Solid Steel (Unseen Enemy Book 6) (6 page)

“OK, well. We had a deal and you lost.”

His heart sank as he realized what she was getting at. “Selena…”

“Nuh-uh. We had a deal and if you’re a man of your word, you’ll honor it. You’re going to leave me alone now, right?”

He was silent, thinking. Yeah, they’d had a deal and yeah, he’d lost. He’d given this his best damn shot and it had been one hell of a gamble – and he’d lost that too, from the looks of things. She wasn’t going to talk to him about her concerns and she wasn’t going to kiss him again. He’d played his last card and it hadn’t been the winning one… his chips were gone and he had nothing left. Time to fold, to call it a day. Time to go.

“I’ll leave you alone,” he said quietly. “A promise is a promise.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to that.”

She turned away from him, just turned and walked away. He watched her head in to the change rooms, watched that incredible woman move farther and farther away from him. His chest felt tight and his hand was clenched in to a fist.

Way to go, Rhodes. You just fucking completely blew that.

Selena stumbled in to the changing area, sat down in one of the private cubicles. Her whole body was shaking and she dropped her head in to her hands, trying to regain control.

God, that amazing kissing. His hard, heavy body pressed against hers. That feeling of safety and danger, all at the same time. His voice murmuring, low and husky. His eyes, his touch, his muscles. She wanted it, she wanted
all
of it. She wanted
him
.

But she wasn’t what he thought she was, not even
close
. So she was going to let him go.

Fuck. It hurt like hell.

Chapter Five
Two weeks later

Selena looked at Diana Keeler and sighed. Good God Almighty,
now
the woman was getting loaded by eight o’clock at night. Briefly, Selena considered just knocking her out for her own safety, but apparently she had some event to get to. Assuming that Selena and Griff could even
get
her ass there.

She glanced at Griff and met his gaze; simultaneously, they rolled their eyes and then bit back their grins. It was nice, actually, a little moment of comaraderie, after more than two weeks of Siberian-level chilliness.

Selena had been furious with Griff for talking to Luke about her, and she’d let him know it in no uncertain terms. He’d been apologetic almost to the point of groveling, but she’d had exactly none of it. They’d worked together, of course, but she’d been even more reserved and silent than she had been before.

Griff had tried everything he could think of to get her to talk to him, to warm up to him, but she’d ignored his advances. He told Luke that he’d really fucked it up this time, and the other man had advised him to wait it out.

So this shared eye roll and tiny grin from Selena were the first signs for him that maybe he was on the road to being forgiven. Maybe even trusted again. Yeah, he’d broken her confidence and he knew that – but Griff
also
now knew for sure that something was wrong. She’d as much as said so to Luke that day at the track, and all Griff wanted was for her to let him in again so he could help her.

“Boomer and Mark weren’t kidding, huh?” Griff said now in a low voice. “She’s plastered.”

“Yeah,” Selena whispered back. “I wondered why they peeled the hell out of here at the end of their shift like the devil himself was chasing them. Now I know. I mean, they said she was leglessly drunk, but not that she was half-naked.”

“Ummm-hmmmm.” Griff stared across the room at their client, who was dancing by herself whilst wearing a sheer teddy, spilling her martini all over the floor. “Should we call Dallas?”

“And say what, exactly? That Diana’s drunk again?” Selena shrugged. “We’ve guarded smashed clients before, Griff. Yeah, they’re a pain in the ass and they usually end up puking on our shoes when we hustle them to the bathroom, but Diana’s got to get to this thing tonight.”

“Yeah, I know.” Griff sighed. “OK, let’s roll. Get her to the bedroom and get her ass dressed.”

“Man,” she groaned. “This is going to be a long,
long
twelve hours.”

“No goddamn kidding.”

**

Two hours later, Griff pulled up to The Cave, flashed his I.D. at the bouncer. The guy waved him through to the club VIP parking.

Selena was in the back seat with Diana, trying to convince the woman to hand over her phone. She’d been trying to convince her of this for the past ninety minutes.

“Diana, look.” Unbelievably, Selena’s tone was still measured and patient. “You know that when you’re drunk, you lose all judgment about social media. We’ve talked about this, and I know that Dallas has talked to you about it, too.”

“Yeah,” Diana slurred. “He’s
sooooooo
hot, you know?”

Selena blinked, ignored the assessment of Dallas, who, in actual fact,
was
scorching hot. He was also very,
very
married to Olivia Jameson – now Olivia Foreman – an incredible, smart, gorgeous woman.

“Anyway,” Selena carried on. “I think you should give me your phone, OK? I want to be sure that you’re not removing your privacy settings on Facebook again. You know that after a few drinks, you sometimes open up your location information so anyone who follows you can see where you are.”

“God,” Diana huffed. “I’m in a
club
! At a
private
event
! I’ll be in the
VIP
section
with you and Gorilla Boy up there watching my back. Nobody’s gonna be able to
get
to me here!”

Griff gave Selena a quick glance in the rearview mirror and they grinned again.

Gorilla Boy? Damn, she’s drunk.

“You don’t know that,” Selena said patiently, ignoring the insult to her huge partner for now. “Besides, they can always wait outside for us to leave.”

Diana scowled. “I just wanna have some fun.”

“And you will,” Selena assured her. “Tonight will be great, OK? Just give me your phone so I can be sure you’re safe.”

“Stupid stalker,” Diana said mutinously. “Ruining my good time.”

Selena barely held back her impatient sigh. “Yeah, stalkers will do that. Now, can I please have your phone?”

“Fine!” Diana shouted now. “Fine, fine, fine!
Take
it, Mom!” She threw the phone on the seat between them. “But if I want to use it, you give it back to me.”

Selena nodded, still calm and patient. “Thank you, Diana.”

“Whatever,” the other woman muttered. “Can I go in now?”

“You sure can,” Griff said, thinking that the time had come for him to give Selena a break and take his turn babysitting the brat. “Stay right behind me, yeah?”

“Oooh, yeah.” Diana perked up. “The view of you from behind is
awesome
.”

Griff started a bit and Selena gave a tiny laugh. And just like that, they were back in sync, back on the same side. They inserted their earpieces, still grinning at each other.

They entered the club without any trouble at all, and Diana immediately took off to the bar. Without a single word, without even a single look, Selena and Griff went in to their well-established and familiar patterns of guarding a principal: Griff never took his eyes off the client, while Selena looked everywhere
but
at the client. They were both totally alert and they spoke constantly over their headsets. Within minutes, they’d scoped the club, its patrons, the layout. Everything looked normal, even tame, and their spidey-senses and killer instincts relaxed ever so slightly.

So when it all happened and everything went straight to hell, they never saw it coming. And they barely survived it.

**

It was almost two o’clock in the morning when Diana decided that she wanted to go home. Sadly, she’d decided to not go alone. The guy that she’d picked up was the usual idiot: a tall, good-looking, rich idiot, to be sure. But still an idiot.

Selena had already snapped a few pictures of him on her cell and sent it off to Solid Security’s twenty-four-hour IT team. Within ten minutes of getting the picture, they’d e-mailed Selena the idiot’s entire life. Seeing as he was a trust-fund brat with absolutely no real education or solid ambitions at all, it was not impressive reading, but there were no red flags, either.

“So, green light on Casanova?” Griff said in Selena’s ear.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she spoke back softly. “No way he’s our bad guy.”

“OK.” Griff sighed. “So I guess we’re taking them back to her place.”

“Yep. You ready to move?”

Griff’s eyes were nailed on Diana and the guy as they sucked face like teenagers. “Oh, yeah. I’m
so
ready to get these two behind closed doors. Watching this for the past three hours has been damn painful.”

“I’ll just bet.”

“Next time, we switch and
you
watch her make out with random strangers.”

“Deal.”

“Great. So I’ll go and tell them we’re ready… you get the door.”

“On it.”

Selena stepped outside, gave the parking lot a good, long look. The autumn sky was pitch-black, but the area was well-lit and there were two hulking bouncers standing about fifty feet away having a cigarette, watching the door. They nodded at her, she smiled back. She gave one more searching look around, spoke in to her headset.

“OK, Griff. The coast’s clear.”

“Got that. We’re coming out.”

The door opened behind her and she gave a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure that it was Griff, Diana and the idiot. When she turned around again, he was on her.

Where he came from, Selena had no idea. He was moving fast, though, and all she saw was a flash of something silver and dangerous, and then there was blinding pain on the left side of her chest. She fell to her knees, all out of breath. She gasped for air, looked down, saw blood on the front of her shirt.

Fuck. I’ve been stabbed.

There was shouting from the bouncers now, Diana was screaming, the stalker was hollering about Diana being a whore and going home with another man. The idiot took to his heels back in to the club, Griff fought to shove Diana behind him but she struggled with him, wasting precious time and taking Griff’s attention.

It only took those few extra seconds for the stalker to gain the upper hand: by the time Griff had placed himself between Diana and the man and had started to turn around, it was too late for Griff to defend himself.

The stalker launched himself at Griff with a speed and ferocity that took Selena aback. She was struggling to her feet even as the knife plunged in to Griff’s neck, deep and hard. He fell to the ground without a sound and Diana’s hands went to her mouth as the man now focused on her. He took a step forward.

“You little
slut
,” he ground out. “Gonna teach you a
lesson
.”

“Hey. Dickhead.”

At Selena’s voice, the man turned, stunned. The first bullet hit him in the hand and he howled and dropped the bloody knife. The second bullet went in to his lower leg and he fell to the ground heavily, curled up on himself and almost in tears.

Selena took a shaky step forward and kicked the knife away. It spun and caught the light and she shifted on her feet, trying to find her center of balance.

“Stay the fuck down,” Selena hissed. “Or the next one goes in the middle of your goddamn forehead.”

The man didn’t even respond: he was far too busy clutching his leg and rolling around on the ground. The bouncers were beside her, but Selena had eyes for nobody except the client. She was her primary responsibility, no matter what else was going on.

“Take Ms. Keeler inside,” Selena snapped to the one bouncer. “Don’t leave her side for one second, you hear me?”

The guy easily had almost a foot and probably more than eighty pounds on her, but he jumped to do as she said. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Go.”

Diana screamed and sobbed and babbled, but thank Christ she went. Selena kept her eyes pinned to the man on the ground even as she spoke to the second bouncer.

“Call for help. My partner’s been stabbed.”

The man nodded, his thumb already on the speed dial for the ambulance. The Cave had its fair share of fights and the place was well-known to 911. Within seconds, he disconnected and told Selena that the ambulance would be there in three minutes at the most.

“Watch him,” she said to the bouncer now. “If he moves, stomp on his goddamn right leg. That’s where I shot him.”

The man nodded again and finally,
finally
Selena was able to get to Griff.

She knelt down beside him on the ground and applied pressure to the wound on his neck. He was gray, barely breathing, cold. She pushed harder, trying to staunch the flow of blood. It didn’t seem to make much difference, but she told herself that it did.

“Griff,” she said urgently. “Griff, can you hear me?”

There was no response and she fought to stay calm. No good ever came from panicking and anyway, she was finding it hard enough to breathe as it was. She ignored the pain in her chest, ignored the pool of blood gathering around her – blood that was both Griff’s
and
hers.

By the time the large hand descended on her shoulder and the EMT told her to move aside so they could treat Griff, she was barely conscious. She was still awake only through sheer force of will, and even that was flagging badly.

The darkness that had been looming on the edges of her vision moved closer, closer again. She shook her head to clear it, shuffled to one side on her knees. She watched the paramedics check Griff’s vitals and start an IV. She managed to get to her feet as they loaded him in to the back of the ambulance and they took off, sirens blaring.

“Hey.”

She turned, tried to focus on the EMT from the second ambulance. He was down on the ground treating the stalker; the glowering bouncer was watching closely.

“Hey, lady,” the EMT said. “
You
OK?”

“Yeah.” Selena’s tongue wasn’t working properly. “I’m fine.”

The man came over to her now, his eyes fixed on her shirt front.

“That your blood?”

She looked down, almost casually. “Yeah. I – I got stabbed. I think the dickhead may have punctured my lung.”

That was the last thing she remembered before the lurking, creeping shadows rushed in fast and furious. She fell hard in to the raging blackness that just washed over her, washed her away.