied—but she could run! She blinked rapidly to clear her vision and knew she had to do something fast. They were already some distance from the car and probably far enough to dispose of a body without the risk of anyone stumbling upon them.

Before she had time to talk herself out of it—she ran.

****

Jason sat in the passenger side of Gracie’s car, his eyes straining through the darkness to follow the dim red taillights of the car they were following.

“Don’t you lose them, Gracie,” he warned in a low voice, his gaze zeroed in ahead of them fiercely. They were stalking the car—following at a distance without headlights since they’d left the last remaining version of a legitimate road a few kilometres back. Now they were headed along a lonely dirt road weaving its way up through the hinterland. There was mistaking the reason why the two goons were coming to such a remote place—and the knowledge burned a hole through his gut. Aristotle Demetriou was a dead man—one way or the other the guy was going to die tonight. As soon as he found Brie—he was heading back to that mansion and taking care of that prick—once and for all. He pushed the image from his mind—no matter how satisfying the revenge would be—first they needed to get Brie back.

“There!” he said leaning forward in his seat to peer through the windscreen, pointing up ahead at a dark shadow of a car pulled off to one side of the dirt road ahead.

Gracie pulled the car off the road and Jason already had his door open, gun in hand sprinting towards the other car. As he got closer he saw it was empty but there had been signs of a struggle—the boot was left open, but thankfully there were no signs of blood that he could see. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead. They had Brie and were walking her into the bush. He didn’t wait to see if Gracie was behind him—there wasn’t time he had to reach them before they had a chance to kill her.

Behind her she heard the surprised curse of her two captors and their fury spurred her onwards. If they caught her now—they’d make sure she paid for making their job harder than she already had.

The dense bushland actually worked in her favour. Had it been open ground—they would have caught up with her easily but the rocky terrain and heavy leaf-matter underfoot made it just as hard for them to negotiate as well and put them all on a more even playing field. She swerved and dodged trees as best as she could—hoping to stay just far enough ahead of them until she found a place to hide—or lost them.

Behind her the heavy footfalls of the two men sounded like a mini stampede. Her breathing echoed inside her head as loud as the roar of a jumbo jet and she forced her legs to move faster. She felt unbalanced with her hands tied behind her back—and any minute she feared she would topple over. All she could hope for was that if she fell—she’d snap her neck and it would be quick and painless—unlike the ending the two men behind her had planned. 

The sound of a loud whip cracking—only louder and with a reverberation that echoed through the bush, caused her to falter and her breathing caught painfully in her chest. She heard the loud grunt of one of the men and the long string of expletives from the other as the footsteps behind her grew further away. She didn’t bother stopping—she couldn’t. If she stopped running they’d kill her. The undergrowth whipped against her face.
Don’t stop, don’t stop
, ran through her head in time with her feet. The ground began sloping downwards and she slipped, landing on her backside painfully. With a whimper, she rolled sideways and clambered to her feet pushing her shoulder against the nearest tree truck to propel her onwards.
Run, run…don’t stop
.

She searched ahead frantically for somewhere to hide. She could barely manage to breathe and her legs were burning with the effort it took to remain upright. She slipped and slid her way down the steep embankment, struggling to keep her balance until her ankle turned and she fell hard, landing on her knee moments before crashing to her side. Unable to break her fall with her hands—her face smashed painfully against the rocks and dirt beneath her.

Everything hurt, and for a moment she struggled to take a breath. She heard the pounding of feet coming closer and squeezed her eyes shut tight as she waited for the final blow that would end her life.

“We gotta
’
keep moving, hold on tight.”

Brie’s eyes flew open and she found herself being thrown over Jason’s shoulder in a rough fireman’s hold as he set off at a quick pace without giving her a chance to open her mouth. Beneath her the ground bounced around and she had to bite down on her lip to stop groaning out loud as she was jostled about painfully. It took her mind off the confused questions that had been rapidly filling her mind like,
how...what…where did he come from?

They came to a mound of moss covered rocks, where small trees pushed their way through the cracks and looked like a rocky desert island in the midst of bushland surrounding it. Jason lowered her to the ground, withdrew a nasty looking black hand gun from behind his back, peering back in the direction they’d just came from.

Brie concentrated on sucking air into her lungs. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your arse.” He didn’t turn around, instead kept his gaze fixed on their surroundings.

“How’d you find me,” she managed to push out between deep breaths, closing her eyes against the painful stitch in her side.

“I followed you,” he bit out and she knew he was majorly pissed off at her. It didn’t matter that he had a right to be angry—but she bristled against it anyway.
Who the hell was he to judge?

He turned back to face her after a moment and withdrew a pocket knife, slicing through the course fibre of the rope which restrained her swiftly. The instant relief as she were released was agonising. Feeling ebbed its way back into her hands, so too did the stinging of her rubbed, raw skin.

“Think you can get back on your feet?” he asked briskly.

She nodded, but wasn’t entirely confident she could get her jelly-like legs to run anymore.

“We need to get to higher ground.”

He eased back from the edge of their rock barrier and took her hand, tugging her to her feet and taking off at a fast jog. Brie had no time to worry about how irritated he seemed—she had enough problems trying to keep one foot following the other without tripping them both over.

The ground slanted upwards, at first it was only a slight incline but then seemingly out of the blue—the gradient pitched, leg-burningly upwards and she found herself at times on all fours as she scrambled up behind Jason.

At the top, hidden amongst the spiky native grass and black spotted rocks, she collapsed onto her back and gulped in huge breaths of air.
This was insane.

She opened an eye to check where Jason was and saw him lying flat on his stomach, peering down on the area they’d been holed up in a few minutes before. “Do you think we’ve lost them?” she whispered.

“
Him.
There’s only one left.”

Goosebumps broke out over her arms at his somewhat detached answer. She knew those men were going to kill her and dump her body out here in the middle of nowhere—and she shouldn’t be feeling anything but relief that one of them was now dead, but unlike him, the thought that he’d just killed someone turned her stomach a little.
They were going to kill you!
A little voice threw at her indignantly and didn’t seem to have any qualms at cheering over the thug’s death.

He lifted a hand in warning and Brie instantly froze. There was nothing except the sounds of the bush. The wind lightly moved through the top of the trees and the noisy chirping of insects droned all around them. If she tried really hard she could almost imagine this was a lovely relaxing picnic in the bush…you know, except for the fact they were being hunted by killers and all
.
Then she heard the sound of sticks cracking and rocks moving underfoot and her heart lodged firmly in her throat.

She heard the man below them stop—maybe to figure out their location?
What if he was an expert tracker?
The silence seemed to lengthen and her nerves were stretched to breaking point. She’d always hated hide and seek as a kid—it scared the hell out of her to be hunted down like a damn rabbit...that moment when you knew,
any second
you were about to be found…only this time being found would actually be quickly followed by
being shot.

Her gaze darted to Jason as he slowly eased back and moved to cover her body as he swapped places with her silently. “Stay here and don’t move,” he whispered next to her ear, so softly she was almost unsure she’d heard him.

She fought back the instinct to grab hold of his shirt and beg him to leave her… barely. He moved soundlessly—how, she wasn’t sure. For such a large man she had no idea how he managed to move without sound.  But one minute he was there and the next he’d vanished somewhere beyond where she lay. She couldn’t see where he went—she wasn’t game to lift her head in case it somehow gave away her position. She wasn’t even sure where the other guy was now…was he still just down below them? Had he moved on?
God damn it she hated hide and seek!

She tried to distract herself from jumping up and surrendering like the coward she was by staring up at the clouds that she glimpsed through the canopy of eucalyptus trees above her. If she tried really, really hard, she could pretend she was on that picnic, laying on a  blanket and listening to the sounds of nature…instead of hiding from some guy with a gun on the hard ground with ants crawling over her legs and God only knew what other kind of creepy crawlies hiding in the rocks around her. Did snakes like to hide in rock crevices? She was pretty sure they did.
Okay so maybe she needed to work on her imagination skills a little more.

Then a shadow fell across her and she looked up as her heart literally stopped. There was no time to scream—or maybe she did—she wasn’t sure—she couldn’t hear anything over the rush of blood in her ears as she stared up at the man who had dragged her from Demetriou’s house, holding a gun in his hand, wearing a cold expression on his pock-marked face as he stared down at her.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. She saw him raise his gun until it was level with her. She felt the painful lurch of her heart as it tried to burst through her chest moments before she screwed her eyes shut tight and prepared for the ripping of her flesh as the bullet obliterated her organs.

The sound of the shot registered and she waited for the impact…but it never came. When her eyes snapped open, she found Jason standing over the man, holding his gun and flipping the now lifeless body over with the toe of his boot. 

Brie scrambled backwards until her back rested on the rough rock behind her and stared at the man on the ground waiting for him to jump up at any moment and finish what he’d started. But he didn’t move.