The Protector

by HelenKay Dimon

  “You were in the way. I mean, going through the files at the house? What the fuck was that? Steven and his son were estranged for years but suddenly they were working together? Even I started to buy Liza’s birthright theory.” Roger slipped his gun out. He held it, didn’t wave it. Didn’t aim it either. But it was in his hand and he knew how to use it. “I couldn’t have you finding something or have Shauna’s death trace back to me.”

  “You burned the house down.”

  “You’re damn right I did.”

  He stared at her and this time she saw it—dead eyes.

  Trevor insisted they grab Vincent and drag him along. That turned out to be a good plan because the one other person who might get Roger to open the weapons room was Vincent. He didn’t have an updated keycard, because Roger didn’t share those, but he had an older one and Trevor was convinced he could make it work.

  As far as a security system went, Damon wasn’t impressed. But his father did have the entire Sullivan computer team working with Trevor on opening the door. Most of them from a remote location, which meant getting around Roger’s vault. The brothers ran it, handled it and apparently treated it as their personal property.

  And Damon had to get in there. He’d claw his way in if he had to.

  “I’m telling you he wouldn’t hurt Shauna or Cate. This is a mistake,” Vincent said for the third time.

  They stood twenty feet from the vault. They could probably stand in front of it and shout. It was supposed to produce a soundproof seal when closed. He planned on asking his father why something like that would ever be needed. Maybe it would open his eyes to the overuse of guns here.

  Trevor had Vincent pushed against the wall. He held out his hand. “Give me the keycard.”

  “I don’t—”

  Enough of this shit. “I’m not playing, Vincent.” The guys were a minute away from having a knock-down fight. Adrenaline soared through Damon. He’d be happy to burn off the excess right now.

  “He has killed before,” Trevor pointed out.

  Vincent shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. Fourteen years ago was a mistake. He’s not really a killer.”

  At that moment Damon felt raw and lean. Like he could take anyone. He could survive being accused and confined. And he would if that’s what it took to end this.

  “You think I won’t go to prison again?” Damon shoved Vincent against the wall and held him there with a hand on his chest. “See, she’s one of the only people I would lose everything for.”

  Pain and desperation mixed in Vincent’s eyes. He didn’t try to struggle out of Damon’s hold but his pleading voice suggested every second of this confrontation was killing him. “He wasn’t with Shauna when she fell. He promised me.”

  That’s what this was about. The brothers being attracted to the same woman. Damon had no idea if she returned either of their feelings but the hurt in Vincent’s voice struck Damon as real. “He was with her.”

  “Vincent, you might want to be prepared for the fact your brother has lied to you,” Trevor said.

  He had cleared out the area with Steven’s help. Makeshift guards were posted around the area. No one could get back there, near the weapons, except them. And for that part to even happen, Roger had to open the door or they had to force their way in. Damon hated both options.

  After standing and listening, Vincent clearly had enough. He shrugged out of the hold and stepped away from the wall. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “When it comes to Shauna, they do.” Liza put a hand on Vincent’s arm. “Roger told me himself.”

  “Enough strolling down Memory Lane.” They would never convince him of his brother’s betrayal, if that’s what the relationship even was. Damon didn’t know and didn’t care. He needed to get on the other side of this door, to see Cate and know she was okay.

  Then he might beat the crap out of Roger.

  Trevor walked over with an electronic gadget. It looked like a small box, less than half the size of a laptop, and a card. He insisted he could get the right code with this. Steven’s computer guys backed him up. That was all fine but there were a lot of weapons in the vault. Going in might mean being wildly outgunned.

  Just as Trevor stuck the card in the security panel outside the main door to the building, Vincent piped up again. “Please don’t hurt him.”

  The desperate plea chipped away at Damon’s determination not to think about anyone but Cate and getting her to safety for the next few minutes.

  But then Trevor’s device found one of the numbers and clicked it in. “I’m not promising that.”

  “She was my sister, Roger.” Cate read somewhere that it helped to make a connection with an attacker. Try to get the person to talk, see you as human. It sounded like nonsense to her but she didn’t have many options.

  “We went out.” He sighed. “Vincent thought he liked her, but that wouldn’t have worked.”

  “Why?”

  “Come on. Him with Shauna?” Roger started walking again. He stepped over to the wall of lights and fiddled with the one closest to him. It wasn’t as bright as the others and that seemed to upset him.

  She was about to try another tack when the door flew open. Damon and Trevor charged inside, guns up and ready. Roger scrambled to his feet. He dove for her but didn’t reach her and then tried to crawl the rest of the way.

  But Damon got there first.

  He moved in a blur and crashed right into her. She could hear him issuing orders and shouting. He landed half on top of her, half shielding her as he fired. Roger and Damon were so close that she waited to feel the dreaded thud of his body as bullets plowed into him. But it never came.

  For a few seconds, bullets pinged around her. Damon’s weight pushed against her, shoving her harder against the wall, covering her body with his. She knew that he was sacrificing himself, and that had her moving.

  She shifted and flailed and tried to cover him like he was covering her. But when the shooting stopped Roger sat against the wall. He looked as if he were pinned there as Trevor walked over and kicked his gun away.

  Heavy breathing lifted Roger’s chest and a small gurgle rose from his throat. She saw blood but not as much as she expected. Vincent fell to the floor next to him and Liza screamed. People flooded the room now. Cate didn’t recognize any of them.

  “Damon?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “You okay?”

  She wasn’t sure she’d ever be okay again. “No blood.”

  “What?” He flipped over and stared at her then. His gaze wandered over her, caressed her face without touching her.

  The most obvious question floated through her mind. “How did you not get shot?”

  “Trevor and I hit him at the same time.” Damon winced. “He didn’t stand a chance.”

  She watched as Trevor talked with the newest group of lethal-looking men to enter the room. It dawned on her that they must be Wren’s people. That was good, comforting in a way. But she wanted Damon. She expected him to hold her but he turned away as quickly as he looked at her.

  Medics shuffled past the carnage and men with guns. She felt someone put a coat over her shoulders. She hadn’t realized she was shaking to the point where her teeth clicked together until right then.

  When Damon got up and went over to Roger, part of her wanted to yell at him, tell him to go somewhere safe. The other part wanted to jump up and wrap her legs around his waist and let him carry her out of here.

  Roger’s head dropped to the side as the ambulance workers checked the wounds. He glanced at his brother. “Why are you here?”

  “Shauna.”

  The soft way Vincent said it broke her heart. It also sent a shot of guilt moving through her. She’d liked Roger at first but not Vincent. Now she knew how far off her radar was. She wondered if Shauna suffered from the same thing.

  “You threatened Cate. Stalked her. Tried to set fire to her and kidnapped her.” Damon nodded toward Liza, who was stan
ding by Roger with a guard watching over her now. “And your girlfriend here hit her at the water tower.”

  That made sense. Cate could see it now. The two of them in a relationship. The lies from the past getting in the way. Their ambition screwing things up. Then there was their general distrust of everyone.

  Vincent shook his head. “Roger, what the hell?”

  “We have invested so much in this place and in Steven,” Liza explained.

  “In me?”

  Cate didn’t even realize Steven was there until he started talking.

  “With your son gone, you needed an heir,” Liza said. “You needed people to step up and take over. To blow your vision up until it was this huge reality.”

  Trevor shook his head as he swung into the room. “I’m thinking that dream is gone. For good this time.”

  Cate couldn’t take much more of this. “But that’s not why Roger did all of this.”

  She saw the truth now. He might hide behind Liza’s determination and running Sullivan, but his real goal was to save his butt.

  “Easy,” Damon said as he helped her to her feet.

  That simple touch eased some of the tension racing through her. “All he wanted to do was cover up Shauna’s death. Did you come on too hard and she ran? Maybe she didn’t want to play your games that night and you chased her.”

  “She flirted.” The lightness in Roger’s voice made it sound like none of this mattered, as if he wasn’t talking about an actual person. “We were having fun and then she went stone cold without warning. I thought it was a game and then she tried to run and wouldn’t listen.”

  The color left Liza’s face. “Roger? That’s not what you told me.”

  “I grabbed her, thought it was some weird thing she was into. Like, she needed the chase.” He shook his head. “And the ladder was right there.”

  Cate could see every piece. She wondered if the day would ever come when the awful scene wouldn’t play in slow motion in her head. “You pushed her.”

  “She lost her footing.”

  Cate didn’t believe him, but she wasn’t even sure that the specifics mattered. Roger scared Shauna. He chased her and because of him she was dead. That’s the information he hid and fought so hard to protect. He or his overeager hands or inability to hear the word no set the whole thing in motion. And that meant Roger was at fault. Cate had her answer.

  She closed her eyes and let her sister’s name echo in her head.

  “It was a sick game to him.” Damon wrapped his arm around her. “I’m sorry, Cate.”

  For a second, nothing else mattered. In a room filled with chaos and people, she hung on to him. Pretended no one else stood there and there wasn’t blood on her shoes. She held on for all that happened today and in the past. Mostly, she buried her face in that sexy spot between his neck and shoulder because it was her favorite place in the world.

  When his hold tightened around her shoulders she looked up. She didn’t expect to see Steven standing nearby, but he was. His mouth had pulled into a flat line. Somehow, he’d aged ten years in the last few hours. Pale and drawn, sad and, for the first time since she met him, defeated.

  This might have been the thing that ended it all. His assistant and longtime member locked in a criminal enterprise to hide a murder and slowly take his business. There was only so much a human could take and she truly wondered if he’d reached his limit.

  “Thank you.” Damon held out his hand. “For what you did for Cate.”

  Steven nodded his head as he shook his son’s hand. “I didn’t know about any of this. Not about Shauna’s death or what Liza was planning.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  Cate bit back a sob. It was just the way he said. Real and honest. In a moment of clarity, he accepted his father’s word. She doubted that the peace would last, but they’d moved forward a small step, but still a step.

  Without another word, Steven walked away. He ignored Liza calling out his name. After a quick check on Roger, he helped Vincent off the floor and walked out the door with him.

  So much pain. A history full of it. She sighed, sinking in deeper against Damon.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered the words again, this time against her hair.

  She looked up at him. Saw the blood but knew most of it wasn’t his. She could see the small nick on his arm from a bullet. A wound like that would put her in the hospital but he didn’t even get a bandage. But that seemed to be his only injury, which was nothing short of a miracle. “Why are you apologizing?”

  “Because of Sullivan. Because of what happened here. Because I’m part of it even though I wish I weren’t.”

  It looked like she had one more battle to fight today.

  She turned until they faced each other and rested her hands on his hips. “Damon, I need you to hear me.”

  “About what?”

  “Your father isn’t evil. Willfully ignorant, purposely uninformed and emotionally vacant—yeah. All of those. I could list many more weaknesses but those are the obvious ones. He’s the guy who lets things happen and there should be blame for that. There’s a price he should pay.”

  He nodded. “Damn right.”

  He said the words but he still wasn’t getting her point. “Maybe he already paid it. He lost a son to disease. Lost his wife. Now he’s lost the only thing he had left.”

  “The school?” Damon shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll figure out a way to salvage his demented dream one more time.”

  She was going to have to spell it out. For a smart one he was missing big clues. Since he’d just survived a shoot-out, she didn’t make a big thing of it. But she didn’t ignore the point either. “You, Damon.”

  His head shot back. “He doesn’t care about that.”

  “You are smarter than this.” She planted a quick kiss on his mouth and had to hold firm when he tried to deepen it. “The trust is gone. The relationship shattered. If he had hope, he can’t have it now. Not after all of this. He likely feels that this time he lost you for good.”

  “You’re giving him too much credit.”

  People still moved in and out around them. The medic was trying to get Damon’s attention but he ignored it all. Everything but her. She loved the heat and intensity of that look, when he turned it full wattage on her.

  “He’s an empty shell. There is nothing inside him.” She flattened her hand against his chest. “Sometimes loss burns life out of people. Sometimes hatred.”

  Damon’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything.

  “When that happens, when there’s nothing left, the only thing to do is move on. Accept what can’t be and push forward.” And that was her life lesson for the day.

  She gave him one more kiss, letting this one linger a bit more, then pulled away. With one last look, she headed out of the claustrophobic part of the vault and into the sunshine.

  Chapter 27

  Damon had no idea what just happened. They were touching and kissing. She talked about his family. He heard every word but his focus was on her voice. Alive and sexy and even in the middle of a shoot-out that could have killed her, more concerned about his relationship with his dad.

  She was a hell of a woman.

  Trevor came up to stand next to him. The two of them watched Cate walk into the much larger weapons storage room. “She seems okay. Is it an act?”

  “I’m not sure.” Despite the relief, he felt numb. Without her next to him, seeing her wander around thanking the people who were there to help, made him long for something more.

  “She’s impressive. Shitty things happened to her, but she’s not alone.” Trevor slipped his hands into his front jeans pocket. “How are you doing?”

  “Not great.” He should be celebrating. They conquered the danger and got through it . . . and the hollowness in his stomach refused to budge.

  Then it hit him. She walked away from him.

  “Wait a second.” He didn’t mean to say the words out loud, but he did.

&nb
sp; “Where are you going?” Trevor asked.

  “To start a fight.”

  “I don’t know anything about dating women, but—”

  Neither did Damon but he vowed to learn.

  He caught up with her outside. “Hey, hold up,” Damon called out to her. When she ignored him or didn’t hear the first try, he yelled much louder the second.

  She turned around. “What’s wrong?”

  He was full-on pissed now. Not just annoyed or frustrated. She’d given him this big speech, and a good one, then tried to ride off into the sunset. No fucking way. “What the hell was that?”

  She looked at him like he’d grown a fifth head. “I don’t understand.”

  “That speech. The empty-inside thing. The shell.” He was shouting now. He knew because people were watching. Some of them not even being subtle about it. “Was that about me or my dad?”

  Trevor snuck up close and put his hand out for Damon to quiet down. “Uh, Damon.”

  He ignored his friend’s help and focused on Cate. “Are you dumping me?”

  Her eyebrow lifted. “Are we even together?”

  She had to be kidding. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  “That is not a real answer, Damon.” Her shouting matched his now. They stood in front of the hill, not moving while people shifted around them. Law enforcement or Wren’s people or someone moved out the weapons. People from Sullivan gathered to see what was going on. And Damon and Cate waited at the center of it all.

  “You don’t think I could have left at any time? Trevor was here.” Damon gestured toward his friend then toward the house. He’d pretty much lost control of the conversation and his body by this point. “He might look useless but he’s the one you want protecting your back. Wren wanted to pull me out. Garrett would have stepped in. I stayed for you.”

  She snorted at him. “Because I asked you to.”

  He was starting to hate that noise. “Because the idea of you being hurt, being in danger, made me sick.” He touched her then because it felt wrong not to. He cupped her cheek. Ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “Somewhere along the line, you being okay mattered more than me having to deal with all of this shit from my past.”