Brutally Beautiful(72)

Holding Kade’s wide stare, anguish tore through me. God, please don’t let him kill me in front of Kade. Please, don’t do this to him again. I slid down onto the floor, crawled in front of the safe, and focused on turning the lock without being heard, or missing a damn number. Kade’s eyes pleaded with me. His hands grabbed after me to stay. His body slid across mine to protect me. My heart surged in my chest. Tearing my gaze away from Kade, I focused on the lock to the safe.

“I’m gonna repeat the question one more time. Where the f*ck is Samantha Matthews?” The voice wasn’t familiar, the son-of-a-bitch must have paid someone to hunt me down. I dialed the lock to the safe. Right 12. Left 27… as Kade’s tense muscles hovered over my body mumbling low, just above a breath, in one of those horror movie singsong whispers… “2 exits. 5 windows. 4 customers. 1 waitress. 1 brother. 1 Lainey. 1 shooter. How many guns…” His hands gripped the flesh on my arms protectively as my heart was pounding through my chest. Oh, God, he was losing it.

The safe’s door bounced open and I grabbed for Dylan’s gun. I knew it was there, and I knew it was usually loaded. All I had to do was click the magazine into place and pray the gunman didn’t hear. Slipping the safety off, I tried to get out from under Kade’s arms.

“Don’t know anybody by the name of Samantha Matthews,” Dylan’s voice said. Oh, God, Dylan shut the hell up. I could see him at the other end of the bar, both hands raised, face probably looking into the end of the barrel of a gun, his fingers trembling.

“I’ll just get her to come out then,” the voice laughed dryly, as two more flashes of light and sound exploded from his gun.

Behind the bar, a mere ten feet from me, Dylan dropped instantly.

Jumping up, gun raised, I braced myself for impact. “Drop the gun,” I said. From the corner of my eye, I saw George, one of the regulars standing next to Bobby, with his gun already raised right at the shooter’s head.

I adjusted the aim of my gun a few inches to the right until it lined up flawlessly to the shooters forehead, knowing perfectly well George was about to pull his trigger. Another shot ripped through the bar and the shooter collapsed. Shit, it was Deputy George and Deputy Bobby, as a matter of fact, all four regulars were cops. The four men moved in sync, two surrounding the shooter’s body, the other two going out to see who else was around.

Bree screamed Dylan’s name, then mine. It was crushing to hear the primal sound of her heart breaking as she crawled to get to him. I recognized how scared and freaked she truly was. It was the same way when they told her about Michael. She looked at me then as she looked at me the day they found his body. Please help me. I didn’t realize it until then that she’d fallen in love with Dylan. I nodded to her with watery eyes.

Kade reached Dylan first and slumped down mumbling next to him. Bree slid next to us hiccupping and sobbing. “He’s still breathing. Please help him. I can’t do this again. I can’t. I can’t live through another Michael, Sam.” Her tears spilled, cascading waterfalls of sorrow. Desperation.

“Bree, get the car and bring me my bag. Olaes is there. Get Olaes. Bring it all,” I said.

Kade was breathing heavily next to me, whispering, “Who the f*ck is Elias? Is he a doctor?”

Dylan’s eyes looked into mine; fear and surprise. “What? What’s going…what the fu…” His eyes scanned his body, registering the blood. “Oh, God…oh, God…I don’t want to die.” His eyes shifted to Kade. “Kade, I…I don’t want to die.” Sweat started falling from his brow.