Mine To Protect (Mine #6)(3)

Yes, she had been a pain. Always slipping away, never following the simple rules he had in place for her.

“Just let me go.” Now her voice had turned pleading. He hated it when she pleaded. Mostly because when she asked him for things, he had a real hard time saying no to her. “I heard…I heard you’d started spreading the word that I was dead, anyway.”

He had. Mostly because the heat had just kept coming toward her. So he’d figured if the right people thought she was dead, then she would be safer.

“They think I’m dead.” She leaned toward him. Her hand closed around his on the steering wheel. “If they think that, then I can be free.”

Only that story was recently blown to hell. “Yeah, about that…” Victor began.

But he didn’t get to say another word. Because the windshield on Zoe’s side of the vehicle suddenly seemed to explode.

“Zoe!” He bellowed her name even as he slammed his foot down harder on the gas pedal. She slumped near him, and he was f*cking terrified that she’d been hit.

He looked at the broken glass and realized—

A bullet. Some sonofabitch had taken a shot at her.

Because despite what Zoe had just said, no one thought she was dead. That wonderful plan he’d had before? A rat at the FBI had turned that plan on its damn head. Now she was being hunted again and if that bullet had hit her…

I will f*cking kill that shooter.

He yanked the wheel to the left, then took a hard right, sending them rushing away from the bus station. He wasn’t about to stop and give the shooter another chance to fire at her. They were getting the hell out of there.

Another bullet hit the back of the SUV.

Zoe was still slumped low, nearly in his lap.

“Zoe! Talk to me!” Was his heart beating? He wasn’t sure. Just breathing was hard. Zoe couldn’t be hurt. She couldn’t be dead. That shit was not happening. No, no, no. A black rage built in him, swallowing up everything in its path and—

“Stop yelling my name and just drive!” Her head turned, just a bit, in his lap. “Because I am staying low until we are away from that jerk! No way am I taking a bullet!”

A smile yanked his lips up and he did just what the lady had ordered—he drove hell fast and he got them the hell away from that jerk.

***

Had he hit her?

Slowly, Kyle Lawrence lowered his weapon. Frustration boiled in his gut. He was a first class sniper, trained by Uncle Sam back during the days when Kyle had been intent on being all he could be…

He didn’t normally miss a target. But…

Had she moved? Right before I fired?

Kyle feared she had. And since this particular gig was payable only when the woman’s dead body was delivered…hell, he wasn’t about to get his payday yet.

He put the rifle back in its case. The weapon had been equipped with a silencer and no one had been outside to witness that little shoot-out. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the little attack had never even happened. It was so easy to hide most of his hits. Folks never realized the danger that was right around them.

He snapped his rifle case closed and hurried toward his truck. While the FBI agent had been inside, sweet-talking the woman into coming out with him, Kyle had put a tracker on the guy’s SUV. The agent wouldn’t get far.

And the woman?

If his bullet had missed her, well, she still wouldn’t live long. Kyle had a reputation to maintain. When he took a hit, he always, always got the job done.

Zoe Peters was a dead woman walking. The other fools who thought they’d get the bounty on her head? They needed to get in line behind him. She was his prize, and no one would stand in his way.

Not any other fool hit man.

And sure as hell not some FBI agent.

Kyle cranked his truck, floored the baby, and got on the trail of his precious prize.





Chapter Two


I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. Zoe kept chanting those words in her mind. She’d actually felt that bullet whip past her before it sank into the headrest—a headrest that her head had been in front of just seconds before! But she’d leaned toward Victor a split-second before the bullet exploded through the windshield. She’d grabbed his hand…

And managed to stay alive based on sheer, blind luck.

The SUV stopped.

Stopped.

Her head was currently in Victor’s lap—yes, a weirdly intimate spot but she didn’t care how embarrassing that position was—it was a safe place, and she was all about safety. But when the SUV stopped, her hand clenched around his thigh. A very strong thigh. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making sure you’re all right.”

And he pulled her up.

She swatted at his hands. “I’m fine! I’d be better if you just kept moving!” Her frantic gaze shot around the vehicle. There was a big, round hole in the front windshield, on her side of the vehicle. It was dark outside, and she couldn’t see much out there. Maybe some twisted trees. An old farmhouse.

His hand rose and he pushed away her cap. She was surprised she’d still been wearing that thing. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders and his fingers moved carefully over her face. Caressing her cheeks, sliding under her chin. Moving down her neck…

“Um, yeah, no bullet holes,” Zoe said, clearing her throat. She didn’t like it when Victor touched her. His touch made her heart race, made her knees shake, and made her…well, want things that she shouldn’t.