A soft ding sounded as the elevator doors slid open letting in the harsh florescent light from the parking garage. Charlie caught three shadows thrown against the floor of the elevator. She turned her head to see a solid line of men standing on the concrete.
Three men. All wearing black masks.
Charlie’s eyes were immediately drawn to the glint of light in the center man’s hand.
A gun.
Shit. The man had a gun.
Panic filled her chest. It was pointed straight at her.
***
Bowie knew something was wrong the moment the doors began to slide open, even through the haze of desire fogging up his senses. The air seemed to change instantly, the electricity dissipating, leaving only the cold feeling of dread.
A sensation that he knew only too well.
In a fraction of a second he assessed the situation—three men standing in a V formation, all armed, all wearing masks.
Usually that last bit of information was something of a relief.
Concealed faces meant that assailants were concerned that their victims could identify them later, and people needed to be alive to make ID’s. But this time he had the terrible feeling the masks were for the benefit of the building’s security cameras.
They didn’t want their faces attached to what they were about to do.
The man in the middle stepped forward, blocking the path of the sliding doors and extending his gun toward Charlie.
“Give me your purse,” he said, his voice low and steady. There was no nervous wobble in it, no hint of desperation or fear. Bowie hadn’t expected there to be. The way these men held themselves, heads high, backs straight, told him everything he needed to know.
They were no ordinary thieves. They were professionals.
Darktide agents, no doubt.
Bishop’s men.
This was no mugging. This was an assassination. Pure and simple.
Charlie hesitated, frozen in fear no doubt. He could feel her shaking against him.
“Now,” the man shouted, his voice reverberating off the elevator’s steel walls. She flinched hard, her hands shaking badly as she struggled to slide the strap off her shoulder.
Charlie was terrified.
These men had terrified her.
And now they were going to pay for that.
“She’s giving it to you,” Bowie said. He quickly snatched the purse off Charlie’s arm, and then took a step in front of her, giving her cover. He held the bag out in front of him, just out of reach of their attacker. “Here it is.”
The man looked at her purse, then at Bowie, but he didn’t move an inch.
Bishop must have warned his men about Bowie before sending them. They obviously knew not to get too close.
But they also needed to play for the cameras. They couldn’t shoot unless there was some reason to. They needed this to look like a robbery gone bad. Which was hard to pull off if one of the victims were freely offering up the goods.
“Isn’t this what you came for?” Bowie prompted the man after a long moment passed. The bastard didn’t answer. He didn’t move an inch.
Well, that was fine. If the attacker wasn’t going to come closer, then Bowie would go to him.
Bowie rushed forward, explosively closing the small gap between them. He grabbed the barrel of the gun and jerked up hard. The man reflexively pulled the trigger, and the bullet punched through the sheet metal above their heads.
The attacker tried to fight back, but the struggle was over in a heartbeat. Bowie quickly overpowered the man, wrapping his hand around his wrist and twisting until he felt the bones crack and shatter.
The man let out a garbled groan of pain, but stayed upright. The bastard was a professional. He wasn’t going down without a fight. Good. Bowie could use that against him.
He swung the man around using him as a human shield as he faced the other two men. Behind him he heard Charlie hit the floor of the elevator.
Just in time.
Bowie had been hoping there was enough humanity in the two other attackers to make them hesitate before they started unloading their bullets in their colleague’s direction. No such luck.
Three shots popped off in quick succession. Bowie wasn’t sure if they were warning shots or if Bishop’s men just had terrible aim, but they pinged off the metal walls behind him.
Bowie prayed that Charlie was safe from ricochets and shrapnel. He desperately wanted to turn around to check, but he knew he couldn’t. What she needed most was for him to end this…and fast.
Bowie didn’t waste any time using his human shield as a battering ram. He thrust the man in his arms toward his right hand attacker at the same time as he fired on the one on his left.
The bullet hit Lefty in the center of his knee, and he went down in a heap instantly. The second man stumbled for only a second under his friend’s weight, but it was all the time that Bowie needed. He fired off two more rounds in quick succession, hitting both men in their shoulders and disabling their shooting arms. They both collapsed to the concrete.
The whole encounter couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds.
Ten seconds for these three men to petrify Charlie.
It took every bit of reserve Bowie had not to squeeze off a couple more shots into all of them. It was no less than the scumbags deserved.
But revenge wouldn’t help her.
He found her curled up in a ball on the elevator floor. Her arms clasped protectively around her head, her legs tucked in tight, every part of her shaking with mortal fear.
Bowie kneeled down at her side and placed a wide hand on her back. She jerked at his touch.
“It’s okay,” he said, trying to make his voice as soothing as possible. He had no idea if it was effective. It wasn’t something he had a lot of experience with. “Charlie. It’s over.”
When she still didn’t move, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and started physically uncurling her from the fetal position. A second later, her head popped up and her big blue gaze snapped to his face. Even then, it took a moment before the fog of fear dissipated and recognition took its place. She laid her palm over his cheek.
“Bowie.” The way she said his name sent a shiver down his spine. Soft and trembling, like she had never been so relieved to see him in her life. “You’re okay. I thought…Oh, God, I heard the shots, and I thought—”
She pulled herself up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding him so tight he could feel the shivers of strain rippling down her arms. Her hard, fast breath washed over his neck and collarbone as she tucked her head against his chest.
She’d been worried about him. The realization came over him slowly. The shaking, the fear, it hadn’t been for her safety, not entirely anyway. She’d been afraid for him.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had been worried about him. Sure, he had been in plenty of life threatening situations before, but no one had ever clung to him afterwards. No one had ever sobbed with relief.
He had to admit. It was a nice feeling.
Too bad he didn’t have time to enjoy it. But there were things they needed to do. Those three men weren’t going to stay down forever. Their groans were already echoing off the garage walls.
Bowie pulled Charlie back just far enough that he could see her face.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She slowly shook her head before her eyes went wide. Her gaze focused intently on the side of his face.
“But you are,” she said, her voice going high. She lifted a finger to his cheek and pulled it back, showing a wet, red streak down the center.
Blood.
But it wasn’t his.
He grabbed Charlie’s wrist. Her finger wasn’t the only part of her hand that was bloody. Her palm was practically painted with the stuff. She must have transferred it to his cheek when she’d touched his face.
Bowie pulled her hand in for a closer look. There was a gash on the meaty pad below her thumb
. A bad one. A steady stream of blood rushed from the wound, coursing down her forearm. Bowie could just make out the glint of metal buried inside.
Damn it. She hadn’t walked away unscathed.
When he looked up, he found Charlie staring at the wound with a mixture of horror and curiosity.
“I-I can’t feel it,” she said.
Bowie shook his head as he whipped off his jacket. “That’s not unusual,” he said. “Your body’s too hopped up on adrenaline right now to let any pain signals through. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last forever.”
As gently as he could, he wrapped the sleeve of his jacket around her palm, putting pressure on the worst part of her wound. “Keep your hand above your head,” he told her. “Got it?”
He waited until she’d given him a shaky nod, before pulling his phone from his back pocket. He turned toward the men before dialing 911.
It only took a moment for the dispatcher to pick up and ask the nature of the emergency.
“I need to report a robbery gone wrong. Shots have been fired.”
“Is anyone injured?” the woman asked.
“Four injuries,” he said, glancing behind him. “But only one I give a damn about.”
Chapter Ten
To say that Charlie didn’t like hospitals was an understatement. Hated was a better word. Loathed was even closer.
She figured she’d done her time months ago when they’d fished two bullets out of her chest. As far as she was concerned she was done. She could go her whole life without ever having to set foot in one again.
Of course, life didn’t work that way.
And it wasn’t like she was back in ICU. This was just a little trip to the emergency room to clean and stitch up her hand. It was no big deal.
That’s what she kept telling herself as the hours ticked by. She dangled her legs over the edge of the exam table and kicked at the rails as she watched the second hand make another long trip around the clock.
At least now she was alone in her little curtained-off bay. For the last few hours she’d been pretty popular, though not with anybody that she’d wanted to see. A steady stream of doctors, police officers, and nurses came and went through her privacy curtains. A few times she’d had to close her eyes and breathe through the stress.
Turned out there was nothing quite like having a doctor fish through the tender tissue of your palm for shrapnel while simultaneously being grilled by detectives.
The worst part was that they’d separated her and Bowie. Sure, she understood why. They needed to see if their stories lined up. Which of course, they did. Charlie had understood the plan the moment she’d heard Bowie call in the shooting.
The surface story was best. They were coming down from work when three guys with guns said they wanted her purse. Too bad for the gunmen they picked the wrong guy to mess with.
The cops didn’t seem to have any trouble believing her story. And why would they? Everything she’d said was true. It could all be backed up just by watching the building’s security footage.
There was no need to say a word about Darktide or Trevor Bishop or anything else she’d been working on that day. That would only lead to more questions. Questions she didn’t have the answers for. At least not ones she could prove…yet. And she seriously doubted that the SFPD would be willing to protect her and her entire family on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations.
No, she was better off sticking to the easy explanations and depending on Bowie and the rest of the guys from the office to keep her safe. God knew, he’d certainly proven he was capable.
It was strange. For years she’d heard the stories about what Bowie could do, but she’d never seen him in action. Why would she? Their office was amazingly safe. There had never been any reason.
Not until today.
And she still technically hadn’t seen anything. She remembered him stepping in front of her, then hitting the floor as soon as the first shot had gone off. There were more shots after that—five or six, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was she’d barely had time to close her eyes and curl into a ball before Bowie had picked her up.
The whole encounter hadn’t lasted more than a few seconds. And then it was over.
Because Bowie had ended it.
Charlie let out a little sigh. At least, she had good taste. She hadn’t fallen for just any guy. No, she had to have a crush on goddamn Superman.
She’d caught a glimpse of the men Bowie had shot being rolled by on stretchers when they’d first arrived. Charlie wasn’t too worried about them spilling their guts to the cops once they recovered. After all, if Darktide was willing to stage a shootout in the heart of downtown San Francisco just to get to her, Charlie could only imagine what they did to traitors.
Of course, she didn’t have to imagine. All she had to do was remember poor Daniel Cooper. They’d done almost the same thing to him, hadn’t they?
Charlie swung her legs out, trying to scrub the thought from her mind. She rubbed her palms together…and instantly realized she’d made a huge mistake when a sharp sting radiated from her palm all the way to her elbow. She hissed in a sharp breath and tried to shake the sensation out.
The doctors may have numbed the hell out of her hand when they’d sewed her up, but the local had already started to wear off. Even now, a dull ache throbbed. And it would last a couple of weeks as everything healed up. Until then it was nothing but Tylenol for the pain and antibiotics to make sure no nasty bugs stuck around.
Not that Charlie was complaining. This was a walk in the park compared to the last time she’d tangled with a group of guys with guns. She could take a little soreness any day.
She looked down at the thick white bandage wrapped around her hand. She flexed her fingers, making sure she could move each one. They were stiff and sore, but at least they bent. She could still work a keyboard, and that was all that mattered.
Of course, nothing was going to matter if she never got out of the emergency room. Charlie turned and looked up at the clock above her gurney. The doctor had said he’d be back with her discharge papers in about fifteen minutes.
That was forty minutes ago.
She let out a sigh just as the curtain in front of her flung back. Her disappointment disappeared the moment she saw Bowie.
“Hey,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “The cops finally done with you?”
He nodded. “When did they leave here?”
“About an hour ago,” she said. “I guess my story wasn’t as interesting as yours.”
She caught a hint of a smile twisting his lips. “Probably not. That’s one of the benefits of not shooting anyone. Less paperwork.”
She laughed. “But they believed your story?”
“If they didn’t I wouldn’t be here with you.” He gently lifted her bandaged hand. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” she said. Bowie arched a brow at her words. Even when he was skeptical, he was adorable. There was no way around it. The man revved her engine. “Seriously. I’m all patched up. Good as new…or at least I will be in a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?” Deep creases dug into Bowie’s brow.
“That’s what the doctor said.” She shrugged. “I guess some of the fragments got in there pretty deep.”
Now the furrows cut into the corners of his eyes as well. His voice dipped low. “I shouldn’t have let those bastards off so easy.”
Bowie lifted her fingers to his mouth and gently kissed her knuckles.
Charlie sucked in a breath. Her eyes widened. Her belly tightened. Heat spread out from the place where his lips had touched, igniting a fire deep inside her.
It was nothing like the charming flutters that had passed through her when James had made a production of kissing her hand yesterday. No, her reaction to Bowie kissing away her injuries was deeper, hotter, far more profound.
“I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who considers gunshot wounds getting off easy,” she said, trying to lighten the dark
look in his eyes.
He lifted his gaze to hers, and the depth of the emotion she saw swirling inside nearly knocked the air out of her lungs.
“They hurt you,” he said.
“I-I’m going to be fine,” she said.
“And that’s the only reason that those men are still breathing.” The resolve in his voice sent shivers down her spine. But that wasn’t the only thing making her tremble.
He cared about her, she realized. Even if it was only as a friend, there was no denying that he cared about her. She could see it in every groove on his brow, feel it in the tender way he cupped her hand.
“Oh, come on,” she said. A little nervous laugh slipped out between her lips but she couldn’t look away from his magnetic gaze. “You wouldn’t kill for me.”
He inched closer. His thighs pressed against her knees. She tilted her head back farther. Her lips parted as Bowie raised his free hand and caressed her cheek with his knuckles.
Electric shivers coursed down her spine.
“I would do anything for you, Charlie.” His palm slid from her cheek to the back of her neck. “Anything.”
Warm breath swept across her lips right before his mouth pressed against hers. Everything fell away—the ambient clatter of the emergency room, the beeps of the monitors, the hurried footsteps on the hard tile floor stopping right behind her. There was only Bowie.
For a moment, she couldn’t react. She could only feel. Feel his lips moving against hers, slowly but with more intensity than she had ever experienced. He drank her in like he was dry.
And come to think of it, so was she. How long had she waited for this moment? How many times had she fantasized about it? And now that it was happening she was too gobsmacked to even kiss him back.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to fly.
Charlie ran her fingers through his thick, short hair. She flicked out her tongue and traced the tip along his bottom lip. She delighted in the hiss of air he sucked in at the sensation.
Bowie: The Sinner Saints #5 Page 11