by Shayla Black
Thorn didn’t look away or flinch from the truth. “Yeah.”
Cam shoved them toward the garage door. “Go.”
Thorn dragged Brenna away—only to be stopped by Curtis’ embrace.
“Take care, little girl.”
Brenna paused. She’d spent years—decades—infuriated with this man who’d stayed around only long enough to sire her and drop her on her aunt’s doorstep. At times she’d wondered if she hated him. She’d rehearsed speeches through the years designed to tell him with razor perfection how much she loathed him and had no respect for his behavior.
But in what could be the last moments for any or all of them, the speeches and hatred flew out of her head. “You came back to make sure I was okay.”
That fact astounded her. Somewhere, somehow, in his way, he actually cared.
He nodded, looking every one of his fifty-six years. “I don’t want you to pay for my sins.”
“Company is closing in fast, boys and girls,” Thorn growled as he stared out the window through the crack between the curtains. “Let’s go.”
The bounty hunter jerked on her arm and led her out of the kitchen, toward the garage. Heart pumping, hurting, she looked back to find Cam handing her father a weapon and loading another.”
God, please let them be okay.
They didn’t make it to the garage door before two hired guns crashed through Cam’s back window in a hail of shattered glass. They landed on their feet, and one kicked out, knocking the gun from her father’s hand.
Thorn shoved her behind him and around a corner, into the laundry room between the kitchen and the garage, with a terrible curse. “Stay.”
Their eyes met, and his told her that he’d defend her to the death. Solemn. Heavy. Concerned.
Then he was gone, still blocking the doorway but edging closer to Cameron.
“Curtis,” one of them said in mock friendliness as he straightened his shades. “You’ve been hard to find. Mr. Marco would like a few words with you.”
No doubt, he was one cold dude. An assassin who would think nothing of pulling the trigger. Brenna could tell just by looking at his craggy face and piercing eyes. Peering between the crack in the door, she saw her father shudder in fear.
“MacIntyre,” her father began. “I—”
“You got no excuses. Come with us quietly.”
“You’re not taking my witness,” Cam vowed.
He and Thorn both eased near her father, weapons drawn. They looked big and fearless and invincible, but she knew one bullet could change everything.
Marco’s goon gave her lovers a quick once over. “Put your weapons down.”
“Fuck off,” Thorn spat.
She saw the hired gun look in her direction.
And felt the barrel of a gun against the back of her head a moment later.
Cold fear gripped her as a rough hand dragged her to her feet and shoved her into the kitchen.
“Let’s try this again. Put your weapons down now or your mutual girlfriend will be missing the back half of her skull in two seconds.”
Cam cursed and dropped his to the hardwood floor.
Thorn gritted his teeth, and a thousand regrets seemed to cross his face before he did the same.
“Splendid. The three of you gave a great peep show through the bedroom window.”
Brenna could just hear the smarmy tone, and it made her want to claw his eyes out.
“Let her go, Marco,” Cam said through gritted teeth. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
Marco? As in Julio Marco? Brenna risked a glance over her shoulder to find one mean asshole, complete with soulless dark eyes and a scar from temple to jaw. His crooked nose and pierced lip didn’t give her the warm fuzzies either.
Marco looked at Cam like he was an insect. “Don’t be stupid, Martinez. And no more of your standard lines or I’ll just shoot her for the pleasure of crushing you.”
Brenna gasped as his words injected cold fear into her bloodstream. He’d do it. That whip-sharp voice told her so.
“Curtis,” Marco continued, “Are you willing to come with us now or do we need to demonstrate on your daughter what we’ll do to you if you fail to cooperate?”
“I’ll go.”
“No!” Brenna gasped. If he stayed, maybe they had a chance. Backup was on the way. As long as he was here, there was hope. If Curtis left…she knew she’d never see him again. “He’ll kill you.”
Curtis sent her a gaze filled with regret, his hazel eyes so like her own. “Better me than you.”
A moment later, a shot rang out. Brenna barely heard a whistle of a sound when one of Marco’s assassins not two feet from her fell to the ground, a bloom of blood spreading across his chest. Police backup!
Marco and the other goon searched frantically for the source of the shots. They’d come through the smashed-in back window, but from trees? Bushes? She didn’t know. And Marco didn’t seem inclined to stay and find out.
“We’ve got to get the fuck out of here!” Marco hollered.
He kept his gun trained on her and placed her directly in front of him, like a human shield. The other assassin, MacIntyre, ducked behind the kitchen island.
“Don’t move,” Marco said to Thorn and Cam. “Or your girlfriend gets it.”
They both froze and sent her stares that reached out to embrace her they way they clearly wanted to with their arms. They loved her. Cam had said it. Thorn hadn’t, but his face shouted that fact now.
It gave her hope, strength. They’d endure whatever. Somehow.
“Come here,” Marco said to her father.
Curtis looked scared out of his mind as he put one foot in front of the other, toward her and the criminal.
Brenna saw Thorn cut a glance to Cam, who gave a barely perceptible nod. They were planning something. No. Oh, God. She didn’t want to die, but the thought of them being hurt…it was like ripping her apart from the inside out. Marco and his men hadn’t come here for her. She didn’t believe they really wanted to kill her. They wouldn’t hesitate if they had to, but she hoped that by stalling, it would give Cam’s peers enough time to figure this out. If Cam and Thorn jumped in…
NO! she mouthed to them. Neither was paying attention.
Chapter Twelve
As one, Thorn leapt on Marco, slamming him back against the oven. Cam dove to the ground, grabbed his gun and popped off a shot, hitting Marco in the thigh. He grunted and cursed in her ear but his hold on her dissolved.
Cam grabbed her arm and threw her out of the fray, next to Curtis, who fumbled a gun in his shaking hands.
Marco’s henchman gave Cam a mighty shove. He fell back against the island, his back slamming into the counter. Thorn shot MacIntyre in the next moment, and turned to Marco, who already had his gun raised to Cameron, aiming right for his head. Brenna could hear a silent ticktock of milliseconds in her head. It was now…or bye-bye Cameron. She pushed him to the ground.
Which left the gun pointing directly at her.
Marco’s hand tightened on the weapon, and he shot her a cold smile. Shit, he was going to pull the trigger. It was there in his empty eyes.
With a roar, Curtis leapt to put his body between her and Marco. She screamed as Cam launched himself at Marco, whose body slammed back against the oven again.
Despite that, he still managed to squeeze the trigger.
A moment later, Brenna fell to the floor under her father’s weight. Her head hit the kitchen island, and pain exploded at the back of her skull. She closed her eyes against the rush of agony.
Pounding footsteps made her open them again. Marco turned to run, hobbling due to his gunshot wound, but he still made it to the front door. Cam gave chase.
“Stop, asshole!”
Marco just kept running, right past large bushes on either side of the door. As soon as Marco ran past them, a pair of cops concealed in those bushes jumped the criminal from behind, disarmed him with a knee in his back and a fist in his hair. They read
him his rights.
Brenna groaned, trembled and turned to her father, to thank him for saving her.
He lay on top of her in a heap, motionless. There was a little red hole right between his wide open eyes.
She screamed and scrambled back in utter shock. He slithered off her, still.
Brenna had come to Arizona for closure with her relationship with her father, but not like this. When she’d boarded the plane, she’d never imagined it would end in his death.
Suddenly, Thorn was there, raising her to her feet, curling her body into his, turning her gaze into his shoulder and away from Curtis’ sightless eyes.
“I’m sorry, baby. So sorry.”
Dead, dead, dead… The word was a chant in her brain. And she knew it would hit her at some point that he father was no more. But right now, shock and a gladness that Thorn and Cam were both okay filled her.
She couldn’t feel her legs. Dizziness assailed her. Her head throbbed mercilessly. The edges of her vision started to close in. Then…nothing.
* * * * *
Brenna awoke to sterile smells that assaulted her nostrils. She hadn’t died, right? Death couldn’t smell this chemically clean…
Her head ached as if someone had been using it as a drum at a heavy metal concert. She was lying on something soft. But she was definitely alive. Thanks to Curtis.
Memories assaulted her—good and bad. Julio Marco arrested…her father dead. It saddened her that they’d never had a real father-daughter relationship. But he’d made choices—to be a criminal, to get involved with Marco, to jump in front of the bullet. He’d cared enough about her to give his life so that she could live. That in itself confirmed that, in his way, he’d cared.
A moment later, the sensation that someone was staring besieged her.
Gingerly, she opened her eyes to a semidark room, thank God. Moonlight poured in through a little window. The ceiling was sterile white.
But the two concerned faces above her made her heart lurch with relief.
“You’re here…”
Cameron grabbed her hand. “We wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Thorn caressed her cheek. “We haven’t left your side for the last four hours, despite some pissed-off cops.”
Brenna lifted her head a fraction and glanced past them to see two uniforms guarding the door, wearing identical glowers.
“They have questions.”
“Yes, but we didn’t want you to wake up alone.” Cameron kissed her cheek.
Thorn brushed his mouth over her lips softly. “You’ll be okay if we answer the police now?”
She nodded.
“The doctor wants to see you anyway,” Cam noted then backed away from the bed. “I’m sorry about your father.”
“Me too,” Thorn nodded. “I didn’t love the guy, but…”
“I know. You tried. I thank you for it.” She squeezed his hand.
A brisk forty-something woman in a white coat came in and shooed her men away. She did a quick exam, and asked a few questions before giving her a clean bill of health.
She rose from the bed gingerly. Two seconds after donning her clothes, the uniformed officers descended on her, asking a bevy of questions. But it didn’t take long. Evidently, her story corroborated Cam and Thorn’s. Marco and his surviving goon were behind bars. Between Marco and his lackey, along with the sworn statements her father had already given, the police had managed to conduct a raid of Marco’s secret properties and discovered dozens of illegal immigrants working against their will.
When Cam and Thorn returned to her draped-off corner of the emergency room to help her gather her things, they assured her that Marco would be going away to the big house for a long time.
It wouldn’t save her father. He was gone, and she hoped that he could find the peace in death that he’d never found in life. She might never know what demons drove him to badness, but she understood now that he could never be hurt again and that he hadn’t rejected her as much as he’d tried to protect her from the black life he’d built.
“What about your house?” Brenna asked Cam. “Marco and his guys trashed it.”
“My buddies already did the cleanup on aisle five. New glass will be delivered tomorrow. Why don’t you come see for yourself?”
Brenna cocked her head at his eager yet anxious expression. Did he fear she’d say no?
“I’d love to.”
Cam brushed his lips over hers. “Good, as long as you’re there, maybe I could persuade you to stay a while.”
She tamped down an excited smile. “How long is a while?”
He shrugged. “Fifty years. To start.”
Casting her shocked glance Thorn’s way, he looked tense too. Did he also want her to stay and was worried she wouldn’t? What was up with these two?
“What about him?”
“I’m in,” Thorn replied. “We’ve discussed it.”
“So you’ve mapped out my whole future?”
Put that way, they both had the grace to look sheepish.
“Well,” Cam began, “we had a thought. But we’d love to hear yours.”
“Okay. Why don’t I come stay for a few weeks with you two, and we’ll see how it goes.”
Thorn gritted his teeth and cursed. “That plan sucks.”
Brenna sashayed closer to them, stopping between them to glance at one, then the other. Talk about unexpected… “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“A hell of a lot more than a vacation fling,” Thorn groused. “We want you to move here. We want to make things permanent. I love you. God, I’ve never said that to anyone in my life,” Thorn said in one breath. “Scarier than shit. But it’s true. I care about you both. I’ve never had a personal life that meant more than a cheap fuck. You and Cam mean…everything.”
Thorn wasn’t great with words but sincerity ruled his face. It was impossible not to believe him.
Impossible not to be celebrating inside.
“Let me hear this plan you two cooked up.”
Thorn opened his mouth but Cam cut him off. “We thought maybe you could move in with me. Us. Thorn will give up his trailer.”
“Lars can have the piece of shit.”
Cam sent him a glare, then turned back to her with an expression so placating, it was comical. “Then we hoped you would marry me.”
She blinked once. Twice. Marriage? She’d known them less than thirty-six hours.
Yet she didn’t doubt the fact she loved them both. They loved her and each other. Conventional, no. But no one’s business. If she was happy with them, to hell with everyone else’s opinion.