Page 9 of Run

There was movement behind her, which Elle ignored as her focus was on her brother. “Go home, Marcus,” she called. “Tell Tommy I’d rather die than come back to the family.”

“Fucking shoot her.” A head appeared from behind a car. Leo Trainer—one of her father’s pet psychos. “Take out her knee, then scoop her up. We’ll carry her out. The cops are coming.”

“Nobody shoots my sister,” Marcus bellowed as his second-in-command and lifelong best friend, Abasi Otieno, aimed his gun at Leo instead of Elle.

“I am not your sister,” Elle shouted at him. “Not anymore. I resigned from that position years ago. Take your wannabe army and get out of here before the cops arrive; otherwise, I swear you’ll regret it. I’ve left you alone these past years, but I can change that with a keystroke. Do you really want to mess with me? You know I can bring you a world of trouble. Do you hear me, Marcus? You have seriously irritated me this time!”

Someone grabbed her around the waist, making her squeal, and the next thing she knew, Ryan was carrying her like a rugby ball as he ran for the stairs to the basement.

“Let me down!” She kicked and fought, furious at Ryan for taking control out of her hands. Furious at Marcus for turning her life upside down. And furious that her team was in danger because of her—because she’d been born as Elle James.

“Not going to happen.” Ryan sounded bizarrely unfazed as he took the stairs two at a time. “You need to be saved from yourself. Trust me on this.”

“Let me go and give me a gun,” she half-pleaded, half-ordered. “A big gun. I’m going to shoot him in his stupid head. I don’t care that he’s my brother. Okay, I do. Which means I’ll probably shoot him in the shoulder instead. Either way, he totally deserves to be at least a little bit shot. I can’t believe he attacked us like that. I mean, I knew he was hunting for me, but I never thought he’d do something like this. He put my friends in danger. Mypeople.I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to shoot him in both thighs, so he can’t run while I tell him what I think of him. Let me down, Ryan, or I’m shooting you too.”

“You know”—Ryan pushed through the door to the basement stair—“I’d worry about your threat if I didn’t know you couldn’t hit the side of a bus from two feet away. You’re the worst shot I’ve ever seen—and I once saw a monkey pick up a pistol the team dropped in the rainforest and fire until it was empty. The monkey had better aim than you.”

“That’s it,” she roared. “I’m freezing your bank accounts. I’m putting you on the No Fly List. Your credit rating is toast. Not only you; I’m doing this to the whole damn team. You’re all complicit in keeping me from shooting my no-good criminal of a brother!”

“I feel like one of those parents you see in the supermarket with a screaming toddler under their arm,” Ryan said.

“That’s it.” Elle glared up at him. “I’m shutting down all of your gaming accounts and having you blacklisted.”

“With what? You had to fry your laptop because you have impulse-control issues.”

“I’ll get another one, and when I do, I’m going to rewrite all of your online dating profiles as well as screw with your gaming sites. Every woman in England will know that you’re a hound dog who’ll eat them out of house and home.”

Ryan slammed his palm onto the side of the bookcase that covered the door to the panic room. “Does David know about this mean streak of yours? I’m guessing not, or he wouldn’t be flirting with you quite as much.”

As the door swung open and he carried her inside, a huge blast rocked the building.

“It’s okay,” Joe said as he rushed in behind them. “Callum blew the doors to buy us some time.”

“There were explosives in the doors?” Julia’s voice was high-pitched as Joe dragged her into the room with him.

Joe nodded absently, his gun trained on the door as Megan and Dimitri joined them. “It’s procedure for something like this.”

“Something like this?” Julia’s voice lifted an octave. “We planned for this?”

“We plan for everything, baby.” Joe tore his eyes from the screens showing video feeds from the cameras upstairs. He smiled at his wife. “You know that.”

“I didn’t know there were explosives in the doorframe. What if we’d accidentally set them off?”

“We didn’t want to worry you,” Joe soothed. “Trust me, they were safe. I rigged it myself.”

“You and I are going to have a long talk about this later, Joe.” Julia tucked her hair behind her ears and frowned. “As office manager, I should be kept informed about which parts of the building are stuffed with C-4.”

“You’re right, baby. It won’t happen again.”

Of course, Julia’s anger fizzled, and she smiled at her husband, which was beyond pathetic. “There goes the discussion I planned on having.”

“Seriously?” Elle shouted. “You’re letting him off the hook? Just like that?”

“Can we gag her?” Ryan said. “Do we have any gags? Or a bandage? A tea towel? Anything to stuff in her mouth. Anything at all.”

“I want out of here,” Elle shouted. “I have a brother to shoot!”

But it was too late. Callum ran into the room and slammed the door shut, sealing them in. Now, even if Ryan set her down, she’d have to make it past four well-trained men and Megan to make it back upstairs. She let out a long scream of outrage and tried to kick Ryan. He tossed her away from him and hid behind Megan.