“Lys, baby, are you hurt. Are either of you hurt?”
“No.” Alyssa shook her head, tears running down her cheeks. “She tried to stop her.”
“What?” Jack asked. “Who tried to stop her?”
“Mallory. Her sister was going to shoot me if we didn’t give her Maddox. Mallory jumped her, tried to get the gun.”
Jake sucked in a breath. This woman kept on surprising him. He’d thought she was the enemy. Thought she’d come into his life to take his son except it was the opposite. Every step of the way, she tried to protect them. She removed her stepsister from their lives permanently and now she’d saved his friend’s wife.
He bent down, brought his mouth close to her ear. “I’m sorry, Lory. For so much. You hold on for me. Hold on so I can tell you how sorry I am. You fight, just like you did for us. Hold on for Maddox. Madman needs another playdate and he doesn’t want one with anyone but you.”
Ry came back with a small first aid kit. He had it open and was rattling off what was in it, pulling out anything Maz or Alyssa said yes to.
“I’ve got a medivac coming in as soon as they give the all clear. Roark and Dash are heading up to the roof to secure the route. How you doing, Jake? Need someone to take over?”
“No. I’ve got it.” His hands were sweating and he’d gotten some blood on him when he’d first put the belt on but he wasn’t letting go for anything. “How long do you think before they let them land? Any word on…?” he couldn’t say her name. Bile rose in his throat, choked off his breath.
Jack shook his head. “No idea when and no word on the shooter.”
“Where’s Mad?” He hadn’t forgotten his son but he hadn’t seen him or Zane so he hoped the women had made sure they were safe in the other room.
“In the bedroom with Maryn and Fletcher.”
“Are they okay?”
“Yes. The only casualty is Mallory. One shot fired before Penny disarmed the shooter and kicked the gun under the couch.”
“Fuck. How the hell did she do that?” In his peripheral vision he could see Maz and Alyssa working on Lory’s leg, registered they had their fingers in the wound, but he kept his attention on Jack. He needed to focus on something other than what they were doing to Lory’s leg—insideher leg.
“I think the gun going off shocked the shooter as much as everyone else. Penny said when she came out of the room, everyone was standing there staring at the floor where Mallory had fallen. After that, instinct took over and she went at the shooter fast and hard, kicking out at the hand holding the gun. Pen says it was a lucky kick but it did the job. Then everyone moved and in the confusion, the shooter got away.”
“Confusion?”
“Maryn and Fletcher came in through the open door.”
“And everyone else is okay?”
“Yes. The boys are fine, Penny is in there again now. Maryn and Fletcher are packing them up to move them to her suite when we get the all clear, but we’ve already secured this level and Keaton is in the hall on guard.”
“Fuck. If I wasn’t sitting here holding a belt around a leg to cut off blood to a fucking bullet wound, I’d think this was made-up bullshit. How is this real life? How the hell did Renee even get out of jail? Where’d she get a gun? How the fuck did she know where we were? And how did a teenager disarm her and send her on the run?”
“Too many questions to answer right now. One step at a time, Jake. We’ll get you those answers. But first, now that we know everyone is safe and secure, we concentrate on getting Mallory the attention she needs.”
“She needs a fucking hospital!” Panic rose so swift it sucked the breath out of him. She hadn’t been conscious when he’d gotten here. He hadn’t told her he was sorry for what he said. Hadn’t told her hedidwant to see her face again. He suspected he wanted to see her face every day for the rest of his life.
He didn’t want it to be the rest of hers. Not unless they were in their nineties and they were surrounded by their great-great grandchildren.
Motherfucker.
He was in love with her. Wanted to marry her, have babies with her, and make Maddox a big brother.
“Her pulse is dropping,” Alyssa said.
“I’ve got my finger clamped on the artery. I don’t have anything else.” Maz looked up, her face soaked in tears.
Except all Jake could see was the blood coating her hands, the blood on Alyssa, on the carpet beneath Lory.
He’d found a woman he could build a life with and a woman from his past, a woman who’d tried to take his son from him, had tried to take her before he could do anything about it.
