by Lisa Childs
Would she care if she lost Gage? She hadn’t last time. Or she wouldn’t have been in this church—about to marry another man.
Gage had to remind himself of that. While he loved her, she had never really loved him. She’d said so herself.
Chapter 19
“Gage!” Megan shouted his name. She wanted to hurl obscenities at him, tell him that she hated him for tricking her.
For tying her up.
For shoving her in a closet.
But no matter what he’d done, she would never be able to hate Gage Huxton. She loved him too much.
And still she’d failed to tell him that. She’d apologized for doubting him. But she hadn’t owned up to her lie. She hadn’t admitted the truth. That she had loved him with all her heart. That she loved him still, even as much as he infuriated her.
Anger coursing through her, she struggled against the zip tie, wincing as the plastic cut her skin. Maybe she could rub it against something. Her wrists bound behind her back, she ran her hands over the glass case, trying to find a sharp edge. She couldn’t feel one, but maybe she could find a way to break the glass.
She turned. But in the tight space, her bodice scraped against the glass. The rhinestones scratched the surface, etching deep, so deeply that the glass cracked and then fell to the floor at her feet. It narrowly missed her polished toes peeping out of the front of her white satin pumps.
A gasp of surprise slipped through her lips. How the hell had that happened?
Then realization dawned. She remembered how Andrea had looked at that dress. She must have realized what Megan just had. Those bits of sparkle weren’t rhinestones.
She wasn’t the one they were really after. It was the damn dress. And all this time her father and Gage had been blaming themselves. She had seen the guilt on their faces. There had also been tension between them, so they’d probably been blaming each other as well.
But this whole thing had had nothing to do with them. They weren’t responsible for the danger she was in—and that everyone in the church was now in.
She was. She had made a horrible mistake. And if something happened to either of the men she loved, or to anyone else, she would never forgive herself.
* * *
Nikki strained, but she was only able to catch bits and pieces of Andrea and D’s intense conversation. But she saw the way they kept looking at Richard and she filled in the blanks.
“It’s you,” she said. “You’re the reason they’re here.”
He shook his head, and some of his sweat spattered onto the marble floor. Like the young agent’s blood had spattered the white runner.
Was he dead? Had a man died because of Richard?
“I thought you were just some computer nerd,” she mused. She was a computer nerd, too. While Logan had refused to let her do field bodyguard work, he’d put her in charge of the Payne Protection Agency’s internet security. She didn’t just protect their systems, though. She’d learned to hack everyone else’s. Hacking was far more dangerous than her brothers knew. “What the hell did you do?”
“Nothing,” he said. But his face flashed with the lie, and his beady little eyes glanced away from her.
“You did something,” she said. “You know who these people are.”
She saw it in their faces now, the recognition. They knew him. She wanted to know him, too. She doubted he was who he’d claimed, because, as protective as Woodrow Lynch was, he would have checked out his baby girl’s fiancé. Just like her brothers would have checked out anyone she dated, if she’d ever really dated.
“Who are you really?” she asked. She deserved to know the real identity of the man who was probably going to get her killed.
He shook his head and spattered more sweat.
A droplet landed on her cheek, and she grimaced, repulsed. Better sweat than tears.
“I’m not that man anymore,” he said. “He’s dead.”
“He should have been,” D said as he joined them, his gun pointed at Richard’s face. “How the hell did a little wuss like you survive what I did to you?”
Richard sat up straighter, and it was as if his shoulders widened. As if he grew...
It had all been an act—the cowering, the slouching...
“You made the mistake of thinking just because I’m smart I’m not tough, too,” Richard said.
If she hadn’t wanted to kill him herself, Nikki could have commiserated with the guy. She’d battled the same prejudice.
“Oh, I’m not sure how smart you are,” D said. “Putting that engagement notice in the newspaper was one hell of a mistake.”
Richard stroked his fingers along his jaw. “Really. You recognized me?” He glanced beyond D—at Andrea, whose face paled.
Something was going on, something more than even D realized.
“The plastic surgeon fixed the scars,” D said. “But he didn’t change you enough that I wouldn’t know you when I saw you again.”
Richard sighed. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” D agreed. “Not after you left that footage on the security camera so I’d be caught.”
A smirk spread across Richard’s face. “I see you learned to cover up your tattoos now. Not too smart to have such identifiable ones, at least not in your business.”
“What is your business?” Nikki asked.
“None of yours,” Andrea answered for them. “Come on D,” she said. “Let’s get out of here. The cops will be coming soon.”
“Yeah, because of that shot you fired,” he said, and he stared at her with suspicion. “You did that because you want the cops to come. You want me to go back to prison.”
“Of course not!” she said. “Why would I have broken you out if that was what I wanted?”
Nikki suspected Andrea was one of those women who didn’t know what she wanted beyond attention. And she didn’t particularly care what man gave it to her as long as she got it. She snorted in derision.
Andrea ignored her. But D glanced down at her. “What?”
“The police are the least of your worries right now,” she said. “Those landscapers, the ones your guy said look all alike?”
D nodded. “What about them?”
“They’re my brothers.”
Andrea laughed now. “That’s cute. You think your big brothers can come save you.”
“I know they will,” she said. “They’ll save us all and send you two either to prison or to the morgue.” She offered a pitying sigh.
Andrea laughed again, albeit nervously.
“Who are they?” D asked. “FBI?”
“One of them was,” Nikki replied. “Nick worked for the father of the bride. He’s the FBI agent who cleaned up the corruption in River City. My brother Cooper was a Marine. The twins were cops. Now they’re all bodyguards with the Payne Protection Agency.”
D flinched as he recognized the name. Even in prison he must have heard about them. Her brothers had sent a lot of criminals to join him behind bars.
“But they’re the least of your concerns,” she said. “Gage Huxton is the one you should fear.”
“Gage?”
“The blond guy,” she said.
He glanced around as if he expected Gage to pop up out of a pew. “Rambo?” He smirked as he repeated it.
Nikki laughed. “Yeah, he’s a former FBI agent, former Marine and now he’s a bodyguard. And trust me, protecting the bride is the assignment he takes more seriously than any of his other ones.”
D shuddered as if he’d seen a ghost or feared he was about to become one.
“We need to get out of here,” Andrea implored him again.
He shook her off his arm. “I’m not leaving him alive,” he said as he shoved his gun against Richard’s head. “And I’m not leaving without the diamonds.”
It was going down now. Nikki moved her hand, shoving it beneath the skirt of her dress. But before she could reach her holster, D grabbed her arm. “You’re a bodygua
rd, too,” he said. “Just like your brothers. That’s why you switched places with the bride—to protect her.” He turned his gun on her now. “So who’s going to protect you?”
She lifted her knee, ramming it into his groin and dropped him to his knees. She heard other guns cock and she ducked, bracing herself for the flurry of gunfire. It came—from everywhere. The balcony, the vestibule.
It was like a war, with shots going everywhere. Before she could reach for her gun, someone was grabbing her, dragging her behind the altar toward the groom’s dressing room. Nikki didn’t dare lift her head.
She knew she wasn’t being rescued. She was being taken hostage and used as a human shield against all those flying bullets.
Help had finally arrived—for everyone else. It would do no good for Nikki.
* * *
Gunfire exploded around him with blasts of light and sound, Gage waited for the paralysis that had gripped him before. Any time he’d been in a gun battle since his escape, he’d frozen, reeling with flashbacks to those other battles lost.
But he moved now, his instincts guiding him like they had for his escape. He aimed and squeezed, taking down the gunmen guarding the doors to the vestibule. Then he turned toward the outside doors just as they opened and fired on the two guys who’d begun to rush inside. They never made it through the doors, which closed on them, leaving them outside—wounded or worse.
As the guy standing near the altar advanced down the aisle, firing on them, Gage shoved Woodrow aside and fired back. The guy dropped, but maybe he’d just fallen over the body lying on the runner. Gage advanced slowly, cautiously, his barrel pointed directly at the man’s head.
D was lying on that runner, blood pooling beneath him. It turned the white fabric a dark crimson and ran across the marble tiles, too. Gage had hit him. Hell, he must have struck an artery. He dropped to his knees beside him. But there was no saving him.
“I’m dying,” D said with an eerily calm acceptance.
Gage nodded. “Yes, you are. Help’s coming...” After all the shooting, the police were certain to arrive.
“I’ll be dead before they get inside.” There were more men outside, more men fighting. Gage could hear the gunfire. He waited to flash back again, especially when he stared down at the dying man. He waited to see the faces of other men, of fellow Marines he hadn’t been able to save, of enemies he’d had to kill in order to survive. But he saw only the man who lay before him.
“I think I knew you’d do it,” D said. “The first time I saw you. I think I knew that if anyone was going to take me out, it would be you...”
“Am I the reason you’re here?” Gage asked.
The guy shook his head, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “No.”
“Woodrow?”
“Who?”
“Are you here because of me?” Woodrow asked as he leaned over the dying man, too.
Derek shook his head again, and more blood gurgled out of his mouth.
“Then what do you want?” Woodrow asked. “Why did you put my daughter in danger?”
D’s thin lips curved into a slight smile, and he remarked, “You have no idea who the real danger is...”
“So Megan’s still in danger?” Gage asked, his heart beating in his throat. He was more nervous now than when he’d been in the gunfight.
Now D nodded, or he tried. He only moved his head slightly before the last of his life slipped away.
He was a horrible man. Gage knew that. But he felt a pang of regret that he’d killed him. Now he might never know the real reason they’d taken the church hostage. All he knew was that Megan was still in danger.
And despite their best efforts, the church wasn’t secure yet.
He turned toward his former boss and mentor. He could stay and help him. Or...
Woodrow read his look and urged him, “Go. Get Megan out of here.”
That was what he wanted, what his instincts were screaming at him to do.
“But we don’t know if there was any truth to what he said.”
Woodrow nodded in agreement. “We can’t trust him. But we can’t trust anyone.”
No, they couldn’t. Gage straightened up. He would go. He would make certain that Megan got to safety this time.
But would she trust him? Would she leave with him this time? Or was she already gone? Sure, he’d tied her up. But he knew about the games Woodrow had taught her and her sister when they were kids.
He knew she knew how to escape being tied up. Had she freed herself from the bookcase? If she had, she might do something stupid. She might trust someone she shouldn’t.
He had to get to her—before anyone else did.
Chapter 20
“She’s gone.” Penny’s heart sank as she realized Nikki was nowhere in the chapel. No matter how many times she kept peering around the pews for her, she could catch no sight of her beautiful girl.
Some people cowered in the pews, weeping with fear or maybe relief now if they realized they’d been rescued. Penny knew she wouldn’t find Nikki cowering or crying. Even as a child Nikki had rarely cried. She probably hadn’t wanted to betray any weakness in front of her older brothers.
Penny turned back to Woodrow where he crouched beside the two men lying in the aisle of her church. She didn’t really want to look at them, to know that they were gone. That Nikki might have gone that way, too.
When Woodrow met her gaze, she let her resentment spill over in a glare. If he hadn’t insisted that she wait in the vestibule until the shooting was over, she might have seen what had happened to her daughter.
“Maybe she ran out,” Woodrow suggested.
Other guests had run out during the shooting. But Penny knew her youngest. She was every bit as stubborn as her brothers—maybe even more so. Nikki wouldn’t have run away from danger. She would have run straight into it. Her foolish girl knew no fear.
Penny shook her head. “No, there’s no way she would have run away.”
“Then she has to be here,” Woodrow said, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. His blue eyes held such concern—and something else.
Unable to hold his gaze and acknowledge his feelings and maybe her own, Penny looked down. Then she shuddered at the sight of those bodies lying in the church aisle. She recognized D, the gunman who’d died as violently as she suspected he had lived.
“Who is he?” she asked about the young wedding guest. He had been sitting on the bride’s side.
Woodrow uttered a ragged sigh. “He worked for me,” he admitted. “But he shouldn’t have. He had no business being an agent.”
Tears stung Penny’s eyes over the loss of such a young life. She suspected he’d been trying to impress Woodrow when he’d drawn his gun. Instead of getting praise, he’d taken a bullet. Or two. He hadn’t died in the recent gunfire, because someone had already tried to treat his injuries.
Nikki...
Somehow Penny just knew that Nikki had pressed the jacket against the wound and bound it with the belt. She wouldn’t have been able to not help unless she’d been too injured to help herself. Then she might be where Penny couldn’t see her.
Penny stepped over the bodies on the bloody runner and hurried down the aisle toward the front. There was no blood near the altar. No bride or groom, either.
Richard was gone, too. But she cared less about him than about Nikki. There was something about him...something that had made her uneasy. She’d known Megan shouldn’t marry him. But she’d thought that was just because Megan’s heart belonged to another man.
Woodrow had followed her, and he peered around too. “I don’t see the woman.”
“Andrea.” She’d left her husband to face the gun battle alone? Left him to die alone? “Doesn’t anyone honor their commitments anymore?” she murmured.
“No,” Woodrow said. “But maybe he told her to leave. Maybe he wanted to protect her.” Like Woodrow had tried to protect her.
Penny snorted. “A woman like her doesn’t need
protection. People need to be protected from her, especially Megan.” The woman had been insistent that the fake waiter deliver the real bride to her. Maybe she’d gone downstairs to get her herself.
Woodrow nodded in agreement. “Gage went down to make sure Megan is safe,” he admitted.
She knew. Gage had passed her as he’d been leaving the chapel and she’d been entering. He’d barely spared her a glance he’d been so anxious to get back downstairs. But he’d looked pale—haunted.
“Was it Gage?” she asked as she gestured back at the gunman lying in the aisle as well as the two in the vestibule.
Woodrow nodded. “I understand now how he survived those six months. He’s almost superhuman.”
Nikki wasn’t superhuman. She was just a very petite girl. Would she survive?
“Where is she?” Penny murmured, tears of frustration stinging her eyes. In the distance sirens wailed. Help was coming. But would it be too late?
Then something else wailed, closer than those distant sirens. Someone else, actually—it was a woman screaming. Penny wasn’t certain that it was Nikki. She had never heard her daughter scream before. Every maternal instinct in her reacted, and she ran toward that scream.
* * *
The scream struck Woodrow like a blow to his heart. He wasn’t sure if it was his daughter or Penny’s who’d cried out in such fear. But he didn’t care.
He ran toward that scream. Fortunately, his legs were longer than Penny’s, and he passed her before she could burst through the closed door of the groom’s dressing room.
He didn’t want her getting hurt by what was happening or what she might see. She was already upset over the bodies of the strangers lying in the aisle of her beautiful little chapel. She didn’t need to see her daughter if Nikki had been hurt.
Or worse.
Now more shots rang out again, echoing inside the church. Those people who’d stayed behind ran now, stumbling in their haste to escape. Falling over those dead bodies. But they had no reason to be fearful. The gunfire and the screaming emanated from the groom’s dressing room.