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  The two bigger men walked ahead of them, each with a gun pointed at his

  head. The crazy one with the lighter and the grenades bled quite profusely from a cut on the back of his head. It dripped down his neck and onto his shirt, but he paid it no mind.

  Marissa spared a brief thought to worry about the other passengers and her

  fellow employees as the four of them were led through the eerily silent train. These men weren’t worrying about being discreet, and that probably meant there were no

  witnesses around. Wouldn’t they have heard gunshots if people had been killed?

  What did silencers sound like, anyway? Did men like this even need guns to kill?

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  She kept thinking that this was all a very bad dream and she was going to

  wake up any second. She squeezed her eyes closed as the man behind her shoved at

  her to quicken her pace, and she bit her lip to try to keep from crying. Crying would probably just piss them off. She would wake up any second, anyway. Any second,

  now.

  They were taken back to the club car, which was inexplicably empty, even

  though it was almost dinnertime, and Marissa and the three men were forced to their knees in front of the wall next to the little serving bar.

  “Keep your fucking hands there unless you want them shot off,” one of the

  men growled at her. She swallowed convulsively to keep from bursting into tears as he walked away. She tightened her fingers around the back of her neck and closed her eyes.

  “Whose boys are these?” the one the others called Carl whispered out of the

  side of his mouth.

  “I think it’s safe to say these are not the ones we wanted to run into,” the

  crazy one answered.

  “Fuck.”

  Marissa sniffed and watched as the four other men were brought in. She’d

  hoped they’d been able to fight off their attackers and would come rescue them,

  which was silly, really, hoping that your kidnappers would rescue you from a second set of kidnappers. The two Marissa knew as Remy and Shawn didn’t even appear to

  have put up a fight. The other two were in pretty bad shape, though. At least they’d fought back.

  She had been afraid when these seven men had taken her hostage, but now

  she knew that the new players were far more dangerous than the original ones. She tried to count them, but they kept moving around as they forced the others to their knees. She thought there were ten of them. Well, nine and a half, really, if she

  counted the guy with the broken arm. Of course, if she was subtracting for injured body parts, then it was more like three against five instead of seven against ten. Or was it eight against ten? Did she count as a player on either side? She knew damn well that if a fight broke out, she would be hiding behind something solid, so she didn’t think she counted.

  There was a shorter man who was dressed all in black. He stood in front of

  them as soon as they had all been assembled, and in another world Marissa would

  have thought him to be quite cute. When he spoke, it was with a heavy Scottish

  accent, and Marissa could barely understand what he was saying.

  “We trusted you, Thiago,” he said to the man Carl had hit with the

  phonebook.

  Thiago, who was on his knees in the middle of the car and bleeding from his

  lower lip, squinted up at the smaller man out of a rapidly bruising eye and grinned

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  crookedly. “Likewise, boludo,” he said angrily.

  Shawn, who was furthest away from Marissa, turned to Remy and hissed at

  him, and Remy turned his head slightly and shrugged in a manner that was sure to

  infuriate the older man. Sure enough, Shawn began growling angrily, and the Scottish man looked up from his study of Thiago to glare at them.

  “Is there a problem, gentlemen?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” Remy said with a huge smile. “Everything’s just right with my

  world, how about you?”

  “Oh no, Dixie,” the crazy one groaned under his breath. “Now is definitely

  not the time to be a smartass.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do, Shawn?” Remy yelled in response to

  something Marissa hadn’t heard. “They’re the wrong fucking people, how was I

  supposed to know?”

  “I don’t know, but you should have!” Shawn yelled back, earning them both

  a whack to the head with the butt of a gun and a shouted order for silence.

  Marissa’s eyes burned as she struggled not to cry or make a sound. Perhaps

  if she simply faded into the background, they would forget about her and leave her alone.

  “Fletcher,” Thiago said in a low voice. The man with the accent looked

  down at him. “Let them go, Fletch. None of them have anything to do with this.”

  “You always were a complete shit,” Fletcher said with an amused smile.

  “And even now, you’re lying to me. I found out about your little deal with Thierry.

  And Gray had to have known what you were up to, so he’s just as guilty as you are.”

  Marissa saw Thiago blanch. The other man, who she assumed was Gray,

  looked at Thiago as if he could simply melt him on the spot.

  “The rest of them,” Fletcher continued, “I couldn’t care less about, but

  they’re not leaving. The boys missed you twice already, but I’m not letting this go any farther. I hope you’re all ready to die, gentlemen.”

  “This is all just one huge fuck up, Barclay,” Thiago continued in a hoarse

  voice. “Let me explain before you–”

  “No more talk,” one of the other men interrupted angrily. “You’ve led us

  through Hell and back, telling us we were going home without any more bloodshed,

  and all so that evil bastard could take over!”

  “No! No, I was trying to save lives!” Thiago insisted. “Sometimes you have

  to dance with the Devil in order to rectify your sins.”

  Fletcher rolled his eyes and pulled his weapon, pressing the barrel to Gray’s

  temple and looking at Thiago expectantly. Gray closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

  Thiago’s mouth hung open as he looked up at Fletcher for several long seconds.

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  Finally, he clamped his teeth shut with an audible click and shook his head.

  “Go ahead, Fletcher,” he said casually, almost challengingly. “I don’t have

  any information for you. Not like I give a damn what happens to him now, anyway.”

  Fletcher raised an eyebrow and Marissa heard two of the men next to her

  inhale sharply. Remy and Shawn even stopped their muttered bickering and looked on tensely.

  “Is that so?” Fletcher asked with interest. “Perhaps it will just be an

  execution for his treachery, then.” He cocked the gun and Marissa squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see what would come next.

  “We’ve got company,” one of the men said in a low voice, and Marissa’s

  eyes popped back open as she watched Fletcher lower his gun and walk away from

  Gray and toward the window.

  “Son of a bitch,” Fletcher hissed angrily. “How did they find us so quickly?”

  “Hey, Wally,” Carl hissed, and Marissa looked at him in time to see him nod

  his head toward Remy and Shawn. The man he had called Wally grinned suddenly,

  and chills ran up and down Marissa’s spine.

  “If there’s going to be trouble, at least let the girl go,” Remy called as several guns trained on him.

  “I fucking knew it!” Shawn yelled angrily as he
let his hands drop away

  from the back of his head and he turned to glare at Remy.

  “Get your hands back up, you bastard!” one of the men yelled as he pointed

  his gun at Shawn.

  “You little shit!” Shawn snarled angrily.

  “Fletch!” another one of the men shouted as Shawn growled at Remy, who

  was looking at him in shock.

  “You fucked her, didn’t you?” Shawn continued, and Remy’s hands

  dropped, too. Shawn stood angrily, seemingly uncaring of the four weapons now

  trained on him. “You just can’t keep your fucking hands to yourself, can you? Not for one fucking hour!”

  Remy stood as well and actually gave Shawn a little shove. “You’re such a

  jealous old biddy, you know that?” he shouted. “Christ, you complain more than the fucking girl does, and God forbid you let anyone else top for once! At least she

  opened her legs for me! Of course I fucked her!”

  Marissa shook her head in denial of ever having been touched by any of

  them, but no one was paying her any attention. Their captors didn’t seem to know

  what to make of this new development, and they simply stood with their guns at the ready as Shawn and Remy faced off.

  “You fucking whore,” Shawn growled, and before anyone could move, his

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  fist had connected with Remy’s chin and sent the younger man staggering backward.

  Shawn followed the attack by pouncing on him, and far from trying to throttle the younger man like he appeared to want to do, Shawn reached in between Remy’s legs

  as they all looked on in shock.

  Even more startling was when he pulled back with a huge knife in his hand

  and threw it, underhanded, at the closest man with a gun. That started it, and Marissa edged closer to the wall and curled into a protective ball as a complete melee broke out around her.

  Carl reached up onto the bar and grabbed the coffee maker that sat there as

  Nikolaus and Wally both jumped to their feet and attacked two of the gun-wielding goons. Shawn followed through with his toss and retrieved the knife, and Remy

  jumped the man closest to him.

  Carl threw the coffee pot at the man coming at him, sending scalding hot

  water and broken glass everywhere. Marissa couldn’t keep her eyes off Remy,

  though, as he sent the man he was fighting with to his knees and then straddled his back. He wrapped one arm under the man’s neck and pressed the other hand to the

  side of his face as an odd glaze filled his black eyes, and there was a sensual sort of pleasure in his expression when he exerted a slow, steady pressure and snapped the struggling man’s neck.

  Marissa’s mouth fell open as she watched, and she wondered what the hell

  was wrong with her that the act had seemed to her so sexual in its nature.

  A fire blazed merrily on the other side of the train car, and Marissa realized

  that it was a man on fire. The crazy guy with the lighter, who they called Wally, was apparently a pyromaniac. He hadn’t been kidding about the grenades. She’d thought it was a metaphor he’d used to indicate that he was going to rape her, but there he stood, grenade in hand as he watched Carl choke the life out of a man with the power cord he’d ripped from the cash register.

  Thiago and Gray both fought steadily with two men who just wouldn’t give

  up, and Marissa nearly screamed when Nikolaus came up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Get the hell down, girl, get behind that counter,” he hissed.

  She nodded and turned to crawl to safety, but as she did so her eye caught

  movement behind Nikolaus’s head and she screamed and pointed. He ducked as the

  chair came crashing down, and instead of hitting him in the head it glanced off his shoulder and sent him to his knees.

  “Niko!” Gray yelled as he saw the man go down, but he was soon swamped

  by two men and couldn’t get free to come to the German’s rescue.

  Marissa cowered. The man who had hit Nikolaus pulled a gun and pointed it

  at his head as Nikolaus struggled to his hands and knees.

  Marissa’s stomach lurched and she reached for the closest thing she could

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  find, which happened to be the phonebook Carl dropped on the floor when he hit

  Thiago earlier. She stood suddenly, surprising the man standing there as he pulled back the hammer on the gun, and she threw the phonebook with all her might at the man’s hands.

  It hit him and knocked the weapon from his hands, and Nikolaus was able to

  stand and hit the man once, twice, a third time and send him to the floor, bloody and unmoving. He then turned and grabbed her, pushing her down and behind the counter as shots rang out. Nikolaus covered her body protectively with his own and she tried her best to burrow into him and disappear.

  “Everybody freeze,” a new voice said authoritatively.

  “Oh, thank God,” Marissa breathed. “It’s the police,” she said as relief

  washed over her.

  Nikolaus moved to stand, and he pulled her up with him to survey the

  damage done. But it wasn’t the police. It was simply three more black-clad, menacing goons with evil-looking weapons. The man at the head of the goon brigade grinned at them all.

  “I’ve always wanted to say that,” he said in a completely different accent

  from the one he had just used. “Thiago, my boy, you look to be having a bit of

  trouble.”

  “Don’t ‘my boy’ me, you rat bastard,” Thiago growled as he stepped over a

  lifeless body and walked up to the new man. “You’re fucking late, Mikhail,” he said as he snatched the gun from the Mikhail’s hand and turned calmly and shot the man he’d battled with. Marissa jumped and grabbed onto Nikolaus, and he held her and

  shushed her automatically.

  The only man left standing of the original ten attackers was the man they

  called Fletcher Barclay. He didn’t look quite as smug as he did before, but he

  certainly didn’t look as terrified as Marissa thought he should.

  Thiago looked at the rest of them blankly for several long seconds. Carl and

  Wally stood side by side, looking like they’d enjoyed themselves entirely too much.

  Gray calmly put out the fire, and Remy helped Shawn to his feet. The three new men all looked infinitely more professional than anyone else there.

  “You got Thierry’s message, I assume?” Thiago finally asked.

  “Yes. I’m to escort all of you home,” Mikhail replied with disgust.

  Apparently, escorting anyone anywhere was quite beneath him.

  “Fuck that,” Wally growled as he fingered his lighter dangerously. Carl

  placed a calming hand in his arm.

  “What about Fletcher?” Thiago asked as he glanced at the smaller man.

  “Do whatever you want to with him. I’m not a fucking babysitter.”

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  Thiago looked at Fletcher and nodded his head at the door to the dining car.

  Fletcher narrowed his eyes suspiciously, and then sidestepped out of the room without another word.

  “You’re just letting him go?” Mikhail asked in disbelief.

  “You said I could do whatever I wanted,” Thiago said with a shrug. “We’ve

  got to have a patsy for this mess, anyway.”

  “Fine. Whatever,” Mikhail said as he waved his gun around carelessly.

  “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “You and what fucking army, mate?” Carl asked with a little sneer.

  “Oh. This one,” Mikhail said as he gestured to Thiago and Shawn. “Bennett, br />
  you look a little worse for the wear, though,” Mikhail observed with a small smirk.

  Shawn stepped forward, wiping the huge, bloody knife on the leg of his

  pants, and he nodded a little. “Aye. But I’m afraid you won’t be taking all of us with you, comrade,” he said assuredly.

  Several bodies tensed, including Marissa’s, but Shawn turned his back to

  Mikhail and looked at Remy apologetically. Remy frowned at him questioningly, and Shawn took a step closer to him as if to embrace him. He put a hand behind the

  younger man’s neck and pulled him to him, kissing him passionately and seeming to forget the room full of guns and blood and death.

  When he pulled away, Remy opened his eyes slowly and Shawn whispered,

  “I have to do this, lad. I just don’t fucking trust you.”

  “What–”

  Marissa screamed when the knife plunged into Remy’s stomach, but she

  couldn’t tear her eyes away from the scene. Remy’s brown eyes widened in shock,

  and his hand gripped Shawn’s arm for support as his other hand fisted the back of Shawn’s shirt. Nikolaus and Wally shouted wordlessly, and Carl and Thiago watched on in silent, unmoving horror.

  “I’m sorry, lad,” Shawn said brokenly as Remy opened his mouth trying to

  speak. Shawn kissed him again chastely as he pulled the knife out of his body. A

  single tear ran down the side of Remy’s face as Shawn broke the kiss, and he gripped Shawn’s arm harder as Shawn plunged the knife in again.

  Remy started coughing up blood, and his knees were no longer holding him

  upright.

  Shawn held him almost tenderly as he gently lowered the mortally wounded

  man to the ground. He held him down as Remy struggled for breath, murmuring to

  him soothingly and crying silently. He ran his hand over Remy’s damp forehead

  almost lovingly as Remy’s head fell limply to the side, and he let his hand drift over the young Cajun’s eyes, closing them for the last time.

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  Gray moved then, as did Wally, who grabbed Shawn by the collar of his shirt

  and lifted him off the ground. He practically threw him across the car with a roar and then dropped down beside the unmoving body of their companion with a desperate