Contents (94)
- Villain
- Caro Savage
- Contents
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- Acknowledgments
- More from Caro Savage
- About the Author
- About Boldwood Books
Ude garami – bent arm lock.
She snaked her right arm under his knife arm and grasped her left wrist, trapping his arm in a figure-of-four entanglement. She took a step forward past him and exerted a sharp downward pressure, twisting his elbow and shoulder in a painfully unnatural direction.
He gasped in agony as he bent over backwards. She held him immobile in the armlock, and for a moment they both stood there wrapped in a frozen snapshot of combat. Archie blinked up at her from his excruciating position, his pale eyes wide with astonishment, stunned by the speed and dexterity of her reaction.
Then she saw him draw breath as if to scream. And she couldn’t afford to let that happen. She paused for the fraction of a second that it took her to make that lethal decision.
Nukite uchi – spear-hand strike.
Disengaging her right hand from her left wrist, she compressed her extended fingers into a point and drove them hard into his Adam’s apple.
The blow crushed his larynx, stopping the scream in his throat before it had a chance to escape. His eyes bulged as he choked, the knife clattering uselessly to the floor beside him.
She released him and he fell to the ground clutching his neck, making grotesque gargling noises as he suffocated to death.
She stood there watching him writhing his last movements at her feet.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, looking into his pale bulging eyes. ‘I hope you understand. This is just business.’
71
The plastic sheeting crinkled beneath her stockinged feet as Bailey walked to the door of the storeroom.
Bitterness at Dale surged up once more in a painful reflux of emotion. How could she have been so stupid as to trust him? How could she have fallen for such an absolute piece of shit? How could she have been so blind? The stinging thoughts only strengthened her resolve to try and stop him. Please let it not be too late to do so…
Standing by the edge of the door, she opened it a crack and looked out. A brightly lit corridor lay beyond. Just across and to her right was the door to another room. Through the glass panel in the door, she could make out at least two men in chef’s hats and clouds of steam rising up amidst hanging pots and implements. It looked like the kitchen. A few seconds later, the kitchen door swung open and a waiter emerged carrying a tray of food. She quickly eased back into the storeroom, pushing the door almost closed, watching through the thin crack as he passed. The tray was laden with appetisers and they looked and smelt delicious. Bailey realised that the stress of the situation had made her ravenous. But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about food.
The waiter walked to the end of the corridor and passed through a set of double doors. The warm light of the restaurant was visible for a moment through the doors, then it was gone as they swung closed again.