Hearts Under Siege Read Online Free PDF Page B

assess if she had a weapon. He went for a leg sweep but she leapt into the air and rode him to the floor, trying to pin his wrists with her knees. Her indrawn breath poked at his brain, but instead of analyzing it he rolled, using his superior weight to reverse the pin. She bent her leg and narrowly missed the jewels, her knee digging into his groin. He grunted and closed his eyes in reflex, and, oddly, she froze. He opened his eyes, his gaze landed on her face, and—
    “Molly?”
    Shocked beyond belief, he jerked back and onto his feet. He’d have reached down to help her, but she stood first.
    “What the fuck are you doing here?” He couldn’t even engage his brain enough to consider possible reasons.
    “I came to find you.”
    Still not processing. Barely reacting. Someone could come through that door behind him and take him out right now, and he wouldn’t even have the capacity to know it was happening. “Why?”
    Instead of answering, Molly walked past him, opened the door to check the hallway, then reclosed and locked it with the state-of-the-art deadbolt installed by SIEGE rather than the flimsy one he’d jimmied so quickly. How did she know how to do that?
    The answer to that was obvious, but made absolutely no sense. She was a musician , for cripes sake. Or music teacher. Or whatever. Something that created a total disconnect with her presence in this country. And the skills she’d displayed a moment ago.
    “Brady, sit down.”
    He didn’t move. “You took me down.”
    She sighed, and it wasn’t Molly. Not the Molly he knew. There was no exasperation or affection in the sound. Only…sorrow? He refocused on her rather than on her presence, and fear, an unfamiliar emotion, shot through him. Her normally brilliant blue eyes were flat, her always milky skin so pale the shadows under her eyes looked like someone had punched her. Her mouth dragged down at the corners, deep lines etched on the sides.
    Something was very wrong.
    “What is it?” He stepped forward to close his hands over her shoulders, and when she seemed to droop under them, he tugged her into a hug. “Molly, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong? Why are you here?” His brain ground back into gear, enough so he couldn’t stop to let her answer. “You’ve been following me all day. How the hell did you stick to me like that? Why didn’t you just approach me? Why didn’t you call me?” But the last one, at least, he could answer himself. “Okay, right. I’m not in contact. They’d have needed to set up a bridge. But that doesn’t explain…anything.” He let her go. “I’ll shut up now. You talk.”
    Her movements stiff and weary, the opposite of her grace and speed when she’d first hit the room, she eased down onto the end of the bed, one of only two pieces of furniture in the one-room apartment. “I’ve been trying to catch up to you all day. I didn’t want to take you by surprise, you might have killed me.”
    That was true, but how would she know that? He held his tongue, waiting for answers to what he’d already asked, rather than pile on more questions.
    “You could have shown yourself. I’d have recognized you instantly.”
    Her mouth managed to flick upward on one side. “I don’t exactly blend in. I didn’t want to be a target.” She sighed and drooped even more. “And to be fully honest, the longer it took me to get to you, the more I wanted to put it off.”
    Brady frowned. “Why were you trying to get to me in the first place?”
    You know why . He stubbornly ignored the voice in the back of his head, the one telling him there was only one reason for her to be here.
    “Sit down.” She patted the bed next to her.
    He almost refused again, but she’d become so diminished in the few minutes since their fight, he gave in. The mattress bowed and slid them together, thigh to thigh, and an energy he’d never felt before sparked for an instant before it suffocated under inappropriateness.
    “Brady, I have