I looked at the package for a few long moments before I looked at Luke.
Had he meant to do that?
When I looked into his eyes, I knew he had. He knew exactly what he was doing when he threw that packet down on the table as he walked by.
I clutched it hard with my hand and watched him walk out of the restaurant with my heart in my throat.
Oh, my God. Was it real?
I got my answer a few minutes later when I unlocked my car and found a black velvet box sitting on my dash.
I sat down, slamming the door to my car hard, before I locked it and stared at the box.
It was a little thing, but there was so very much meaning inside of it that I was scared to reach for it.
If I took it, I knew what it’d have in it, but it still elicited a gasp of surprise from my lips as I took in the large stone.
I put the ring on my finger, admiring how well it fit. Perfectly, of course. I’d expect nothing less from Luke. He was a god and all that shit. A god in the bedroom, mostly, but still.
I started celebrating in my seat, squealing and jumping around with a huge smile on my face.
I knew I had an audience in Nico, and I didn’t care.
It was when I looked up and saw Luke still there, leaning against the truck that I started to laugh.
He’d watched the entire show!
I stared at him and could do nothing but laugh.
He was smiling, too.
Then his face suddenly changed, going from smiling and happy to shocked.
Then, I watched in slow motion as he dropped slowly to his knees.
His hands went to the ground, but they refused to support him, and he fell onto his face.
His head bounced off the concrete, and laid still on the yellow line that marked the next parking spot over from his cruiser.
I screamed.
Fear climbing up my throat, I clawed at the door handle desperately.
However, before I could get out of my car, Nico was there, shoving me back inside and over until he rested in the spot where I’d previously been occupying.
When I went for the other side, he grabbed a hold of my hair, holding on tight.
“Listen to me,” he hissed.
Something in his tone…something made me stop and listen to him.
I stared desperately into his eyes, my heart pounding a mile a minute.
“You go. Drive directly to the police station. Do not, and I repeat, do not, stop. When you get there, go to Luke’s office and wait for me or one of the team to come get you. Michael has your girls. Don’t fuck around. I won’t help him if I know you won’t follow my orders,” Nico said insistently.
Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t either. He’d made a promise to Luke to keep me safe. A promise I knew he wouldn’t break.
I nodded, tears rolling down my cheeks, and he was gone.
Scooting over, I started my baby up. And I drove hard.
I didn’t look back. I knew if I did, I’d turn around. And this was the only way to save Luke’s life.
I picked up a tail half way there, a police officer, but he wasn’t actively trying to pull me over. Especially when he started weaving ahead of me, moving traffic out of the way for me. Most likely because I most certainly wasn’t slowing down.
By the time I pulled into Luke’s spot at the back of the station, and fell out of the car, my tail was there.
Pierson.
I hadn’t realized it was him.
My surprise must’ve shown on my face, because he sneered.
“I may not like Luke, but he’s one of our own,” he snapped. “Now, get inside before all of that work means nothing. I’m sure your brain would look good on the concrete just like Roberts’.”
I scrambled up off my knees where I’d fallen and ran with him to the back door.
Was he shot in the head, had that been what happened?
I could tell I must look a fright, especially when nearly every man and woman in the bull pen looked at me. Although not many, the ones that were there had some sort of a command post set up.
They’d previously been bustling about, yelling across the room.
Men and women spoke furiously, and the chief was in the middle of it all, issuing orders here and there.
When I entered, though, they all just…stopped.
Pity was etched onto all their faces.
They knew.
Was he dead?
“Please,” I whispered brokenly. “Tell me.”
The chief shook his head. “We don’t know, honey. We don’t know.”
***
Luke
Oh, my God, my head hurt.
It was pounding hard. So hard that when I opened my eyes, I immediately closed them.
The light had seared through my retinas, making it even harder to breathe.
Scuffling sounded beside me, and I opened my eyes again, this time with a little more success.
I was laying on the ground.
Blood pooled around me, but I could still make out what looked to be a yellow line.
I was in a parking lot.
Was the blood mine?
It would certainly explain the reason my head was pounding.
Why was I in a parking lot?
Then a pair of dainty black slippers, the type you saw on a ballerina, walked into my field of vision.
Groaning, I started to push myself up, but the dainty slipper stopped at my shoulder that I’d managed to raise about a foot off the ground and kicked me.
I rolled with the momentum of the forceful movement.
My head swam with the swiftness of the movement. One moment I was thinking I had the nausea under control, and the next I was puking.
Luckily, I managed to get it all onto the pavement beside me and not aspirated into my lungs. It wasn’t like I needed another way to kill myself. I had enough right now in spades.
It was the voice that I recognized first.
She had a slight Russian lisp, twanging the end of her words.
Anita Bryant.
By sheer force of will, I managed to suppress the third attempt of my stomach trying to empty.
But only because Anita was pointing the sites of her hand cannon, a .454 revolver that was bigger than she was, at my face.
A man had to have his priorities after all.
I swallowed, licking my chapped lips. “Why?”
“I don’t like being made out to be a fool. I already took care of the other two. You’re almost done, and then I’ll handle my husband’s ex slut. Then they’ll never find me again,” Anita hissed.
I blinked, surprised that she’d just told me she’d ‘handled’ her ex. The only thing I came up with when she said ‘handling’ was that she’d killed them. Deducting them from her existence.
Did she realize who I was?
Obviously she had to. I mean I was in my KPD SWAT shirt. I was next to my police cruiser.
And the blood that I could still feel leaking out of what had to be a hole in the back of my head meant that I had to have been shot. Which would’ve drawn attention from the restaurant I’d previously been in.
Then I remembered that Reese had been in the parking lot with me before I’d passed out, and my heart started to hammer.
“We didn’t do anything,” I rasped, trying to stall.
Reese, I knew, wasn’t in the parking lot anymore. Otherwise she wouldn’t have said ‘then’ when she was referring to taking care of her ex’s ‘slut.’
Nico, on the other hand, very well might be.
And the more I thought about it, the more sure I became that he was there.
When I’d told Nico what to do if a situation such as this were to arise, he was to send Reese to the station, call the team, protect our children, and then help if he felt it was safe.
In fact, every member of the team had the same directions, and it wouldn’t have mattered who was here. It’d be done to the letter.
When Special Agent Lawrence
had offered his assistance, I’d taken him up on it, but I didn’t rely on it. I didn’t know his team, and his team didn’t know me. I knew that my team would do everything in their power to help. The same couldn’t be said for Lawrence’s.
“You did. I’m not stupid and I don’t know why Weston thought I was so stupid. I was in the fucking Army. I was raised in the mafia. I know more than most people only read of; what did he think, I was stupid? Well,” she laughed humorlessly. “He’s not thinking much of anything anymore. Him and the girl he tried to pass off as not his girlfriend are feeding the fish in the Sabine river.”
I couldn’t believe that she was saying all of this in the parking lot. I may be towards the back of the lot, and hidden mostly by the building, but this wasn’t private by any means.
I looked at her, trying to blank my face to mask my ‘you’re crazy, bitch’ face, and said, “Reese and I didn’t do anything. The only part we’ve played in it all was staying away from each other. We didn’t help Weston do anything.”
Movement from the corner of the building caught my eye, but I didn’t dare look. The woman was smart, I’d give her that, but she was also unpredictable. There was no telling what she’d do if she found someone at her back.
The crazy bitch leaned down, her hugely pregnant belly sticking out in front of her as she came down to one knee.
“You want to know the funny thing?” She asked. “I didn’t even love him. I only stayed with him because he was stable and he didn’t have any connection to the mafia. I had some stupid idea of fixing things, getting out before I lost my life by doing something stupid for my father. Doing something for this kid. I was always so tired of being daddy’s gofer. Then he tried to set me up with some fucking kiss ass who wanted an in back with his family. And stupid fucking me, I thought I’d at least give it a try, but daddy doesn’t know when to quit.”
My hand itched to go for my gun, but I knew I wouldn’t get it out in time if I tried. So I stayed still, going against every ingrained sense in my body that told me to move.
“You know, you can tell your friend over there, when you see him in hell, that you’re sorry for ending his life,” she smiled, pressing the barrel of the gun at my temple.
My heart started racing, and with that the pulse of my headache ramped up, throbbing in tune to the beat of my heart.
I smiled. “No, I won’t be telling him anything, honey. You’ll be going there alone.”
With that, I lifted my leg and planted it on the ground, and rolled away from the mad woman.
Two gun shots sounded, and a searing pain along my brow had me gritting my teeth.
I was still alive to feel pain, though.
Bonus!
Rolling over to my hands and knees, I looked up and took in the area.
Only one of my eyes seemed to be working, but I didn’t let that bother me.
I stood quickly, looking from the woman on the ground to Nico who was standing over the woman, his gun still aimed at her.
Nico had shot her in the chest, on the right side, missing her heart but still incapacitating her.
She was writhing on the ground in pain, and blood was steadily filling out around her, spreading in an ever-widening pool. My eyes were fascinated as it started to run down the slope of the driveway, intermingling with the water from the sprinklers that were currently running.
Nico dropped down to his knees beside the woman, using what looked to be his shirt to staunch the flow of blood.
I could’ve told him that would be useless, that it was probably the exit hole at her back that was doing the most bleeding, but Nico looked like he needed that false sense of accomplishment. He looked ragged, torn apart by doing what he’d done.
I snapped out of it, using the mic clipped to my belt to call in a medic.
It proved uncalled for, though, since the next moment we had nearly the entire force of police cars rolling up to us. Full lights and sirens.
The ambulance would come once the scene was declared safe, which proved to be not fast enough because the woman on the ground shuttered, and her body went lifeless.
“Ambulance, now!” I bellowed.
The cops that were taking in the scene were looking at me in horror, but my voice jolted them out of it long enough for them to relay the message of needing an ambulance.
My head started to go lightheaded again, so I sat down on the curb and tried my hardest not to pass out.
My head fell in my hands, elbows resting on my knees, taking a small rest.
I blinked and lifted my head when I realized that there was someone in front of me talking to me. Realizing that it was Tai, a medic for Kilgore Fire Department, I blinked and tried to come back online.
I nodded when he asked if I could stand, and walked with my own power to the ambulance.
That was about all I had the ability to do, walking to the medic and collapsing on the cot with the white sheet.
The last thing I remembered was thinking, ‘That blood’s never going to come out.’
Chapter 28
Don’t half ass anything. Whatever you do, use your full ass.
-Coffee Cup
Reese
“He was shot twice. In the head,” I stated, clarifying what I’d just heard from Nico.
He nodded his head. “Yeah, once from the back of the head. The other grazed his brow. Both are superficial, though. Although he bled like a stuck pig.”
My mouth opened and closed, eyes wide. I didn’t know what to say.
“He’s getting sewn up right now by a doctor, and they’re giving him a transfusion of blood since he lost so much. I just wanted to warn you that he looks pretty gruesome, and not to freak out when you see him,” Nico said woodenly.
My brows knit together, and I took a longer look at Nico.
He was wearing quite a bit of blood himself. Was that all from Luke?
“Nico, are you okay?” I asked.
He looked at me for a few short moments, emotions pouring through his eyes before he replaced his blank mask. “Fine. Why?”
I walked up to the scariest man I’d ever met. The one that had given me comfort the night I found out about my husband suing me for full custody of Rowen. The one that watched over me. The one that had saved my future husband’s life…and walked into his arms.
He stood stiffly for a few long seconds before he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and buried his face into my hair.
I held him, felt his shaking, and knew he’d done something awful. Something truly horrid that’d ripped him apart.
Likely, he’d had to choose Luke’s life over Anita’s. A pregnant woman for his friend. An impossible decision in any situation.
His arms felt like bands of steel around me, and I sniffled loudly into his ear, so thankful he’d made that decision I could barely contain my joy.
“Let’s go see Luke, Nico. I don’t think I can do it alone,” I whispered.
That was true, too.
I was scared shitless of what I’d find. As a nurse, I knew all the gruesome things that went on, having witnessed them myself multiple times.
I knew how much a head wound bled, and I was scared it was worse than he said it was.
That seemed to focus him, giving him something to do.
He let go of me, wrapping his hand around mine, and walked with me down the hall and around the corner to the ER’s rooms.
He was in the last one.
I knew that because the entire ER was full to bursting with cops and fireman.
They were everywhere.
There was no telling how many were in the actual room with him.
All eyes turned to us when we rounded the corner.
Eyes that I knew. Eyes that I didn’t know.
All curious.
Nico pulled me forward when I would’ve stopped, and I went. Mostly because he hadn’t given me a choice.
We walked through the crowd, the policemen backing up enough for us to get through.
N
ico got slugs on the back as he went, and I got comforting hands.
By the time I was at Luke’s room, I was near tears from the support.
I wasn’t able to see Luke at first.
The large bodies of Downy, Bennett, Michael, and John blocking him from my sight.
But Nico’s deep ‘move’ drew them apart, and I finally saw Luke laying on the bed with his eyes closed. A young doctor leaned over his left side, stitching up his brow.
Half of Luke’s hair was gone, shaved down to little more than stubble on the right side of his head.
Dried blood covered his bare shoulders and arms. It was everywhere. Embedded in the grooves of his knuckles, the creases of his arms.
His bottom half was covered by a sheet, but his bare feet stuck out from the bottom.
Letting go of Nico’s hand, I walked forward and wrapped both of my hands around each of his toes.
His toes clenched, and he smiled, eyes opening as he took me in.
“You listened,” he rumbled, giving me a small, pained smile.
I nodded. “I do that every once in a while.”
Even when it nearly guts me.
His eyes glanced down to my hand, and his grin got a little bigger. “Looks good on you.”
I looked down at my hand, at the ring he’d given me hours before, yet felt like long, long days.
“Anything looks good on me,” I teased.
He gave a soft laugh and shook his head, producing a hiss from him and the doctor who admonished him for moving.
“If you can’t keep still, I’ll send her out of the room,” the doctor muttered.
Luke’s eyes hardened. “You could always try to take her away from me, Doc. But then you’d be missing a few limbs, and she’d still be here.”
The doctor snorted. “You cops. All the same. Jealous, alpha males who don’t know what’s for their own good. I’m almost done here, if you’ll hold still for another ten minutes, I’ll get the rest of these in and you can do whatever you want.”
The silence hung heavy as everyone thought about the ‘whatever you want’ he’d been referring to.
Every man in the room was thinking the same thing, too.
“No,” I said, squeezing Luke’s toes.
He chuckled softly and closed his eyes again. “Okay, we’ll wait until we’re back at home.”
Center Mass Page 19
