Aegis Security 03 - Extreme Measures by Elisabeth Naughton Read Free Book Online Page B

side and hauling herself up toward the arm of the crane without looking to see if he followed. Sweat poured down his forehead and dripped along his spine. The metal dug into his hands. His muscles screamed from the effort, and pain spiraled all through his bad leg. When they reached the slewing unit—the gear and motor just beneath the crane’s arm—Zane grasped Eve’s hand and pulled her next to him.
    The goons below had stopped firing and were now pointing in their direction and hollering in a language Zane couldn’t make out. He glanced down just as three men took off from the group and ran around the far side of the building, likely toward the fire escape on the other side. One man headed for the operator’s cab at the bottom of the tower.
    “We’re about to have company,” he said to Eve. “Come on. All the way up out onto the arm.”
    Eve let him help her up onto the arm, then waited as he pulled himself up next to her. Once on top, she leaned forward to suck back air and gripped the railing to her right. “Smooth move, smart guy. We’re sitting ducks up here.”
    Yeah, no shit. The arm didn’t even come close to the construction site, as if the operator had swung it away from the building at quitting time so no one could mess with the thing. Options rushed through Zane’s mind, but the only plausible one solidified when he heard voices on the roof of the warehouse behind him. He grabbed Eve’s hand and pulled her with him. “Come on! Toward the water!”
    “What the fuck? Archer!”
    Automatic gunfire ignited in the air. Eve gripped his hand and ran. A whirring sound echoed, followed by a jolt as the arm of the crane began to swivel.
    Holy God, they’d turned the damn crane on. Zane grasped the railing with his bloody hand and pulled harder on Eve’s arm with the other. “Fucking run!”
    She was right. This was easily the dumbest thing he’d done to date. When was he going to start using his fucking brain like Ryder had told him to do?
    Eve pulled back on his hand as they neared the end of the jib, her face awash with horror. The entire arm slowly rotated away from the water. They had seconds before they’d be out over dry land instead of the Sound. Zane gripped Eve’s wrist tightly. “Jump!”
    “Goddammit, Archer. I really hate you!”
    Her last word echoed up as they pushed off, the sparkling water of Puget Sound hovering below. The jib bounced under their feet. As cool air rushed over Zane’s skin and bullets pinged off metal at their backs, he said one quick prayer that the water was deep enough off these docks so they didn’t kill themselves when they hit.
    But before he heard the splash, a burn like the heat of a thousand suns lit up his left arm. Then he was sucked down in a black, wet, ice-cold abyss. Where he heard nothing at all.

     
    Eve came up gasping.
    The frigid water cut like a knife, and she was sure her heart had taken up permanent residence in her throat. The scents of fish and algae filled her nostrils, nearly making her gag. She treaded water and breathed deep as she turned a slow circle to catch her bearings. As she tried to clear the cobwebs from her head still lingering from the drugs Archer had given her.
    Holy shit, she’d made it. No way she should have survived that drop. Voices echoing from above reminded her she needed to get out of sight. She swam toward the dock, grasped the slimy wood of a post, and looked back for Archer.
    The low light of dusk made it hard to see off the water. She should leave his ass. After what he’d done to her, she didn’t owe him a damn thing except a swift kick in the balls. And yet, something held her back. Where the hell was he? He should be up by now. Why wasn’t he breaking the surface, yelling at her to move her ass?
    Panic closed in. She looked up at the crane’s arm, stopped now, no longer rotating away from the water. The men who’d chased them up onto the roof hadn’t ventured out on the steel themselves, and they