Dangerous Passion by Lisa Marie Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

hands. Leather Coat would surely shoot to kill just like he said he would if he caught back up with her.
    They went down like felled trees: one-two-three-four. She still hadn’t registered what she’d seen when the man straightened, and—completely non-winded, completely in control—pulled out something sleek and black from his pocket and spoke into it quietly in a language she didn’t understand, then flipped it closed.
    Leather Coat lay on the ground in a fetal position, his desperate gasps for breath echoing off the walls of the alley. The man who had attacked Dark Hair was on his side, eyes rolled up in his head. The man in the fleece track suit lay still, unconscious, his arm bent at an unnatural angle. The man in the bomber jacket had gleaming white bone showing through his jeans, blood pooling under him. The kick had smashed his femur. He was bleeding profusely, the rain sluicing the blood-red water under him into the drains.
    Grace stood in the rain, shocked and shivering.
    The dark-haired man looked down at the four men for a heartbeat, his face cold and remote, then bent calmly and snapped their necks with an efficient twist of his huge hands. She could hear cartilage crack, four times. Then he calmly scooped up his two guns and his knives.
    Grace bent over, ready to vomit her guts out, when a strong hand took hold of her arm. “We don’t have time for that,” the dark-haired man said. “Sorry.”
    She straightened and looked him full in the face, wincing, expecting a monster, expecting to see brutality and savagery. What she saw instead was a weary kind of gentleness and what looked an awful lot like remorse.
    “I’m so sorry.” His deep voice was low as he wrapped a huge hand around her arm. “For everything. But now we must go.”
    Though his voice was calm, he moved fast. In a moment, they were at the mouth of the alley, moving out into the street. He still had his hand around her arm. He wasn’t holding her tightly enough to hurt, but he seemed to be able to propel her forward through the rain as if she had wheels instead of feet.
    In an instant, they were out on the sidewalk and the man was checking the street carefully, the kind of survey a soldier would give to enemy terrain.
    The bell over the gallery door rang and Harold appeared in the doorway. He clutched the doorjamb for support. One eye was swollen shut and his face was blood streaked. He blinked, then saw her. Grace’s heart clenched as she saw relief flood his face. His free hand reached out to her, shaking, half in and half out of the doorway. “Grace. Oh my God, you’re alive.” Harold’s trembling voice cracked, barely audible over the rain.
    Tears flooded her eyes. Harold, her friend. She started forward and was held back by the dark-haired man’s strong hand around her arm.
    She met his eyes. “Let me go.” She wanted to shout, but her voice came out a hoarse whisper. She pulled against his hand, but it was like pulling against a steel pillar. He wasn’t letting her go.
    “Grace,” Harold quavered, hand outstretched.
    Every muscle in her body was tense and shaking, including the muscles in her throat. She had to cough to speak. “Please.” She was trembling so hard she could barely stand. “Let me go to him. He’s wounded, he needs help.”
    The rain was pelting down hard now, moving in sheets down the street. She was soaked and chilled to the bone. She was scared and she wanted to get to Harold right now. If she was scared and hurting, he would be doubly so.
    The man had maneuvered himself so that he was between her and the street. His shoulders were so broad she couldn’t see around him, he blocked off her entire visual horizon. He scrutinized the surrounding buildings again.
    The rain was making the blood on Harold’s face run, his white shirt splashed with pale pink color, plastering his sparse gray hair against the skull. He swayed.
    “Oh God.” Grace’s heart was pounding. She put her hand over the man’s