Page 48 of Her Noble Protector

“Now, does anybody else want to voice a complaint?” the bored man asked.

There was silence.

“Answer me!”

Lisa heard three men say no.

Lisa shuddered, praying that she wasn’t going to be shot next.

“Now tell me again how you fucked up,” the bored man said. “Tell me again how you left a witness.”

“We didn’t. She’s dead.”

“Not according to the police band radio.” Now he didn’t sound so bored.

He was talking about Camilla. Thank God, she was alive. She hadn’t been kidnapped. She was alive and hadn’t been kidnapped. Okay, things were going to be okay. Lisa could deal with this now. She just needed to stay alive and Raiden would come and get her.

“Well if she’s not dead, we’ll take care of it.”

“Damn right you will,” bored guy with a gun said. “You won’t be getting your money for a sloppy job.”

“Wait a minute, you were supposed to take her off our hands.” Someone pushed Lisa’s back with the toe of their boot.

“And I will, when the time is right. It isn’t right. You’ve been paid well up-front for your job so far. Plus it now only has to be divided up three ways. You keep her in pristine condition for the next two days, tie up the loose ends you created, and I’ll take her off your hands then.”

“We’re not a babysitting service. You didn’t tell us about holding her for two days.”

“Adapt.”

“If we’re caught with her, we’ll go down for life,” one of the men whined.

“Then my advice is to not get caught.”

Lisa heard a door closing.

“Fuck,” one of the men said.

“Who’s going to clean up Alberto?”

“Not me. I had to get lunch. Plus I gassed up the van. One of you guys has to clean up the dead body.”

Was he for real?

“What about her?” another guy asked.

“Shit, I’m not set up to be a babysitter, but I can get my old lady to come. She won’t say shit because she’s counting on the money.”

“You trust her?” It was the guy who’d gotten lunch.

“Been married to her for years. Won’t be the first time she’s had to help me out of a jam. So since I’m getting Nellie to do the babysitting and you got lunch, that means Rick has to clean up the dead body.”

“Shit,” Rick said. “Next time I’ll remember to buy lunch.”

14

“She has a concussion, we’re keeping her here overnight,” the doctor said to Raiden and Harry.

Carys would be flying into Phoenix that evening. Raiden wasn’t happy about it, not happy one bit, but there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do to stop her. Clint was driving in with his wife Lydia, so they should be here about the same damn time. Why in the hell Clint was bringing his wife made no sense to Raiden, but whatever, as long as Clint was getting here. But that still left him here at the hospital with his thumb up his ass.