Captive Of Lies Book 2(Imprisoned in my Heart trilogy...Larry)

Chapter 22

“I didn’t mean to hit him,” Niall moaned.

Rolling his eyes at the statement that Niall had insisted at least five times already, Harry tucked the gun he hadn’t needed to use back into his pocket, barrel poking menacingly out with the safety catch already in place, and got a grip on the fallen man, sliding his hands underneath the man’s armpits and praying that the guy wasn’t ticklish and that the position wouldn’t wake him up. It took a few seconds for Harry to get him into a good position, but then he started dragging him across the yard to a shadow-cast tree, where the man would blend in well with his dark clothes and hair matching the darkness. It was ridiculously cliché to be performing a raid in the dead of night, but there was a valid reason why people did it that Harry was only just starting to appreciate: darkness was a very good place to hide things.

“If I’m honest, you hitting him actually made things a lot easier, so you don’t need to feel bad about it,” he said dryly, huffing as he tried to shift the rather heavy man off the threshold.

“But I’m not a violent person!” wailed Niall, throwing his hands up in the air and grabbing two handfuls of dyed blond hair. “I don’t want people to think I’m a thug! I’m not like that! I’ve always been the cuddly one, the one people trusted – I don’t want everyone to think I’m some kind of evil, thieving granny-basher!”

Harry couldn’t help the laugh that exploded out of him at that moment; not only was it unattractive, but it was also far too loud bearing mind that they were supposed to be being quiet, so he quickly stifled it by pressing his face against his shoulder, seeing as his hands were free, and choked it down again. “Niall, no one in their right mind would think you were a ‘granny-basher’. I’ve met teddy bears more scary than you. Besides, why would they think you were a granny-basher? This guy isn’t a granny, is he?”

Niall folded his arms sulkily. “I might have a reputation for having something against grannies. I did steal over a grand off one, remember?”

An inappropriately amused smile crept across Harry’s face. “True. Listen, no one’s going to think badly of you for whacking one guy by a complete accident; if all goes to plan, no one will even know we were here, so could you please help me shift this guy over there? Otherwise I’ll personally tell everyone that youhave a secret hatred of all women over the age of fifty and have your name put on a list of ageist offenders in the local area.”

Pulling a face, Niall stepped forwards and grabbed the man’s feet, and together they started shuffling clumsily across the courtyard, lifting the bulky sentry with difficulty. Both of them were panting as they half dragged, half carried the man towards the shelter of the large, leafy oak tree in the corner of the yard; every time one of them paused for breath, he dipped dangerously close to the ground and several times his jacket skimmed the floor when one of them lost their grip for a second.

It had been sheer luck that Niall had tripped and fallen over backwards just as the sentry had unexpectedly popped up behind him, and Harry hadn’t even had time to shout a warning before Niall stumbled over his own feet and fell, flailing clumsily, onto the man. It had been an even more unbelievable stroke of luck when one of his wildly waving arms had clobbered the man over the head and knocked him to the ground as well, where he had violently bashed his skull on the cobblestones and rendered himself unconscious, only helped when Niall continued falling, tripped over the man’s still body, and heavily landed on top of him, cracking his head against the floor again. Harry had almost been tempted to laugh – especially considering that Niall was so horrified by what he had accidentally done.

“Come on,” Harry said with faint amusement, shifting his rucksack into a more comfortable position on his back and patting Niall on the shoulder. “Seeing as this door has been left pretty much ridiculously unguarded, get us in there, would you? Then we’ll see if you can accidentally hit someone else.” He grinned.