Page 32 of Ballrooms & Blackmail

“Shit,” I hiss, fighting harder, doing it so violently that the plastic cuts into my wrists, blood starts dripping down my hands, so violently that the chair tips to the side, hovering on one pair of legs, suspended in space for one long moment before I realize I’m going down.

I brace, eyes slamming closed as the chair falls, waiting for the impact of the concrete to come.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, I’m caught mid-air and I hear, “Easy now, little hen.”

Relief slams into me so intensely it takes my breath away.

He came.

Thorn came for me.

Then I realize there are bad guys around and bullets flying and…oh my God, he could get hurt.

“You have to get out of here,” I hiss.

There’s a tug and then my wrists are suddenly free. “Take a breath, sweetheart, and let’s get you out of here.”

“You have to go. You have?—”

The warehouse door slams open hard enough to bounce against the opposite wall.

Two men rush inside. I scream, but Thorn just lifts his gun, and…

Then the threat is gone.

He turns back to me and I flinch. Not at the gun in his hand, but at the realization that slams into me.

Because as insane as it sounds, I know that Thorn isn’t a threat. Deep inside, I know it.

Before I can tell him that, before I can explain, he freezes. And God, his face hurts me to look at. Slowly, he shoves the gun in the waistband of his jeans and rasps, “I won’t hurt you, little hen.”

There’s blood across his knuckles.

That gun in his jeans.

But he won’t hurt me.

He won’t.

“River,” he pushes out, his voice like gravel. “I?—”

“I know you won’t hurt me, Thorn.”

He stills, as though he was expecting to hear something else. Then his face softens and his lips part…but before he can speak, another round of gunfire echoes through the warehouse. That prompts him into motion and he bends, cutting through the restraints around my ankles.

Sensation rushes painfully through my numb feet.

Thorn’s arm slips around my shoulders. “Careful, now,” he murmurs.

I grunt as I stand.

“Are you hurt?”

I shake my head automatically. “I-I’m fine.”

Thorn’s jaw tightens hard enough to send a muscle flickering across his cheek, but he doesn’t say anything, just guides me out into the hall where Pascal and a group of other men dressed in black and outfitted with heavy vests are standing, their guns at the ready and a pile of zip-tied men at their feet.