“I counted three exits when we got here. Front door, back door and that side door across the living room. Not to mention the windows.” Her fingers slipped over his arm as though the mere contact with him could steady the frantic tone in her voice. She studied the wide expanse of open field between the house and the tree line to the west. “They can’t cover them all. We could get to those trees without them knowing we left the house. Make a run for it.”
“I’m not taking the chance they didn’t come alone.” His gaze dipped to the slight bulge along her lower abdominals. The stakes were too high. Dropping the magazine out of his weapon, he counted three rounds left after the shoot-out at the cabin and slammed it back into place. He’d left his extra ammunition in his SUV back at her aunt’s cabin, and the rounds Raleigh had buried in backpacks all over that forest didn’t fit his weapon. Damn it. There were too many windows in this place, too many sight lines and not enough bullets to keep Raleigh safe. For all they knew, whoever’d stolen that money from Mothers Come First could’ve contracted the job to tie up loose ends out to a professional. “Get behind me and stay there. Anything happens, use me as a shield.”
She did as he asked, the spot where her fingers had held on to him still warm. Her exhalation brushed against the back of his neck as she lowered her voice. “Please tell me you have a plan to get us out of here.”
“The previous owner had a car in the garage when we seized the property.” Beckett scanned the property through the wall of windows on the other side of the house, heart in his throat. He slid his phone from his pocket and handed it to her. “I’m going to get you to it. Then I want you to get as far from here as you can. Lie low until I can come for you. Understand? If I don’t make it out, don’t come back here.”
“I told you,” she said. “I’m not leaving you here to fight alone.”
“You’re pregnant with my baby, Raleigh. I think I’m entitled to put your safety first—” Movement caught his attention from one of the windows. Beckett twisted around and lunged, colliding with her. “Get down!”
They hit the floor hard as another bullet ripped past overhead. Adrenaline dumped into his veins, and the pain in his shoulder dimmed. Hauling her into his chest with his uninjured arm, he got them both to their feet and pulled her into the hallway for cover. He raised the gun and took aim around the smooth corner of the wall, firing once. Twice. Glass shattered onto the hardwood floor, but Beckett wasn’t going to stick around to see if he’d hit the target. Raleigh was the priority. Getting her to that vehicle was the priority. “Go!”
Light gray walls and unfamiliar artwork blurred in his vision as they raced past the small home office and bedrooms branching off the hallway. Blood trickled along the inside of his arm, coating his palm. Wouldn’t take long for the shooter to figure out where they’d gone. All they had to do was follow the trail Beckett was leaving behind, but he’d be waiting for them. One bullet. That was all it would take to keep Raleigh safe.
She wrenched the garage door open and disappeared inside mere steps ahead of him.
Darkness enveloped them as Beckett charged through the door. He couldn’t see a damn thing with the automatic lights out of commission. Raleigh’s heavy breathing cut through his senses, and he reached out for her. Soft, damp hair slipped through his hand, triggering his heart rate to slow slightly. They made their way to the front of the garage. The faster he got her away from here, the sooner she’d be safe. That was all that mattered. “We’ll have to open the door manually.”
“We’ll be giving up our position if we do that,” she said. “We can still make it to the trees.”
His heart beat hard behind his ears, but through that dull sound gravel crunched beneath heavy footsteps outside the garage door. Her outline took shape beside him as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. Beckett pulled her flat against him and lowered his mouth to her ear. “They already know we’re here.”
And seeing as how the shooter had tracked them here so quickly, it looked like they weren’t going to stop until they got what they’d come for. Raleigh.
He shifted his weight between both feet, tension tightening the tendons between his neck and shoulders. Pain slithered across his back and down his left arm as he held on to her. “Get in the car. Last time I checked, the keys were in the middle console. The second I get that door open, I want you to floor it as hard as you can.” He felt more than saw the hesitation in the hardness of the muscles along her arm. “You went into hiding to protect our baby. I’m going to need you to do that again. Promise me you’ll get as far from here as possible.”
She nodded. “I promise.”
The sound of footsteps died. One second. Two. Raleigh slipped into the luxury car and started the ignition as Beckett reached for the small red manual release attached to the garage door. The moment he opened this door, they’d be exposed. Vulnerable. Fumes built inside the enclosed space and burned down his throat, but he wasn’t going to make the first move. He adjusted his grip on the gun. He had one shot left. What was their attacker waiting for?
Gunfire tore through the metal door, white streaks of light piercing through the small holes. A click registered. The shooter was reloading. Beckett pulled the release, and the garage flooded with sunlight as the door shot up the track. “Now!”
The car shot backward, barely missing the single masked shooter dressed in head-to-toe black, and spun around toward the dirt road leaving the property. The shooter had reloaded and took aim at the car, but Beckett was already running. He collided with a wall of lean muscle, the bullet in his shoulder screaming in protest. The shooter’s weapon slid into the dirt, out of reach, as Beckett fought for control. Sunlight glinted off metal as he shoved to his feet. He dodged the first swing of the assailant’s blade, then the second. He struck out, bone meeting flesh, and the suspect stumbled back. The shooter raised his weapon to take the final shot. Raleigh had almost made it to the fence, but the car was crawling to a stop. No. No, no, no, no. She had to keep going. She had to get out of here.
His opponent recovered fast. Charging with the knife in one hand, his attacker went for the soft tissue in Beckett’s gut. He managed to dodge the fatal strike to his organs, but Beckett wasn’t fast enough to block the next move with his injured shoulder.
The blade sank deep into his right thigh. A scream lodged in his throat as the shooter hit him in the left kidney, then the right, and his gun discharged. Lightning struck behind his eyes a split second before he hit the ground. The bastard followed through with a kick to his ribs. The sickening crunch of bone crushed the air from his lungs. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He strained to get a visual on the car. On Raleigh.
Fire engulfed the sky.
The explosion rocked through him, a wall of dust fleeing in the wake of red-and-orange flames shooting into the air, and his entire world shattered. “Raleigh!”
Grip on the knife in Beckett’s leg, the shooter stood above him and pulled the weapon free. Then wiped it clean with one sleeve. “None of this would’ve had to happen, Marshal Foster, if Raleigh would’ve just taken the fall like she was supposed to.”
Not a man’s voice. Who the hell had come after…? Beckett struggled to hang on to consciousness, but he’d lost too much blood. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, and he fell into blackness.
* * *
TWIGS AND THORNS tore at her skin as Raleigh rolled into the bushes. Heat—so much heat—seared over her exposed skin. She raised her hand in front of her face to block the burn, but there was nothing left to see. Flames consumed the dry brush around her from the pile of twisted metal. The car had been wired to explode. If she hadn’t gotten out once she’d realized the electrical system was failing, she wouldn’t have escaped in time.
She pushed her hair out of her face, the crisp edges of dried leaves tickling her palms in the strands. She turned back toward the house. The shooter. They must’ve gotten to t
he vehicle before she and Beckett had. How? The house’s alarm system had been engaged before the power had gone off-line. Had they slipped inside before then or had they been waiting to make their move since Beckett had brought her here? She didn’t know. Didn’t care. She had to find Beckett, had to make sure he was okay.
Raleigh pushed to her feet and headed back toward the house. She’d made him a promise, but that’d been before her only means of escape had exploded. Now she had to go back. Breathtaking pain speared through her side as the adrenaline from the explosion drained. She tugged at the sweater she’d borrowed from the previous owner…and froze. Blood. A wave of dizziness flooded through her at the sight. A thin piece of jagged shrapnel, a quarter inch wide in some areas and a few inches long, protruded from her right side beneath the thick cables of yarn. She couldn’t risk infection spreading to the baby. She had to remove the shrapnel and clean the wound. Raleigh struggled to breathe evenly through the pain, to stay on her feet.
Whoever had stolen that money didn’t only want her dead. They were trying to destroy her completely. Who would do this to her? Who would risk shooting a US marshal for the chance of making sure she never uncovered the truth?
She scanned the dirt road leading back toward the house and stumbled forward. Shifting her sweater over the wound, she spit to counteract the dirt stuck to the inside of her mouth. There was a first-aid kit in the house. She remembered seeing it in the garage. “Beckett.”
Her throat burned as black smoke billowed into the sky and shadowed the ground in front of her. She forced one foot in front of the other until she reached the garage. No sign of Beckett or the… Her chest constricted. Drag marks carved into the dirt threatened to trip her as the weight of her upper body pulled her around the side of the house. Beckett. Crusted blood flaked in her palms from trying to slow his bleeding in the kitchen.
He had to be here. He had to be alive. She’d come back to her aunt’s cabin in desperation, but having him here these past eighteen hours had forced her to confront the demons she’d been hiding from her whole life. One kiss. That was all it’d taken to replace the pain, the loneliness and isolation with something she hadn’t felt in so long, hadn’t believed was meant for her—even for those brief seconds. He’d given her a glimpse of hope.
And she wasn’t leaving without him.
Dry dirt gave way to green grass as Raleigh followed the drag marks to the large barn across the property. Her legs threatened to collapse right from under her as she caught sight of one of the main doors partially slid back on its track. Hadn’t it been closed when they’d arrived? Pressing her back against the opposite door, she twisted her head to see inside, instincts on high alert. Ice slid through her as she caught sight of the body in the middle of the floor. “Beckett!”
Dried grass crunched under her boots as she rushed inside and dropped beside him. His chest rose and fell in shallow rhythms. He was alive, but unconscious. Her hands hovered above the bloody stain spreading across his shirt from where he’d been shot in the shoulder, the tubing she’d tied still in place, but now there was a second wound in his thigh. She had to stop the bleeding. Applying pressure on his thigh, she pressed her weight into him. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here. I’m here. Stay with me.”
Pulling the phone he’d given her from her back pocket with her free hand, she noted a mere glance of her reflection in the cracked glass. The phone must’ve been destroyed when she’d rolled from the car. She couldn’t call anybody. Tears burned in her eyes. She wasn’t trained for this. She wasn’t a doctor. Raleigh forced herself to take a deep breath. But neither of those things was going to stop her from trying to save his life. “Hold on a little bit longer. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Another reflection in the shattered glass hiked her pulse into dangerous territory, and Raleigh lunged to the side. The phone slipped from her hand as she turned to confront her attacker, but a hand fisted the hair at the side of her head and thrust her into the floor. The world tilted on its axis as black shoes slipped into her vision. Crouching beside her, the masked shooter—maybe the same one from the cabin, she didn’t know—gripped her chin in one hand. “I was hoping it didn’t have to come to this, Raleigh, but you wouldn’t follow the script we gave you. Like I told your marshal over there. None of this would’ve happened if you’d taken the fall for stealing the donations like you were supposed to.”
Recognition flared as brown eyes settled on her, and something inside Raleigh broke. She’d been right all along, but knowing who’d betrayed her didn’t make the truth any easier. The pain in her side intensified the deeper she breathed. “You can take the mask off, Emily. You, of all people, should have the guts to face me after what you’ve done.”
“You always were too smart for your own good. I told my employer we should’ve gotten rid of you as soon as you started looking into those transfers, but they’ve always had a soft spot for you. Don’t ask me why.” A gun materialized in Emily Cline’s hand as her former assistant pulled the thick ski mask over her head and tossed it a few feet away. Long black hair had been sleeked back in a low ponytail, accentuating the fullness of the woman’s nose and lips. The same smile her assistant had greeted her with every morning Raleigh had walked into her office tugged at the corners of her mouth. Emily ran her free hand over the frizzed hair trying to escape, the gun still aimed directly at Raleigh. Thick arched eyebrows drew together to form three small lines as her former assistant used the barrel of her weapon to move a piece of hair out of Raleigh’s face. “As far as I’m concerned, you were the perfect patsy, someone we could use and discard like so many others have done before. That’s why we targeted you, Raleigh. All those foster families, your aunt. Even the marshal over there. You weren’t good enough for any of them. Nothing you did could make them love you, and now you’ve outlived your use for us.”
The words carved through her, just as Emily had meant them to. Heat rushed into Raleigh’s face and neck, her heart rate spiking at the base of her throat. She diverted her gaze to the floor, not willing to let her attacker know exactly how deep she’d cut, but she couldn’t keep her attention from straying to Beckett lying there, bleeding on the ground.
The fact she’d been rejected—betrayed—by so many had made her an easy target to Emily and whoever else had framed her for stealing those donation funds, and her heart tightened in her chest. Because Emily was right. Nothing she’d done had made any of those families want to keep her, made her aunt love her, and despite the fact she and Beckett had been together for six months, in the end, he’d walked away from her, too.
If it’d been as easy as her getting arrested to tear them apart, then what they’d had… It hadn’t been real. At least, not for him, but that didn’t change the fact Beckett was her baby’s father, and she’d do whatever it took to make sure their daughter was loved by both of her parents as long as she could help it.
“From what it sounds like, you’re just a fixer, Emily. You’re not the brains behind the plan to embezzle from the foundation. You’re a pawn, like me. So who’s the one making the moves?” She dug the tips of her fingers into the barn floor, hay bending under her grip as Emily stared her down. Air pressurized in her lungs the longer her former assistant had the gun trained on her, but if there was a chance she could find out who Emily worked for—and stay alive in the process—she’d take it. She wasn’t going to die here. “Do you really believe you won’t outlive your use to whoever you’re working for when all of this is over? That they’ll protect you when the truth comes out?”
A low laugh escaped Emily’s throat as she shook her head and straightened. Lowering her voice, the shooter leaned in as though she were about to tell Raleigh a secret. “Everything that’s happened these past few months—the forged signatures on the transfers, the offshore accounts in your name and the shell companies—that was all me. My plan, my execution. Only now I wish I would’v
e killed you sooner. Would’ve saved me a whole hell of a lot of trouble.”
Emily aimed the gun at Raleigh’s chest, and every cell in Raleigh’s body screamed in warning. She couldn’t stop a bullet, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight either. Beckett was losing blood. Fast. Pressing her heels into the floor, she ignored the pain tearing through her side where the shrapnel shifted beneath her sweater and prepared to rush her former assistant as fast as she could.
Movement registered from behind the shooter, and she realized Beckett was conscious. She kept her gaze on Emily as he fought to get to his feet. Was he going to attack from behind? He’d already taken a bullet to the shoulder and what looked like a knife wound to his thigh. How much more blood could he lose before his body started shutting down? Her mouth dried. Desperation clawed up her throat. They had to get out of here, but without Emily in cuffs, the shooter would keep coming after them, and they wouldn’t have any proof to clear Raleigh’s name. Raleigh had to give Beckett a chance. Before Emily realized he’d gotten to his feet. “If you kill me, the secondary account you and your partner have been hiding from the FBI will be exposed.”
Emily kept her expression hard as stone aside from the slight downturn of one corner of her mouth. A piece of straw snapped under Beckett’s boot, and the shooter twisted around, finger on the trigger.
And fired.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“No!” Long dark hair and a flash of red against white blurred in front of him as Raleigh tackled the shooter to the ground. She was alive. The explosion… She must’ve gotten free of the blast, but now the shooter who’d tried to kill her was scrambling for the gun.
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