by Lori Ryan
The other hand grabbed Ava by the hair and pulled her against him. John saw red. He wanted nothing more than to race at the man and tear him apart with his bare hands. The drive to do it was almost primitive in nature.
And it took all of John’s training and control to stop, to think before he acted.
He prayed Kirsten had called the police or hit the silent alarm, because he needed backup, fast.
He raised his weapon. He wanted to tell the fucker what he would do to him if Ava had so much as a scrape at the end of this. He wanted to describe in brutal, unmistakable detail the ways in which he would mete out punishment to this asshole if any harm came to her.
What he said instead was, “Police. Show me your hands.”
Christ, it took all he had not to shoot.
He would have, but Ava was there in his line of fire. The asshole had pulled her to him and was clinging to her now, using her as a protective shield.
Wild eyes met John’s, and there was no doubt in John’s mind, this guy was cranked up on something. Meth, coke—he didn’t know what, but something.
John looked at Ava. The man had her hair wrapped around his fist, a gun pressed to her cheek. John looked only into her eyes. He tried to tell her he had this, that he would get her out of there alive. He didn’t put it in words. He put it into his eyes and willed her to trust in him, to believe it. To know it.
Janna was on the floor, sobbing. The side of her face was red and swelling, and she looked stricken at the scene before her.
John knew what she was doing. She was blaming herself for this. He could guess what had happened. The assailant and Ava were standing by the back door, a bag of trash at their feet. Janna had likely started her nighttime routine, taking the trash out to the back, forgetting they couldn’t do that right now. But that was on him, not her.
He was an idiot. He’d gone out to the front of the store to chase off the irate customer who’d been pissed they closed before he got there. John had done that without reminding Janna that she couldn’t go out the back. He’d seen how absorbed she was in what she was doing all day. He had left without so much as a thought to her because he had wanted to be Ava’s knight in shining armor, making the creep up front go away by waving his badge around.
And now they were all paying for his fuck up.
“Janna,” he said calmly. “Get behind me.”
When she didn’t move, he put a little bite in his tone. “Janna, now.”
She moved then, still down on the ground, still sobbing, but she moved.
Then he spoke to the asshole whose life was about to end if he didn’t let Ava go.
John knew he had to handle this carefully. This guy was on drugs. On drugs and off the rails, nothing left to lose.
“Adam,” John said, making a conscious decision to let the guy know the police knew who he was. He wanted to convince him he needed to let Ava go and run. “The guard out front has called for backup. I’ve got backup on the way.”
Lord, he hoped that was true. Eric had said they were doing regular drive-throughs in all the areas they knew Adam might be, and this was one of them.
“You’ve got seconds to get away from here. Minutes if you’re lucky. Let her go and run now. This is only slowing you down, letting them corner you.”
John heard Kristin come in behind him, letting him know it was her with a murmured word to him, quietly backing him up.
John knew there was a good chance the guy would choose to strap in for the ride, using Ava and the rest of them as bargaining chips. Or, he could come at them, trying to kill them all because he didn’t have a whole hell of a lot left to lose at this point. John had to be ready for any of those scenarios.
“You don’t want to add to the body count, Adam. Get out and run while you can.”
In the distance, sirens sounded, and John saw the flash of panic in Adam’s eyes. He saw the split second the man made a decision. John’s response was automatic. His finger moved from the slide of his gun to the trigger.
Adam moved, shoving Ava at John and raising the gun to aim at John.
Suicide-by-Cop.
John saw Ava clear the space in front of him, and he fired. Once, twice. He paused, fired once, twice again. He processed that Adam had fired his weapon in there. He processed pain in his arm. But there wasn’t time for him to think about any of that. The back door opened, and he saw unformed officers enter.
In the chaos, John shouted to them, identifying himself as an officer. Thankfully, they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later, but they did shout at him to drop his weapon.
He did. He could see the life had drained from Adam’s eyes.
Ava was safe, cradling a screaming Janna behind him.
Within minutes, his partner was there, telling the uniforms to stand down. Then Eric looked at him and his words sent cold through John.
“You’re hit. John, fuck, you’re hit.”
Chapter Thirty
“Don’t,” was all Eric said, when John tried to get up.
John growled at him. They’d had him sitting on the back bumper of an ambulance for the better part of an hour now for nothing more than a graze of his arm.
“It’s been an hour and it’s a flesh wound.”
“It’s been five minutes,” Eric countered. “And that’s more than a flesh wound.”
John turned to the EMT. “Did it hit bone?”
“Uh.” The EMT turned to Eric. “No?”
“Ligaments?” John asked.
The EMT shook his head.
“Muscle,” Eric said with a look at the EMT.
“Uh, yeah,” said the EMT. “It definitely entered the muscle.”
“I’m fine,” John bit out. He knew damned well it was highly likely he was going to need some physical therapy on that arm. You didn’t walk away from a bullet wound like that without some kind of damage, but he wanted to see Ava.
She’d been in with the detectives from his unit answering questions for too damned long. Those guys might be like his brothers, but right now, he wouldn’t even trust his brothers with Ava. He needed eyes on her.
John moved to stand again, glaring at Eric when his partner moved toward him like he’d hold him down. That’s what it would take at this point.
Then Ava was there, walking with her arm around Janna and Rhys beside them. If Rhys didn’t escort her straight to John, he was going to tear the guy a new asshole.
John scanned her, looking at her face as she moved toward him. She was stressed, he could see that, and there was some bruising on her neck that made him see red, but she looked like that was the extent of her injuries.
His hands itched to roam over her, to check every inch of her to be sure she was okay.
Janna was holding ice to the side of her face where she’d been hit, but other than that, she looked uninjured.
“John,” Ava said, sinking down next to him. “You’re hurt,” she said, her large eyes going to his bandage.
“Flesh wound,” he said, in unison with the EMT and Eric.
John flashed a smile. “I’m fine. But, listen, Ava, we have to talk.”
She raised a hand up, palm out, as her eyes flashed. “Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to do this, John Sevier. You don’t get to take this all on yourself. You don’t get to blame yourself and tell me I’m better off without you. That your job puts me in jeopardy and that my life will be better without you in it. You don’t get to do that to me.”
She looked him up and down. “I have news for you. You’re not a god. You don’t control my life, and you aren’t responsible for everything that happens in it. That had nothing to do with you being in my life. That guy would have come into my world trying to hurt me with or without you. So you can shut your mouth and save the speech. I’m not letting you leave me now that I finally have you back in my life. I won’t let you play the martyr here.”
John raised a brow as she finished, looking at her flashing eyes and flushed cheeks. God, he loved this wom
an. “You about done?”
She grunted a response that said she could probably say more but was willing to give him a turn.
John could see Eric’s amusement in the background. He couldn’t wait for his partner to be the one who was blindsided by his feelings for a woman. When Eric was the one who would let that woman rail at him day and night, so long as she was with him. So long as she was safe and in his arms.
John kept his focus on Ava. Eric’s turn would come someday, and John would be there to laugh his ass off at him.
“I was going to say,” he said, using his good arm to pull her closer, running a hand over her cheek before brushing his thumb over her mouth. “I was going to say that I don’t want to waste another minute without you in my life, Ava McNair. I want you with me. I want to be with you. I want to share everything, good and bad, with you.”
He didn’t give a shit that half his damned department was there to witness it. John leaned in and kissed her shocked face, putting everything he was and had into that kiss. Because he meant it. Going forward, he wanted her in his world. He wanted to be with her and know she wanted to be with him.
He held his breath until he felt her sink into him and kiss him back.
Chapter Thirty-One
John, Eric, and Rhys all stood beside Captain Scanlon and the officer from public affairs who had showed up on scene shortly after the captain. It was typical for them to hold a short press conference with the captain reading a statement and fielding questions.
It made John itch to be on show like that, but this was one time he was glad to watch the show. They were announcing the arrest of two of the suspects. It would be better if all three had been apprehended instead of one suspect being shot and killed, but at least it was over. John had no qualms about having shot Adam Carr.
It would haunt him. Taking a life always did, but he wouldn’t doubt the decision to shoot. Adam had been dangerous to John, to Ava and her sister, to all of Dark Falls. They had watched the man unravel over the course of the last few weeks, and there was no doubt in John’s mind, he had taken a dangerous killer off the streets that night.
The Captain finished reading her statement and opened up to questions.
John didn’t recognize the small redhead who spoke first, but he saw Eric stiffen noticeably when the woman introduced herself.
“Merritt McKenna, Dark Falls Daily. Can you tell us if anyone else was injured in today’s takedown?”
There was nothing wrong with the question. No reason Eric should have stiffened. John tried to catch his eye, but his partner was staring dead ahead, unseeing, into the group of reporters.
Strike that, Eric was very carefully not looking at Merritt McKenna, whoever she was. They all knew most of the regular journalists who covered Major Crimes in Dark Falls. She was new.
“I expect the story later,” John said under his breath.
Eric’s jaw tightened.
“That’ll be all,” the captain was saying. The press tried calling out a few other questions, but when Captain Scanlon said she was finished, she was finished.
John needed to go back to the station to give his statement about the shooting. He’d be put on paid administrative leave and the Use of Force Task Force would call in someone from a neighboring agency to investigate the shooting and make sure it was righteous.
He was okay with that. They’d already heard from Nate and Zaragoza. The two other friends had confessed to the robberies. They saw Adam shoot Josh in that alley and took off, afraid he’d turn on them next. They’d been arguing about whether to go to the police ever since.
So, yeah, John was ready for a break. He would be spending that break with Ava, and that was fine by him. More than fine.
Two days later, John stood at his ex-wife’s wedding, of all things. He was holding his ex-and-now-current girlfriend’s hand and watching his ex-wife get remarried with a dopy smile on his face. A smile he couldn’t have hidden for all the world.
Ava squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. The last two days had been stressful in a lot of ways. Janna was understandably stressed and anxious after what she’d been through. She was having a hard time leaving the house and hadn’t even wanted to go to the jewelry store to work.
It would take time to get her past it. John planned to be right there with Ava as she got her sister through this.
Ava’s dad seemed okay with that, shaking John’s hand and thanking him for saving his girls when John came to the house after processing out at the police station after the shooting.
Right now, they were spending quiet days and evenings at Ava’s house, playing games with her dad and Janna and watching movies all together at night. It was sedate and boring and sheer heaven.
John knew he’d be itching to go back to work soon, but that feeling hadn’t come yet.
He returned Ava’s smile with a wink, then watched as Lucia and Carlos were pronounced husband and wife. Carlos rested one hand on Lucia’s pregnant belly as he leaned in to kiss her. They were well past the point where Lucia had lost their babies, and John prayed they would make it through to term.
He wasn’t ready to hope for that himself yet. He wasn’t sure he could get up the nerve to put Ava through what he’d put Lucia through trying for a baby, but he was trying to get there. And for now, he was just happy getting to know Ava again, getting to be with her every day. Getting to be there for her and be part of her life.
They watched as a grinning Lucia and Carlos walked hand-in-hand up the aisle. Lucia caught John’s eye and waved, giving him a thumbs up with a pointed look at Ava. He didn’t know if Lucia recognized Ava from college or realized who she was. He had a feeling she wouldn’t care either way. They’d moved past the point where there were any bitter feelings between them.
Ava laughed and waved at Lucia before turning to John. “They’ll be taking pictures and things for a bit before they head to the reception.”
John turned, pulling her into his arms, ignoring the crowd in the church around them. “Mm-hmm. Did you have something in mind to help us kill the time?”
She shrugged a shoulder with feigned innocence. “We haven’t had a whole lot of time to ourselves lately.”
It was true. They’d been with her dad and sister almost constantly since the shooting. Ava seemed to need that as much as Janna and her dad had, and John didn’t blame any of them.
Still, he liked where she was headed with this.
Ava glanced around. People were emptying out of the pews and heading toward the entrance to the church.
She ran her hands up his chest to his shoulders. It was stupid how fast his body responded to her. Church or no church, he pulled her closer.
“I just thought,” she said, playfully trailing her fingers up the back of his neck, “that we could maybe park somewhere.”
John laughed. “You want to park and make out with me?”
“I do,” she said.
John stilled, her words striking at his heart in a way he couldn’t escape, didn’t want to escape. He cupped her face with his hands. “I love you. I know it’s probably too damned soon to say it, and maybe that will scare you off, but I love you, and I don’t want to let another day go by without telling you that.”
Her eyes went soft, and he could hear a small intake of breath. “It won’t scare me off at all. I love you too much to be scared off.”
John lowered his mouth to her ear. “Let’s skip the reception and sneak back to my place for the night. You have your cell if Janna or your dad needs you. And if they don’t—”
“If they don’t, we’ll have the whole night together,” she finished, wrapping her arms around his neck.
John caught her gaze and held it. “We have more than a night together Ava.”
She stood on tiptoes and kissed him. “We do. And I don’t want to miss a minute of it.”
The End
The Dark Falls series continues with books from some of your favorite authors! Keep reading for a sample of Dark Secr
ets from Savannah Kade and Dark Legacy from Trish McCallan!
An excerpt from Dark Secrets by Savannah Kade:
Grace didn’t usually spray luminol and pull out her black light when she entered a motel room. But today she held the light up and frowned at the blood revealed by the generously applied chemiluminescent.
Old blood was everywhere. Small spots peeked out from under the edge of the bed where the old polyester blanket touched the carpeting. It looked to Grace as though something had happened in that spot and the bed had simply been moved. In one corner, another streak of luminol glowed cautiously, the remnant of a merely passable scrubbing. Some of the luminescent spots revealed that her suspicions had been correct about the old carpeting, about this motel room, and about the stains.
Crap. This was the last thing she needed.
She’d requested this room specifically. She didn’t always spray Luminol and pull out her black light when she rented a room. Then again, she couldn’t recall ever renting a room this awful in her life. She could imagine Jimmy here, though. If he was on one of his serious benders this would be nothing. Unfortunately, that meant there was nothing obvious here that supported her theory about her brother. She’d have to wait for lab results.
“Oh, Jimmy,” she lamented out loud to the dark room. “What did you get yourself into?”
The way her heart clenched couldn’t be stopped. No matter what the room looked like, no matter what she might be able to prove, none of it would change the facts. Jimmy was dead. Gone, after a life that had been a struggle from the beginning and continued to be one well into adulthood. Grace blinked back the tears that threatened.
Many people didn’t know what it was like having an addict in their lives. They were lucky. Addicts stole, they lied, they betrayed. And they often left you with only one option—completely cutting yourself off.
