Dream of Danger (A Brown and De Luca Novella)

  Gotta do what must be done, burn my hand on the red-hot gun.

  God, I’m scared.

  He had to do it. Mason would be here soon. It had to be done before Mason got here to stop him.

  Is there really a hell? God, what if there is?

  He took a deep breath. Then another.

  It’s gonna hurt. I know it’s gonna hurt.

  He heard footsteps outside. Hell, Mason was already here.

  Just do it. It’ll only hurt for a second. Just do it already. For Jeremy.

  “Yes, for Jeremy.”

  The rat was scratching frantically now. Its claws had broken through. It was ripping away the plaster. If it got out, it wouldn’t let him go through with it. He knew that.

  Do it do it do it!

  Mason’s heavy steps came to a stop just outside the door. Then the door opened and his brother’s eyes found him sitting there. They went wide with horror as Mason lurched forward, reaching out with both hands, yelling, “No, no, no!”

  Eric squeezed the trigger, felt his brain explode in one all-consuming white-hot mixture of deafening noise and blinding pain. And then as blackness descended, he felt the rat squeeze through the hole in the wall and plop onto the floor. Or was that a handful of his brain?

  He never did feel the hot barrel burning his hand.

  Copyright © 2013 by Margaret Benson

  ISBN-13: 9781459251892

  DREAM OF DANGER

  Copyright © 2013 by Margaret Benson

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven iR/a>

  Chapter Eight