Still Not Over You(67)

He smirks. “I’ve been called worse.” Then he lifts his radio to his lips, keeping the gun and his sidelong gaze trained on me. “I have target alpha secured in the manager’s office. Let’s sweep, clean up, and dispose of the trash. Converge.”

Fuck. I have maybe five seconds to overpower Dallas and get away with Kenna before his team shows up to finish the job and mop up the mess. As he lowers the radio to clip it to his slacks, I seize the distraction.

I lunge, throwing myself forward with all my strength, all my speed. He barely even hesitates.

There’s a sharp report.

A bright, blinding muzzle flash exploding over me.

Then pain, searing into my side, hot enough to eclipse the entire right side of my body with red liquid fire, like I’m drowning in blood. I stagger, falling to my knees at his feet. There’s only a moment to grab at him, struggling, fighting.

Then the butt of the Beretta comes down, pain crashes into my skull, and in a flicker-flash of white to black everything goes dark.





*



I don’t expect to wake up again.

For a moment I don’t know where I am. Not when I went down under enemy fire, and the first thing that penetrates the dark is the familiar sound of gunfire exchanged on a battlefield. I expect to wake up in a bivouac tent in Fallujah, surrounded by light the color of the sand that creeps into everything, from your gear to your mouth to the crack of your ass.

Instead I wake up to the cold white light of an overhead bank of fluorescents, James and Riker standing over me with their weapons drawn and aimed toward the door, Kenna cold and barely breathing next to me while the blood from the seeping pit of fire carved into my side stretches between us to soak into her clothing and link us like some terrible pact in dying heart’s blood.

I manage to lift one arm, reaching across the space between us to touch her cheek. It’s so cold, but I can still feel her breaths feathering against my knuckles.

She’s alive. But I don’t know for how long.

I’ve got to get her to a hospital.

And then I’m killing Dallas.

I’ve let childhood nostalgia blind me to that asshole the same way it blinded Steve to the darkness inside me.

No matter how awful Reg Reese was, I'd actually been na?ve enough to think his son wouldn’t be just as fucked.

Na?ve enough to buy all that diversionary shit about finding my old man’s killer, about working with the police.

Dallas and I have been rivals since the fucking cradle, but it was always that sort of high school shit with trying to be the better son, two princes vying for the crown. I never thought he’d carry it too far.

He was right about me.

No matter how poisoned I may be, there’s some part of me that believes most people are like Kenna.

Inherently good. Worth having faith in.

I’ve always thought I was the only one who couldn’t be trusted, with my father’s tainted blood in my veins.

And now, my oversight, my error, is killing my Kenna.

Move asshole, a voice deep inside me barks.

I have to get up. Pain chews up my side like a rabid animal, but I force myself up, groaning, and twist to peel back the rip in my blood-matted shirt. Just a flesh wound, it looks like. More blood than there should be, making it look worse than it is.

Probably nicked a minor artery. Fuck. It hurts, but it won’t keep me down.

Another grunt escapes as I push myself to my feet. James glances over his shoulder. “Boss, stay down.”

Then he's bolting. He breaks off as the door slams open and a bruiser in a Crown Security jacket comes barging in, firing wildly.

I fling myself instinctively to the ground, going for my own gun, only to find it gone. James and Riker drop to guard position – and in two sharp shots he’s down. I hear the gunfire outside dying down, and I only hope that means my team has the upper hand. I selected them all for their training and ability to stay cool in a crisis. If Skylar and her team have got the others pinned down from behind, we're good.

Dallas' men are sloppy.

It’s only in the quiet that I realize I instinctively wrapped myself around Kenna’s limp body, ignoring the pain to make a shield out of myself. Now I force myself to uncurl, brushing her hair back and kissing her brow. “Hang in there, Reb.”

Even I don’t know if it’s a reassurance, or a plea.

Then, standing, I pull her into my arms. I don’t care how much I hurt. I can’t let her go. I lock eyes with James and Riker.

“Followed protocol?”

“Cops are already en route after the Milah call. We should have containment soon.”

“Dallas?”

“Ran the second we showed up,” James says with a sneer.

Fucking coward. Of course he did. It doesn’t matter.

He’ll get his.

Kenna first.

Riker starts toward me. “Hey – you’re hurt. Let me take her –”

“No.” I clutch Kenna closer against my chest, even though breathing is hard and my right eye is twitching from the pain. I grit my teeth. “Just lead the way. Paramedics still here?”

“I don’t know. People scattered pretty fast with the gunfire, but they’ve gotta be close.”

“Then let’s move. She doesn’t have much time.”