Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(80)

Oh, that woman was willing to protect them. He really should visit her one day and thank her. But he’d deal with that another time.

Right now he had her pesky oldest son to shut up.

He extended a hand in Michael’s direction, even though he was twenty feet away. The nerve of him saying it was about his father; the boy didn’t realize he still had so much left to lose. “Or perhaps it’s about you, and the only chance you have before you,” he said, scratching his chin. “As I see it, your only way out is to come work with me.”

Michael shook his head.

“You can do it. Everyone is corruptible if you threaten their family. It worked for your mother,” Charlie said, as Michael shifted his eyes to the woman behind him.

“I’m not working for you, Charlie,” he bit out as the redhead cowered. She was tall, though, and Michael couldn’t quite shield her completely.

“But you do work for me. I hired you. I knew who you were, and look what happened.” Charlie flashed his winning smile. His plan had worked like a charm—ingratiating himself with the security brothers, making them think he cared deeply about doing the right thing. Donating to the community center. Playing the concerned citizen. “You wound up liking me. We got along so well, Michael. Cleaning up the city together. Ridding Vegas of those nasty Royal Sinners I wanted to eradicate. You helped me get rid of the bad apples from my street crew—like T.J. He was a good one, but he was giving me a bellyache by the end, so turning him in was a joy, and you made it so easy for me to be helpful.”

Michael clenched his fists, holding in all his rage. Ah, what an absolute delight to watch the carefully controlled Michael start to boil over. “What do you want?”

Charlie stared at him like he was insane. “What do I want?” he repeated. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Charlie took a step closer. Michael moved back, the woman now sandwiched between him and the back of his car. “Use your brain, Sloan. I want you to stop asking questions. If you can’t do that, you can go ahead and join your father.” He reached behind his jacket and took his gun from his holster, his eyes on Sloan.

Who moved like a goddamn cheetah. Before Charlie even raised his weapon, Michael’s gun was pointing at his face.

Charlie didn’t flinch. He’d stared down more frightening men. He’d stared down death. Besides, Michael wasn’t tough enough. “You’re not your mother’s son,” he hissed. “You’re your father’s son. You don’t have it in you to fire that thing. You’re too good, like he was. So we have two options. You either work for me, or we say good-bye.”

“I’ll take option three,” Michael said, his finger nearing the trigger.





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO


The devil moved quickly, hissed even faster, waving his gun in the direction of Annalise. She was shielded behind Michael, but not completely, and when Charlie darted to his right to aim for her head, Michael’s only thought was to protect her. In both slow motion and terrible fast-forward, he shoved her farther behind him with his free hand as he pulled the trigger.

The bullet barreled through the air, on a hunt for Charlie’s brain. But, Michael’s move to keep Annalise out of harm’s way had the twin effect of shifting the target by inches, putting him in grave danger.

The last thing Michael saw was the bullet ripping through the devil’s arm.

Then a feral yell tore from the man’s throat.

Michael’s world turned warped as his own gun clattered to the ground. Like thunder after a bolt of lightning, the pain came a few seconds later, cutting through every cell in his body.

*

With a bone-shattering thunk, Michael crashed to the concrete, his skull whacking the floor of the parking garage. Blood poured from him, leaking all over his shirt, turning it crimson.

Everywhere.

His chest bled absolutely everywhere. Terror dug roots into the corners of her body. Her throat burned with tears, and her lungs tried to escape from her as she cried.

Her head roared in protest, her mind shouting no, trying to deny the horror. She dropped to the ground next to Michael, grasping, desperately trying to do something, anything, as she fumbled for her phone.

Panic welled up inside her, spilling over, suffocating her as she grabbed it in her pocket.

Not again. This couldn’t happen twice. She couldn’t lose someone she loved again. But the blood…it was on her hands, her face, all over him. Her hand pressed against his chest. Oh thank God, his heart was beating still. But there was so much red. She couldn’t see a thing through her tears, wasn’t even sure she could hear past her own cries. Somehow she stabbed the numbers nine-one-one with blood-covered fingers on the keypad before she screamed out a sob, the phone clattering to the ground.

Then a long, low moan fell on her ears.

It didn’t come from Michael.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she jerked her head toward the sound.

Ten, perhaps fifteen feet away, the man who’d shot Michael dragged himself upright. He clutched his left arm as it bled on his jacket sleeve. With his right hand, he groped around for his gun on the ground.

In the distance, shouts burst through the late-morning air—maybe from inside the building, maybe from somewhere else in parking garage.

She didn’t know where they were coming from, or who was on the way.