Exiting the bathroom, Faith heard a gurgling sound and pivoted her head to greet the noise. Her skin crawled. Perspiration beads formed on her forehead.
Near the front door, one man stood while a second was down on one knee. Both wore black suits, white shirts, and black ties. Standing to join his partner, the latter male gripped a shiny knife.
Her eyes darted from the blade—glistening red—to the dark-skinned man who held the weapon. Slapping at her right hip and coming up with nothing but her shorts, she glimpsed the table just inside the door, the table that housed her engraved Colt 1911. Son-of-a—
The man with the blade sidestepped the still form at his feet and headed toward her.
Faith ran into her bedroom, slammed the door, and turned the flimsy lock. She put her back to the door and bobbed her eyebrows, That’ll buy me all of ten seconds, before scanning the room for weapons. Two men...one with a knife...both probably have guns. She saw ‘Tiger’ holding his throat, blood seeping between his fingers. Why would they kill him? They’re both—she shut her eyes and pressed fingers to her temple. You can’t worry about that now, Faith. You need to find something to defend yourself—
A thump came from the other side of the door.
The shock wave reverberating throughout her body, she flinched and inwardly screamed. She gave the room another look before grabbing a floor lamp and yanking the power cord from the outlet. Backing away from the door, she shattered the light’s glass globe against a dresser and aimed the makeshift weapon at the entry point. I’m not going out quietly.
Images of her father, her deceased mother, her sister flashed before her eyes. I love you guys. Make sure you find the S.O.B.’s that did this to me, Jessica. Make them pay for—Faith stood taller. Jess.
The door banged.
She dropped the lamp and ran to the dresser. Scattering items around the surface, she found a scrap of paper. After opening and closing drawers, she ran to her nightstand, plucked a ballpoint pen from the drawer, and scribbled on the white fragment.
Two successive bangs filled the room.
Flinching, she shot a look over her shoulder before folding the paper several times.
A loud crack followed the next blow to the hollow door.
One more solid boot and that thing’s— Faith dropped to her knees, lifted the bedframe, slipped the one-inch square under one of the four posts, and leaped to her feet, scooping up the floor lamp just as the door burst inward.
The men poured into her sanctuary; their guns pointed in her direction.
Backpedaling, thrusting the lamp at the intruders, she eyeballed their pistols. Of course...Glock 22s.
The men fanned out.
Faith gaped at them. The stranger to her left, the one who had held the blade from earlier, was tall and lean. The man on her two o’clock, creeping up to her bedside, Blade’s linebacker-of-a-partner stared at her with black eyes under bushy eyebrows.
Okay, why am I not dead yet? What do they want? She glanced at the mattress and saw herself there from an hour ago. They’re NOT getting that. She swung the lamp toward Linebacker’s head.
He hunched a shoulder, and the bulb shattered against his upper arm.
Blade lunged.
She whipped the lamp around, and the bulb’s jagged glass and sharp metal base opened a two-inch gash under Blade’s left eye.
Howling, he grabbed his cheek and pivoted toward the dresser.
Faith reversed course with her brass ‘sword.’
Linebacker parried the strike with his right forearm, clenched the lamp’s stem with his free hand, and pulled while sweeping her foot with his.
Faith tumbled and rolled. Landing on her backside, she drew knees to her chest and drove out her legs.
Linebacker redirected the attack upward, spread her feet apart, and fell on top of her, his stomach slapping onto hers, his groin smacking against hers.
The air left her lungs, and she rolled her head to the side, her mouth opening and closing while gasping for oxygen.
Linebacker forced her arms above her shoulders and pinned her wrists to the floor.
Blade ransacked a dresser drawer, retrieved a t-shirt, and held the garment to his injured face as he made his way to the subdued woman.
Not having taken her first full breath yet, Faith looked up at the man, pressure building behind her forehead.
He holstered the Glock, flicked open his knife, sat on his haunches, and touched the blade’s tip to her throat.
She sucked in a scant amount of air and swallowed, feeling the cutting tool’s sharp edge pierce the skin under her jawline.
Blade smirked at the growing line of blood on her neck before meeting her gaze. “Be a good girl, Miss Mahoney. And make this easier on all of us.”
∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞
.
Chapter 2
Bad News
9 MAY—1:01 P.M.
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
Halfway through spring, Mother Nature had been displaying signs of new life. And today, her partly sunny skies and temperatures in the upper sixties had helped lessen the somber atmosphere at the cemetery, at the outdoor service for a late deputy marshal.
With prayers having been said, respects paid, and last words shared, all the well-dressed funeral goers, except for two of them, were making their way to vehicles. Standing at the base of a shallow hill, those two persons had spent the last ten minutes expressing condolences, reliving the recent past, and discussing the future, discussing business.
“Well, I should get going.” Dressed in a black suit, black tie, and a white dress shirt, the thirty-six-year-old, five-eleven, one-seventy Noah Randall ran a palm down his clean-shaven face before lightly scratching the scalp beneath his short dark hair. “Since my new job will have me living here in Alexandria,” the former DEA agent dug out black sunglasses from a coat pocket and slipped on the eyewear, “I need to start looking at some apartments.”
“Let me
