“You were just stitched up for the second time because of a bullet wound.” Patrick shoved to his feet and rounded the bed as she dressed. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“It isn’t safe here. Jane sent me to protect you, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest as she pulled her ankle boots on and straightened, fully dressed. She forced herself to slow down, to memorize change in his expression, the lighter spot of brown in his left eye, everything about him. It was ridiculous to feel something for a man she’d met less than forty-eight hours ago, but undeniable. She raised her hand, feathered her fingers over the scrapes above one of his dark eyebrows. “I’m not going to lose another client. I can’t...” She licked her suddenly dry lips to counteract the burn in her lower lash line, gaze locked on his. “I won’t lose you.”
Fire simmered in Patrick’s eyes a split second before his mouth crashed down on hers. The momentum of his body pushed her back into the nearest wall, but he’d wrapped his arms around her to soften the blow. The ache in her side, the case, the rules, everything disappeared as she completely surrendered to the feel of his chest pressed against hers. A slight hint of mint and his clean, masculine scent stroked her senses as she framed his face with both hands and pulled her deeper into the desire burning through her. Her body caught fire at his touch, at the care he’d shown since the moment she’d met him, at his determination to protect her even when she’d been assigned to protect him. It was the people she least expected that hit her the hardest.
And Patrick Barnes packed a hell of a punch.
“We have to stop.” Sienna set her hands against his chest and stepped back, the words a desperate attempt to convince herself more than him. “This can’t happen.”
“Sienna...” A low growl rumbled beneath her hands. His voice was so guttural, she barely heard him over the ringing in her ears.
“There are rules.” She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The blaze of longing burned through her only intensified the longer he stared down at her. Sienna shook her head in an attempt to focus and severed contact. In vain. She could still feel him, a phantom touch that’d permanently marked her. Kissing him had been a bad idea. On so many levels. “I’m not supposed to... I could lose my job.”
Patrick cleared his throat—twice—and gave her the space she needed. “In that case, let’s find the son of a bitch who wants me dead.”
Chapter Four
Sienna Kincaide was everything he couldn’t control.
Patrick shoved the frantic hunger clawing up his throat down deep. She’d made it perfectly clear nothing could happen between them. At least not as long as she was assigned to protect him. But once the investigation was concluded... What then? They barely knew each other, forced together because a serial killer had made him a target. He hadn’t spent the past seventeen years of service celibate, but Sienna was... different. She was important. But she’d laid out the rules.
“Almost there, Freckles.” Hands gripped around Sienna’s arm and her low back, he helped her to the front doors. Screw discharge papers. They’d run out of time. No telling when the person who’d hired McCann would send a replacement to finish the job, but they weren’t just going to wait around for the next strike. He squeezed her arm in reassurance. They were going to make it. She had to make it.
“Is that some kind of nickname you’ve picked out for me?” A groan worked up her throat as Sienna pushed through the glass doors, but she kept her expression neutral. The fresh scent of rain drowned a combination of her perfume and river water, parking lot lights gleaming off wet asphalt.
“Something like that. The SUV is straight ahead.” He directed her toward her SUV a few rows back but froze. Warning exploded through him as he scanned the parking lot. Fourteen cars covered in rain. No movement. Nothing to suggest they’d walked into a trap except the sinking feeling in his gut. “Wait.”
“We need to get to the safe house.” Her heavy breathing, coupled with Sienna holding her side, threatened to chase back his gut instincts, but he only tightened his hold on her to keep her from moving. The muscles down her back flexed, pulling her straighter. She felt it, too. “I’ve got guns and ammo in the SUV.”
“We won’t make it.” Movement registered dead ahead, a large figure keeping to the shadows, but the metal halide lights from above highlighted enough of the gun pointed directly at them for Patrick to position himself in front of Sienna. Footsteps echoed off the surrounding cars, but the vehicles wouldn’t do much in the way of cover. One move and they’d catch a bullet from this distance. Patrick took a deep breath, raising his hands in surrender. Sienna had to make it. There weren’t any other options. Not for him. “You came for me. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
Sienna’s low voice registered over the pounding of his pulse behind his ears. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you out of this mess.” Jane Reise might’ve been the one to send her, but he wasn’t going to let Sienna put herself in danger. Not for him.
Three seconds of silence. Four.
Her muffled scream twisted him around. She fought off a wall of muscle forcing a dark linen bag over her head. Patrick rushed forward.
A single explosion of gunfire stopped him in his tracks. Pain splintered through him as he looked down his chest. Blood. Spreading fast across his shirt. Sienna’s protests filtered through the sudden ringing in his ears as time slowed. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Patrick forced himself to take another step forward, even as his strength drained. The muscle who’d bagged Sienna dragged her to a waiting SUV about thirty feet away. He could make it. He had to make it. “Get your damn hands off her.”
“Patrick!” She kicked, punched, twisted, clawed, but the bastard was too strong.
Another bullet ripped through the back of his thigh, and he hit the ground hard. Patrick blinked to clear his head, the same aftereffects of dodging that IED on tour closing in. He had to get up. Move. A growl rumbled through his chest as he shoved to his feet. His heart threatened to beat out of his chest. He turned on the gunman, nothing but adrenaline and rage in his veins. “You’re going to regret that.”
He closed the distance between them. The shooter pulled the trigger one more time, but the weapon jammed. The gunman tried again. Nothing. Patrick cocked back his elbow and swung as hard as he could. The bastard collapsed to the pavement. Unconscious. The squeal of tires against asphalt hiked his blood pressure higher and he pivoted around. “Sienna.”
The driver was getting away.
With Sienna in the back.
The combination of rubber and fresh rain burned in his lungs as he ran toward Sienna’s SUV. The keys were still in his pocket. Wrenching the door open, he twisted the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life. He fishtailed out of the hospital parking lot, accelerator to the floor. He wasn’t going to lose her.
She was the fiercest thing he’d ever seen. He hadn’t known Sienna Kincaid long enough to call what was pressurizing in his chest legitimate, but he didn’t give a damn. She’d barged into his life, guns and green eyes blazing, and had turned his life upside down. The army had given him purpose. Sienna gave him hope. And for a woman like that, he’d risk everything to find out if the connection between them was real enough.
Patrick white-knuckled the steering wheel as the other driver accelerated south onto the highway. Thick tree lines faded to open ocean. Where the hell were they taking her? And why? He fought to control his breathing as he took cover a few cars back. His heart beat hard in his chest. It was only a matter of time before he’d pass out from blood loss, but he wouldn’t stop. Not until he got her back. “Just hang on, Freckles. I’m coming for you.”
*
He’d been shot.
Sienna had heard the gunfire. Heard Patrick’s groan of pain. Twice. There was no way he’d survive two gunshots. Whoever had taken her had left him in the middle of that parking lot to die
. Unless hospital staff or a civilian had heard the gunshots, it’d be too late.
She’d failed.
Tears burned in her eyes as she slid across the bare interior of the van. She could still taste him, smell him on her clothing. In such a short amount of time, he’d become important to her, so much so that she wasn’t sure how to get rid of the feeling. Or if she wanted to. Her boots hit the side panel of the spacious van as the driver accelerated, and the skin above the zip ties around her wrists caught on something sharp. She locked down the sob lodged in her chest. She had to get out of here. She had to go back for him. That was all that mattered.
Carbon dioxide built beneath the hood with her every exhale. The dark fabric and lack of daylight inhibited her vision, but she could make out the movements of one driver. No way to tell if he was armed without removing the hood, but she couldn’t reach it with her hands tied behind her.
“It’s done. Turning into the warehouse now,” the driver said. “No. Barnes won’t be a problem anymore.”
Won’t be a problem? Did that mean... Sienna rolled her lips between her teeth and bit down to keep the pained scream from escaping. She couldn’t give the driver a reason to turn around, but the ache burrowing a hole in her chest wouldn’t let up. Patrick. She could’ve fought harder. Could’ve done something.
She still could.
Sienna breathed through the burn of emotion in her eyes and nose as resolve flooded through her. No. Whoever’d done this—whoever ordered the hit on Patrick—would pay. Starting with the man who’d kidnapped her. Shoving her feet against the side panel, she inched her way back to that sharp piece that’d snagged her skin earlier. Her fingertips brushed against the jagged piece of metal. Idiots. They should’ve cleaned out the van before putting her in the back. Everyone was capable of pretending they were unconscious. Setting the edge of the zip tie against the metal, she rocked her hands back and forth to cut through.
“Got her, too. Seems you left out the part about who she works for though.” The driver hit the brakes then brought the van to a complete stop. “I don’t want that kind of heat on my head if this goes south. You want her, the price is double what we agreed on.”
Sienna stilled. She held her breath to listen better, memorize the sound of his voice, the inflection, the tone, an accent. Taking her hadn’t been an attempt to clean up the mess these people had made. They’d targeted her, too. Why? She’d been assigned to protect Major Patrick Barnes because of the resulting casualties in the David Blevins case. She had nothing to do with that. Blackhawk Security had nothing to do with that. She exhaled hard. But JAG Corps prosecutor Captain Jane Reise had been stationed overseas during the trial. Wasn’t hard to imagine she’d worked the case with her superior officer.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” The van rocked as the driver opened the door and slammed it closed again. Footsteps registered just outside the vehicle.
She’d run out of time. Sienna worked at the zip ties faster, harder. Panic threatened to consume her, but she swallowed it back. They might’ve already gotten to Judge Tara Larson, to Blevins’s defense attorney, and to Patrick, but they wouldn’t get to Jane, too. No. This ended now. Because it wasn’t about the job. This was about the people she cared about. The sense of family she’d finally found after all those years in the orphanage. And nobody would take that away from her.
The van’s overhead light brightened the inside of the hood as the driver wrenched open the door. The zip tie snapped. Fisting the bag over her head, Sienna pulled it off and rushed forward as fast as she could. She collided with the wall of muscle, her momentum giving her enough weight to tackle him to the cement. “Let’s see how you like being shoved into the back of a van.”
Bringing her knee into his groin with every ounce of energy she had left, she kept him from reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster and relieved him of his weapon. She clicked off the safety then took aim. “Get up.”
“You better shoot me now because without that gun, you’re dead.” Blue eyes stood out against her kidnapper’s black hair and thick beard from the dim light of the van. Veins popped along his muscled arms as he followed orders. His jeans and plain T-shirt said civilian, but the American flag tattoo on the inside of his forearm labeled him military. Corporal McCann hadn’t been the only soldier paid to take Patrick out.
“Funny, I didn’t have the gun when I took you down a few seconds ago.” The bullet hole in her shoulder screamed in protest as she tightened her grip on the gun. She had no doubt he’d stick to his word, but she wouldn’t let him get the drop on her again. “Who hired the hit on Major Barnes?”
The soldier spit near her boots as she directed him into the van with the gun. Settling back, he hung his arms over his knees, violence in his gaze. “You better hope I don’t get out of this van—”
Sienna pulled the trigger.
A gut-wrenching scream echoed through the bare warehouse as her kidnapper clutched his left foot.
Cement and darkness stretched in all directions. She had no idea where they were, who else was in the building, but this was the only chance she had of taking these bastards down. “Who hired you to take me?”
“I did.” The distinctly feminine voice came from behind.
Spinning, Sienna swung the weapon toward the collection of shadows filling the open bay door. Moonlight highlighted the four armed personnel. One in the middle. She was out manned and out gunned.
A single figure disappeared into the shadows then flipped a switch near the door, lighting the rest of the warehouse. Sienna blinked against the sudden brightness as the woman who’d branched off raised a gun of her own and took aim. “If you could please stop shooting the soldiers I hired to do it, that would be great.”
Chapter Five
Sometimes help didn’t come from above.
Sometimes it came from a man with everything to lose.
Patrick pressed his shoulder blades into the wall just outside the warehouse, sidearm raised. Six armed hostiles against one. Didn’t seem fair. And at the head of the formation stood Rachel Wright. CWO Blevins’s secretary. He should’ve known. The closest thing to family David Blevins ever had was the one woman who’d moved through the ranks with him for the past ten years. He twisted his head around the main door.
Sienna tossed her weapon, the clash of steel on cement echoing throughout the warehouse. She was alive. For now. The driver she’d apparently shot in the foot limped out of the van and collected the weapon, shoving her forward hard enough she landed on her hands and knees. Two hostiles stepped forward, ripped her off the floor and strung her hands between them. Her knees brushed the gleaming cement.
Shoulder-length dark hair framed Rachel’s angled face, the button-down shirt too big for the feminine shape beneath. Long fingers curled around a revolver, one finger hovering over the trigger. He could rush in there, take as many of them out as possible with a few bullets, but that still left Sienna in Rachel’s crosshairs. “You were sent here by Jane Reise and Blackhawk Security. You’re going to help me get to her.”
Patrick maneuvered inside. Out of sight. One step. Two. Sienna’s laugh raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and he froze. Danger resonated in that laugh, a pure, unfiltered promise of destruction. Her expression seemed relaxed, but the depths of her voice had gone absolutely cold. “As much as I’d love to see Sullivan Bishop tear you to pieces with his bare hands for coming near Jane, I’m going to pass.”
“Then you’re of no use to me.” Rachel nodded, signaling the men holding Sienna in place. “Kill her. Dump her body somewhere her employer will find her. We’ll find a way to Captain Reise on our own.”
One hostile turned his weapon on her, the other gripping the back of her neck and thrusting her forward.
An execution.
Patrick pulled the trigger. The bastard with the gun aimed at Sienna dropped, the others turning on his position in the space of a single heartbeat. Bullets ricocheted off the
walls. The warehouse blurred in his peripheral vision as he dove for cover.
“Kill them!” Rachel got two shots off as she backed toward a side door across the warehouse with a bodyguard on her trail. No. She’d ordered the murder of four separate soldiers. She wasn’t getting away that easily.
Five gunmen still standing, including Sergeant Rachel Wright. Patrick swung back through the warehouse door and took down one more. Adrenaline burned through his veins, his lungs fighting to keep up with the exertion. A wave of dizziness threatened to bring him down. He’d been shot. Twice. The harder his heart beat, the more blood he lost, but there was no way in hell Sienna wasn’t walking out of this alive. Where was she?
A flash of her green trench coat pulled this attention toward the van. The blade in her kidnapper’s hand reflected the yellow warehouse lighting from above as he lunged. Sienna disarmed the son of a bitch and turned the knife back on him. She slashed at him a split second before the bastard landed a kick to her stomach. She collapsed back onto the cement, her groan loud in his ears.
Patrick rushed forward. One of Rachel’s men slammed into him, knocking him off track and taking him down. The gun fell from his hand as his head hit the floor. Sienna’s gasp demanded his attention, but the soldier that’d collided with him climbed to his feet. He didn’t have time for this. Rachel Wright was going after Jane. Sweeping his legs out from under his attacker, Patrick slammed his fist into the bastard’s face as hard as he could, knocking him unconscious.
Sienna took another hit but wasn’t fazed for long. Flipping the blade down her forearm, she widened her stance then lunged. Her attacker rushed forward at the same time, striking out, but she wrapped her leg around his arm and used his own momentum to bring him down. She embedded deep into her kidnapper’s chest and let him sink to the ground. Relief relaxed her features as she dropped the knife, those green eyes hazy. Drained. She turned then, focusing on him. “You’re alive.”
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