Read Online Noble Intentions: Season Two (Episodes 6-10) by L.T. Ryan - Free Book Online Page A

there were no mirrors or reflective surfaces he could be seen in. None. Just a couple antique couches facing each other. A closed door sealed the room off from the one behind it. He inched along the angled wall and peeked over the stairs. A mirror hung on the far wall. In it he could see the man with the pistol leaning against the wall on the other side of the stairs. He didn’t see any of the others.
    Jack moved across the room and opened and slammed the door dividing the two rooms.
    The man on the other side of the stairs shouted and began to move, just like Jack expected him to. Jack aimed and fired a single shot over the stairs. The bullet hit the man in the side of the head and a cloud of sweat and blood and gray matter exploded into the air and hung there as the man collapsed to the floor.
    Jack rounded the staircase and knelt over the man’s body. He checked his neck for a pulse, although judging by the hole in the back of his head, the man was dead. Jack grabbed the dead man’s pistol and tucked it in his coat pocket.
    “Jack,” Jasmine’s voice called from the back of the house.
    He walked slowly through the dining room toward the kitchen. A door swung open and a man armed with a shotgun jumped out.
    Jack fired and hit the man in the chest. The man fell to his knees and Jack fired another round into his forehead. The man’s body flinched backward and then fell forward. Jack stepped over the body, not bothering to check for a pulse, and looked into the open doorway. Stairs led down into a dimly lit cellar. It sounded like someone else was down there. Jack placed a foot on the first step.
    “Jack,” Jasmine called out. Her voice came from the same level of the house, not below.
    He closed the cellar door and continued through the kitchen. He held his pistol in the air, close to his face. He stepped through a doorway and into a laundry area. There, he saw Jasmine. She gestured toward the back of the room. He saw a brown haired man with a young woman in front of him. He had one hand wrapped around her waist and in his other hand he held a knife. He pressed the knife against the woman’s throat.
    “Just stop right there,” the man said with a Russian accent.
    “Or what?” Jack asked.
    The woman’s eyes widened and her eyebrows lifted into her forehead. She reached one hand up and grabbed the man’s arm, but didn’t exert any force.
    “I’ll cut her,” the man said.
    Jack laughed.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “That you think I care,” Jack said.
    “I’m not kidding, I’ll slice her neck.” He pulled the knife away and then pressed it into the woman’s neck. A thin line of blood formed below the blade.
    “Then do it,” Jack said.
    The man cocked his head and his eyes narrowed. His grip on the woman’s stomach loosened and the hand holding the knife dropped a few inches.
    Jack didn’t wait for the man to regain his composure. He squeezed the trigger of the pistol in his outstretched hand. The bullet hit the man in the forehead. The knife fell to the ground and the man fell back against the washing machine. Jasmine rushed forward and wrenched the lady from his grip. The man slid down the front of the washing machine, leaving behind a smeared trail of blood.
    “You were going to let him kill me,” the woman said frantically.
    Jack shook his head. “I was never going to let him kill you.”
    “You told him to do it.”
    “Yeah, and he didn’t know what to think and loosened his grip and he dropped the knife an inch. It gave me a clear shot and I didn’t have to worry about him recoiling and cutting your neck open.”
    The woman stood there with her mouth open. Her eyes teared over as the gravity of the situation collapsed down on her. She threw her arms around Jack’s neck and pulled herself close. Soft sobs escaped her parted lips.
    Jack stood rigid at first, his arms out to the side. Finally, he stroked her hair and patted her back.
    “Hey, calm down. You’re OK. This can’t be the