Bandit: A Bonnie and Clyde Romance (A Shot of Scott Book 1)

by Ada Scott

  Bang!

  Kendall

  Jace’s gun kicked back and I wasn’t able to completely halt its momentum before it struck me right in the middle of the forehead. I flinched at the impact and then held the gun out again as quick as I could, smelling a strange burning odor.

  The way things looked, the trigger on the gun might have been connected to time itself. Nobody was moving. Jace was still tied to the chair, head bowed, while mobsters in suits stood watching the impending execution with several of their colleagues dead on the floor.

  Even the one holding the gun to Jace’s head still stood there, still as a statue. The only difference was that I could see a red hole just behind his ear, and a spray of gore on the wall opposite.

  Holy shit! I shot somebody!

  All at once, things started moving again. The older man started to tumble as Jace brought his head up, eyes narrowed in concentration.

  The Mafia men started turning around, reaching inside their jackets, and I aimed at the closest one. Terror gripped me with every squeeze of the trigger, replacing the desperation with which I had pulled it the first time.

  The noise was terrifying and after the second shot, I sprayed bullets almost randomly, looking out at the chaos through squinted eyes. Men were diving and falling in every direction, some of them still oblivious as to what was happening.

  Jace leaned forward, standing to his feet with the seat still strapped to him, before throwing himself backwards to the ground and breaking the flimsy old chair into a million pieces. The last thing I saw was him struggling with ropes before my nerve broke and I stumbled to the side of the doorway, cutting off my view.

  To my ears, the noise in the other room was no quieter than inside that car with Jace when the Picollis attacked us with those machine guns. Gunfire, screaming, crashing, thumping. I clutched Jace’s gun, my lips pulled back in a petrified grimace as tears streamed down my cheeks.

  Through the doorway came a man with his hand clamped against his belly, on top of a dark red stain that was quickly spreading. Looking around in a daze, he soon spotted me.

  He tried to aim his gun in my direction, but raising his arm seemed to be causing him some incredible pain and it was slow going. I screamed, pointed my weapon and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  In quiet horror, I stared up at inevitability. I could almost see the line between the gun and where it was aiming, but there was nothing I could do about it. The floor, now my foot, now my knee…

  A blur of muscles and tattoos charged through the door, taking the Mafioso off his feet. He and Jace crashed to the ground with grunts of pain and whooshes of knocked out breaths.

  Jace was just beginning to scramble to a kneeling position when I heard a gunshot go off, and he slumped back down. Three more followed and then all was silent.

  The two of them went still. I heard myself make a strangled sound that would have meant “please, no!” in a time before language, as I dropped the gun and crawled over to them.

  With a trembling hand, I pulled on Jace’s shoulder, rocking him a little before getting a better grip and pulling harder. He was so heavy, but he unceremoniously rolled off the man below him on to his back.

  I saw his chest rising and falling as a red patch, similar to what the other man had come through the door with, spread over his shirt. He was alive, and the other guy was dead. I almost fainted in relief.

  “Please be OK, Jace, please!” I sobbed.

  “Not out of the woods yet,” he said softly. “Help me… to the window.”

  I pulled on his arm and he sat up, a warm gush of red flowing between his fingers when he did so. It was a thick enough flow to start a new wave of panic rising in me.

  Jace staggered to his feet and I draped his arm over my shoulder. He was leaning on me so heavily that I could barely shuffle one foot in front of the other, and when I looked up at his face I could see a cold sweat on his brow.

  He sank down next to the broken window and took a few deep breaths before turning his head and shouting out. Compared to how he looked, I couldn’t believe how strong he sounded.

  “You fuckwits still out there? I’ve got Santino! Anybody approaches the cabin and I’ll shoot his balls off. Step inside and he’s dead! Fuck off and we’ll negotiate for his life some other time!”

  “Fuck you, Barlow!” came the response. “Let him talk so we know he’s alive!”

  “Hold the line!” shouted Jace.

  Every word he spoke seemed to make more blood flow out of his belly and his skin took on a sick, clammy, appearance. He slumped lower against the wall.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” he whispered. “So close.”

  I knelt by him, cradling his head against my chest, dripping tears into his hair. My stomach was churning so much I thought I might throw up as I looked around the room in desperation. There was nothing to help us.

  “What do we do, Jace?”

  “You. Find another gun. Hide again. Don’t come out. Live.”

  Jace seemed to be deflating a little more with every breath, every word he spoke was weaker than the last. My stomach went from a swirling turmoil to a painful cramp that made me wince.

  “No! Please be OK! I love you, Jace, I love you! Please!”

  “I guess… you know now… why you have… to fight. Love you. Go.”

  “Shut up! Hide with me! Come on!”

  I tried to stand and lift Jace but, if he was heavy before, he was the proverbial immovable object now. Even when I tried to drag him, I could barely get him away from the wall.

  On the ground, I thought I heard Jace say something. It sounded like “What’s taking them so long?”

  As soon as he said it, I heard something in the distance but getting closer. Motorbikes. So many that the deep rumble was soon loud enough to feel under my feet.

  It sounded like an army was arriving.

  Kendall

  Months Later

  I turned side-on in the mirror and put my hand on my belly. Anybody else might not have known the difference but, in the last couple of days, I could see it.

  Growing inside me was the son or daughter of Jace Barlow. I was going to be a mommy.

  After all the death and destruction I’d witnessed, and even participated in, it was so incredibly uplifting to play a part in the creation of new life. A lump formed in my throat, and I blinked hard, wafting at my face with one hand. The last thing I wanted was to streak my make-up with tears. Not today.

  Regaining some measure of control of myself, I pressed two fingers against my lips and transferred the kiss to my stomach. Instead of crying, I spoke to my unborn child for the first time.

  “One time, in a cabin in the woods, I promised your daddy something. I’m going to promise you the same thing. I love you, baby. I’ll kill for you, and I’ll die for you. Nobody will ever hurt you while I breathe and have the courage to do anything about it. I love you so much.”

  A knock on the door made me look up, and my dad poked his head in.

  “It’s time, you’re fashionably late.”

  “OK.”

  I took a deep breath and pulled the veil down over my face, before picking up my bouquet and following my father out the door. My heart was fluttering and I had to fight back the tears of joy time and time again.

  I couldn’t believe it was already my wedding day. Part of me was still that girl trapped in Woodville, surprised anybody wanted to marry me at all, but this wasn’t just anybody, this was the greatest man I’d ever known.

  Jace had hired out The Plaza and spared no expense in preparing the venue for our special day. Waiting behind those giant wooden doors for the first notes of the song that had made billions of girls sigh dreamily was utterly surreal.

  Now, it was my turn. On the other side of those doors was the aisle. At the end of the aisle was a tall, handsome, muscular billionaire who was going to promise to love me and forsake all others forever.

  Afterwards, we’d celebrate with friends and famil
y, then our limo would drive off into the sunset along streets lined with a biker gang revving their engines. Officially, they were there to peacefully protest big business. In reality, Jace had paid a hefty sum and a fulfilled promise for added security along our route.

  Our private jet was going to take us somewhere that Jace had kept as a surprise, so I had no idea where my honeymoon was going to be, but the look in his eyes told me that this was one bride who was not going to get much sleep on her wedding night. I couldn’t wait.

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  Submission Specialist (Still a Bad Boy #2):

  Skylar

  I promised I’d save myself for my wedding night.

  Of course, I didn’t know it was going to be a fake marriage to a heavyweight MMA fighter. I couldn’t have known how good it would feel to be pinned under all those muscles and tattoos, squirming, panting, and even whimpering in ecstasy.

  None of us knew how deeply he was involved with the mafia.

  When he disrespects them, they think they can use me to punish him.

  They’re wrong.

  He’s a tank in human form.

  And he’s coming for me.

  Austin

  Men tap out inside the ring, women surrender themselves outside of it. That’s always been my specialty.

  I chose Skylar because she was so innocent. A good girl like her would help sell my reformed image to the public. To corrupt her and leave her ruined for all other men would be my hottest conquest yet.

  But I found more in Skylar than that. Who’d have thought that the first woman I wanted to lay more than once would be my wife?

  Now they think they can take away what is mine?

  Even if I have to kill every last member of the Bertolini Crime Family…

  I’m coming for her.

  The F King (Still a Bad Boy #3)

  Sarina

  I was always so focused on my career that I never had time for a relationship until it was my job to have one. I was supposed to "gain his trust," but I doubt they meant I should let him take me to bed.

  Instead of showing me where he gets his supply of F, he shows me what it's like to writhe in ecstasy as I scream his name. Instead of giving me the identity of the drug lord known as The F King, he gives me climax after climax.

  My world now revolves around him so much that I can't tell which life is a lie anymore. I was an undercover cop. What am I now?

  Ryan

  I thought Sarina might be a cop until I carried her into my bed and discovered she'd never been with a man before me. A cop wouldn't do that, and they damned sure wouldn't beg for more.

  I wanted to destroy the Acardi Crime Family and build my own empire on the ruins. After all, I'm The F King, and a king needs a kingdom.

  Sarina though… she makes me question my priorities. All that money and power is within my grasp, but the only thing I can think of is shaking Sarina one more time, tasting her, hearing my name on her lips.

  If anything ever happened to her, to us, things might get really F'd.

  Stockholm Syndromance (Still a Bad Boy #4)

  Eliana

  My father kept me locked away from the world, my only purpose in life was to stand in the background while he campaigned for President, or to be sold like a slave to cement his old alliances as a Mafia hitman. All I’ve ever known was his contempt and my loneliness.

  Then my deepest darkest fantasy kicked my door down and dragged me off into the night.

  He's the first person I ever met who wasn't afraid of my father. He's a machine of war, and he's making me so... damn... hot.

  Eric

  The contract is simple: abduct the daughter of Jace Barlow's nemesis and deliver her safely.

  I'm a professional. She's off limits... but this chick is the hottest kind of crazy. I never met a woman who could take everything I had to give and beg for more, and now I'm dangerously close to addicted.

  I need to concentrate on keeping us alive before her father's goons, the Feds, the cops or the biker gang catch up with us, but the way she licks my gun has me thinking maybe nothing else matters if I can't have her wrapped around me forever.