Page 24 of The FBI Agents Who Stole Me

I cringe at the our.

Seems to be working out for Marge though. I don’t know how she handles her merry band of gangsters, but she’s happy.

The cabin has a cramped gym tucked into the garage, and I retreat there before the urge to break down Lee’s door and demand another fight becomes impossible to ignore. Fury and helplessness scrape beneath my skin. It needs somewhere to go. The punching bag is as good of a place as any.

How can I help Ettie out of this mess? I could tell my practice to go to hell, empty one of my offshore accounts, and disappear with her before Fuller realizes which direction we ran.

Somewhere in the mountains, maybe? We could go somewhere with no bureau, no Project Vine that took everything she loves away, and definitely no Elliot fucking Ryker.

She would never hide, and I would have to drug her all the time. Then she would stay mad at me. That won’t work.

My uncle has been training me to take over his contracts. He’s a surgeon as well, only he doesn’t work at a hospital. He owns a private clinic and provides in-home care to patients who can’t risk leaving their names on hospital records. His practice is off the books, for criminals, and other wealthy people who obtain our services. He built an empire, and he’s training me to take over. It’s set me up with powerful players. I only need to figure out who I can use to help my Ettie.

My knuckles tighten around the barbells, and I lift with gritted teeth.

I wish she would tell me about Emily. And about the man she killed. But she shut me out.

When I found out about Elliot, I wanted to kill them both. Then fuck her into oblivion until she admitted I still matter to her. Yet here I am, standing in a garage in the middle of nowhere, waiting for any scrap of her love she is willing to throw my way.

I’ll love her enough for both of us.

The weights drop to the rubber mat with a hard clank. I cross the small space to the punching bag. My gloves are already waiting on the bench.

I slam a short jab into the heavy bag, then another. The steady rhythm of leather meeting fist helps drown out the noise in my head. At least if I exhaust myself, sleep might come easier tonight. Maybe my thoughts will stop looping endlessly on Ettie—the first kiss, the first time I sank into her, the first moment I knew I loved her. The first time I saw her seems like a lifetime ago, yet the memory remains fresh.

“Julian, take the bullet out of Keeper,” my uncle says, jerking his chin toward the bleeding man seated at the far end of the warehouse.

My uncle works on numbing the area around a throwing star protruding from his patient’s back. I heard them call him Calum. A third man stands with his hands in his pockets and leans against the wall. His gaze is cold and deadly. He stares in silence, assessing our work. I try to ignore the unnerving glare.

Keeper shifts in the chair and offers me the back of his arm. A bullet is lodged in the upper muscle.

“Doesn’t look to have hit anything vital. I’ll remove it, then we’ll run a quick scan to check for fragments.”

The man grunts a response, and I start working. I’ve numbed the site, much to his annoyance. He ordered me to just pull it out. Apparently, being shot is acceptable, but waiting three minutes for lidocaine is where he draws the line.

I line up the tools and prepare to pack the wound once the bullet is removed.

A tornado of blonde stomps in the warehouse, furious and beautiful as hell.

“Cal. I’m going to murder you,” she seethes and looks over my uncle’s shoulder, watching him work on the weapon removal.

“Lee. This is only my second time using throwing stars. And Keep got the job done, didn’t he?”

“You could have gotten caught. Keeper was shot. This didn’t go as planned.” Her voice shifts from fury to raw concern the moment she sees how deeply the star is embedded.

“Well, we didn’t get caught,” Calum mumbles.

Her attention lands on me, and I freeze. Her face is a perfect heart shape. Pretty gray eyes and long lashes against her creamy skin make her look like a porcelain doll. If dolls wore rage on their faces.

“Keeper. Honestly, I give you one job, and you get shot.”

She rests her hand on Keeper’s shoulder, and that gets under my skin. Jealousy hits me with enough force to overthrow all my reasonable thoughts.

“Lee, fuck off. You didn’t tell us there would be seven of them.”

Keeper hisses when I dig harder into his wound than necessary. He doesn’t get to talk to her like that.

“Seven? Shit. Well, it is a good day for the—” She stops herself from finishing that sentence. “And who are you?”