Free Thresh: Alpha One Security: Book 2 by Jasinda Wilder

stay tight on my ass. We’re live, baby.”  
    Adrenaline was pumping, shooting through me, pulsing in my veins. Lola stood to the left of the door, leaned over, twisted the knob and, on my nod, jerked it open, staying out of the opening. As soon as she had the door open, I was through, pistol aimed through the frame; the hallway was empty, but I heard a voice echoing in the stairwell, speaking in low tones in the same Eastern European language the guy in the car had used.  
    I motioned for Lola to stay where she was, replaced my gun in its holster, drew my knife—no sense making more noise than I had to, or using rounds that might come in useful later.  
    The hallway was clear to the elevator, so I motioned for Lola to join me at the doorway to the stairwell. I had her open the stairwell door for me, listened, heard nothing.  
    We descended, Lola close behind me, down to the first floor.  
    Something warned me. That unease.  
    I held the KA-BAR so the cutting edge was facing up, easing forward on silent feet to stand beside the stairwell exit. I waited, tensed, barely breathing. I blocked out Lola, blocked out my own nerves; if you’re not a little nervous, a little scared going into a fight, then you’re either crazy or a liar, and I’m neither.  
    I watched as the doorknob to the stairwell door twisted, and then the door swung inward, and a body appeared in the doorway.
    He saw me, I saw him…
    I struck first, and I struck hardest. There’s a spot, on the left side of the body, midway up the torso. Angle the blade to slide in under the ribcage….  
    He hit the ground like a sack of meat, blinking, gasping, dying.  
    I wiped the blade on his clothes, hauled him fully into the stairwell out of view of the thankfully-empty lobby, and then straightened.  
    Lola had seen the whole thing. When someone with the kind of dark, exotic skin that Lola had went pale as a ghost…ugh, not good. Not good at all.
    I sheathed the knife, kept my hands visible, and approached her slowly. “Lola. He had a gun, okay? These guys aren’t playing around.”  
    She backed away from me. “You—you just…” She jabbed her fist upward in a parody of the move I just used. “It was…like… easy . So fast. You just—killed him. He never even had a chance.”  
    “That’s the point, babe.” I got a little closer, keeping my voice low and smooth and soothing. “No point in giving him an opportunity to hurt me, or you. My job is to keep you alive, and out of the hands of the bad guys. I’m not gonna fuck around.”  
    She just blinked at me. “You’ve done that before. Lots of times.”
    I sighed. “Yes, Lola. I’m not gonna lie about it. It’s part of my job.”  
    “That’s why you told me I don’t need to be afraid of you.”  
    I nodded, and she let me get within touching distance. I put my hand on her arm, then slid it up to cup her neck, which seemed to calm her nerves for some reason. “I can do bad things, but only to people who deserve it, okay? You really don’t want to know what could happen to you if these guys get hold of you. Now…we gotta move. I know there are at least two more out there, and I got no time to deal with the cops once the body gets reported.”
    She started shaking when she passed the corpse on the floor, with the pool of blood spreading beneath him.  
    “Don’t look, Lola,” I said, drawing my Sig. “You don’t need to see that.”  
    She shook her head, and looked away, and then we were trotting down the stairs. “I’m a doctor, Thresh. I did my rounds in the ER, and I work in the ICU. I’ve lost patients before. I’ve seen dead people before.”  
    I beckoned for her to follow me across the lobby. “Yeah, I get that. But it’s different when you watched the person get killed in front of you. Even fixing gunshot wounds like you did for me is different than fixing gunshot wounds you watched occur. Dealing with the aftereffects of violence is not quite the same