Free Countdown to Zero Hour by Nico Rosso Page A

girlfriends a few times and rented pistols, but was far from expert.
    “So keep your eyes open and your head down.”
    She glanced again at where his gun was holstered. “Was that in case I didn’t want to get in the car this morning?”
    He shook his head and moved until he was completely backlit by the window. His expression disappeared into shadow. “I’ll never aim this gun at you. If I start shooting, you run in the opposite direction. Run until I tell you it’s safe.”
    His voice was heavy with experience. The violence was in him, around him. But would he really protect her?
    “You keep telling me how dangerous it is, but it was you who brought me here.” She squinted, but his face was dark in front of the bright window.
    “Did you have a choice?” He led her with the question.
    “You know I didn’t.”
    “Neither did I.” His body was very still. The words barely reached her ears and wouldn’t have made it out to the rest of the house.
    The confession was for her alone.
    Her combat had always been in the kitchen, battling past egos and expectations. She’d always had to protect herself. She didn’t have a gun like everyone else in this house, but she had the tools of her trade.
    Moving so the island was between her and Art, she unbuckled her knife roll and laid it out.
    Art stepped forward as if the steel of her blades were magnetized. The shadows slipped from his face, and his gaze moved over the knife edges and points.
    The metal of an eight-inch chef’s knife hummed when she pulled it from the roll. She knew it was sharp and had taken care of all the knives before she left, but tested the edge along the top of her thumbnail anyway. It shaved a tiny curl that drifted down like snow.
    Art’s easy smile returned. But when he stepped around the island and approached her the smile faded. It seemed like all the light of the world dimmed with the darkness he brought. She replaced the knife in the roll. Art was more dangerous than the razor-honed edge.
    “Keep them sharp,” he said, gaze level on hers. A glimmer of light returned to his eyes. “Stay safe.”
    He rapped his knuckles on the island and walked away, that rhythm of his body taking over again. Instead of going through the service hall, he walked past a long eat-in counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house and disappeared around one of the strange corners of the living room.
    The gravity of Art’s warning spun the kitchen around her. There was no safety.
    She’d been taken to a job she was forced to accept, countless hours away from her home and friends. And the one man who was her lifeline was just as gun-steel dark as the rest of this hazardous situation. She couldn’t trust him.
    But she knew she needed him.

Chapter Five
    It wasn’t easy leaving Hayley alone, but he had work to do. And she wouldn’t have been able to set up her kitchen with him hovering, mapping the quickest egress from the room and wondering if the heavy countertops would stop a standard NATO round.
    He couldn’t tell if whoever had designed the house had intentionally included blind corners and wide spaces with no cover, or if the architect had been just plain bad at his job. The designer must’ve had an Orel Group mob boss breathing down his neck the whole time. Or the architect could’ve been a woman. But Art couldn’t imagine a woman putting up with the strange requests and bullshit needs of the bosses. The only reason Hayley was doing it was because she had to.
    It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the day when he stepped outside the house and back to the SUV. Opening the passenger door and rooting through the lockbox gave him an opportunity to steal glances at the house’s exterior and get a better sense of the layout.
    Not only were there guards on the two prominent doors he could see, but there were also armed men wearing a slow path beneath the windows. Walkie-talkies linked them all together. Submachine guns, assault rifles.