Switched

The attacker crowded against the door barked out a laugh as Risa’s face morphed from white to gray. These two made quite a team. The type that reinforced Aaron’s belief in women’s self-defense classes.

“Come here.” The leader reached for her as he made his demand.

Just as fast, Risa stepped back. Her heels clicked against the floor as she scooted her body deeper into the stall.

“Stop.” The leader lunged and grabbed her elbow. With one tug, he had her back in the middle of the room and within inches of the gun in his other hand.

“You have the wrong person.” Her words rushed out.

“Let’s all step back and relax for a second.” Aaron shifted his weight as he spoke. He eased one foot out from behind the door.

“Shut up,” the attacker who was crushing him shouted.

Risa shook her head. “We didn’t do anything.”

“You are on this floor, right where you’re supposed to be.” When the attacker pulled on her arm, she stumbled. “Move again without permission and I’ll put a bullet in your boyfriend.”

The man made the threat, but both men’s guns never wavered. Both pointed at Risa, which gave Aaron the advantage he needed.

With as little movement as possible, he slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket, fumbling with the fabric until his fingers connected with the metal from one of his extra weapons.

Using all his weight, he crashed his body against the door and knocked the backup attacker off balance. His head snapped back when the door connected with his face. Blood spurted from his nose, and his hands went to his face as his attention slipped from the attack.

“Risa, get down!” Aaron barely got the words out before the leader turned toward him.

She dropped to her knees as the room broke into chaos. Aaron got off two quick rounds that boomed through the shouting. One shot exploded through the door, catching the backup attacker in the side and sending him falling back into the hallway on a howl of pain.

Aaron’s second shot slammed into the leader’s shoulder and spun him around and straight into Risa. He stumbled over her, then fell to the floor over her back.

Despite Royal’s yelling in his ear and Risa’s screaming in the small room, Aaron kept moving. He pocketed the fallen attacker’s dropped weapon. With a quick glance at the man heaving and rolling in pain in the hall, Aaron raced toward Risa. He reached down and pulled her up beside him, then pivoted toward freedom.

They got two steps before her trim body turned to deadweight. It was as if her feet fell out from under her. Aaron assumed she tripped and bent down to lift her, only then seeing the death grip the leader had on her ankle.

“Drop the gun.” He issued the order through shallow breaths.

As he held the weapon pointed at them, the man’s hand shook. He blinked repeatedly as if trying to keep a cloud from settling over his mind.

Aaron didn’t waste any time. He kicked out, ramming his heel into the other man’s fist and sending the gun flying from his loose fingers. The second kick landed on the guy’s temple and pressed him into an unconscious heap.

Risa gasped as she lost her balance and Aaron grabbed her. Relief flooded through him when her hand tightened on his. With a tug, he drew her into his arms and held on with all his strength.

Feeling her body shake against his brought reality rushing back. She was a civilian in the wrong place at the very wrong time. She was innocent, as were the people downstairs. Someone was making a move on Lowell and somehow mistook Risa for Angie. The plan reeked of desperation and poor planning. That meant everyone was a target and no one in the building was safe.

Royal’s voice finally registered in Aaron’s ear. Instead of answering, he asked a question of his own. “Where are you?”

“Coming.” A one-word reply, and then silence filled the other end of the line.

“Royal?”

Risa wrapped her fingers around Aaron’s arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.” It was as if the world went quiet. No one even breathed on the other end of the comm.

Worry for his team warred with the fury racing through his body over the attack on Risa and how close he came to having her pulled out of his hands. But the groan in the hallway as the slumped man tried to sit up against the wall refocused Aaron’s attention on the disaster on this floor.

“Stay here.” He tried to move away from Risa, but she held on.

“No way are you walking away from me again.”

Since she left his shooting hand free, he didn’t argue. With her body plastered against his side, he walked toward the injured man.

“Who do you work for?”

The man on the floor snarled as he pressed his hand against his bloody side. His shoulders rose and fell on labored breaths, but he had enough energy left to pronounce his loyalty. “Go to hell.”

Aaron shoved his foot against the man’s open wound and the blood-soaked shirt underneath. The string of curses started a second later, but Aaron didn’t let up. He increased the pressure until the other man squirmed against the floor.

He winced and swore. “I don’t know.”

Aaron leaned in, letting menace flow through his voice as he aimed his gun at the attacker’s head. “Someone is paying you and you have two seconds to tell me.”

The guy slid flat against the floor, his voice shifting from talking to panting. “My orders were to grab the woman.”

Risa leaned over his shoulder. “You picked the wrong one.”

Confusion wrinkled the man’s brow.

Aaron didn’t let that part of the conversation go any further. “I want a name.”

“I don’t know.” The man shouted his answer this time.

Fearing the guy had an earpiece or a mic, Aaron ended the interrogation. With a sweep of his arm, he landed a sleeping blow to the side of the guy’s head, knocking him unconscious.

“He’s still bleeding,” she said.

“Right.” Part of him didn’t mind the idea of this guy bleeding out, not after what he’d tried to do to Risa, but Aaron figured he’d lost enough humanity in this job. He couldn’t afford much more.

Using the cloth towels on the sink top, he constructed a makeshift bandage and pressed it hard to the guy’s side, anchoring it there with his belt.

Risa leaned over Aaron’s shoulder. “Will that be enough?”

He didn’t pretend to be a medical expert, but he knew the guy needed real attention soon. “For now.”

After a quick check for more weapons and a phone, which proved futuile, Aaron turned back to Risa, expecting to see fear or disgust at the violence and bloodshed. Instead, she bit her lower lip, as if in deep thought.

“What is going on? I came to check out a party venue and walked into some sort of mistaken-identity nightmare.” Her voice slowly returned to normal as she spoke. Gone was the tremor of fear. In its place was a simple determination to get through the next few minutes.

Aaron appreciated the change, and the bluntness of her response startled him into an honest answer. “It looks like someone is planning an attack against the businessman downstairs and is using a woman to get to him.”