Page 75 of Broken Promise
I swung my gaze to Jakob. But he looked just as foreboding as he always did. And this time he was standing directly in my exit path. I flinched away from Hans when he tucked his fingers under my chin to make me meet his gaze.
“Larissa.Where is the diamond?”
“I told you, I don’t have it. Rafe doesn’t have it.”
Hans laughed. “Rafe,is it? Since you are unwilling to give us what we want, it looks like Jakob and I will have to pay him a visit. And we’re going to make it very, very painful. But in the meantime, you don’t mind if I go ahead and search your pockets, do you? Because I don’t believe you.” The last word came out with spittle as he spat in my face.
A shudder racked my body. I turned myself away from my brother as much as possible. But he didn’t seem to care. His hands were all over me, patting me down, sliding into my pockets. When he slid into my back pocket, he pulled out the flash drive.
“What is this?”
Oh shit. “It’s not anything.” I prayed he believed me and wouldn’t look on that drive.
“What is this? Did you steal this from him?”
“It’s not anything. Give it back.”
Hans glared at me. But when he spoke, he was talking to our brother. “Jakob, you have the laptop?”
“Yes.”
“Here.” He tossed the flash drive over his shoulder, and I watched in terror as Jakob snatched it out of the air, then pulled a small laptop out of the inside of his jacket.
They were going to kill me when they saw what was on it. I had to keep them from looking at it. “I told you, there’s nothing there.” All I wanted was to go back to my old life. Where I didn’t know anything about assassins or my father.
This was the kind of man my father had been. Someone who intimidated and terrified. Someone who killed, who stole. My brothers were made in his image. The man I’d gone to avenge was just like them.
“There’s nothing on it,” Jakob said.
Hans stared at me. “Larissa, what was on the drive?”
What the hell? Had Rafe replaced it? How could that drive be empty? I’d seen what was on there for myself. People would kill me just for knowing about that drive. “I told you. Nothing.”
“Very cute, little sister. When you got the drive, was there something on it?”
I didn’t know what possessed me to say it. Maybe I wanted the satisfaction of knowing that he knew he couldn’t have what he wanted. Not from me. “You’ll never know.”
And then it happened. The moment I knew I was going to die. It was sudden. One second Hans was staring at me with cold fury, the next his eyes had gone dead and flat. His hand shot out and wrapped around my neck, squeezing so damn tight I couldn’t breathe. The edges of my vision turned gray, getting darker and darker the tighter he squeezed.
I struggled helplessly, tugging at the arm around my throat. Then he slammed me against the wall, and my skull felt like it was cracking. He added his other hand and squeezed.
Dizzy.So dizzy.
I tried to do a simple pluck with my hands, but I had no leverage; I couldn’t even budge my brother’s hands. They were so big and beefy they overlapped each other around my neck. My self-defense training didn’t help much when I couldn’t breathe.
Arm straight up, drop the opposite shoulder. God, I was tired. I struggled to remember what I’d learned about breaking a choke hold.Twist the body. Drop the—
Bang.The crash of the door splintering and exploding open had everyone jumping. Suddenly Hans was loosening his hand, but it was too late. My vision clouded.
And then all I saw was black.
* * *
Rafe
I made a quick assessment as I barged in. My heat-sensing devices had told me there was a guy on the door, so I’d taken care of him first. A quick blow to the back of the head had him crumpling into a heap just inside the door. When I saw that asshole with his mitts around Diana’s neck, I let out the rage I mostly tried to keep concealed.
With nothing more than sheer brute force, I dragged the guy off her, shielding Diana with my body.
