Page 374 of Romeo

Every man around me froze.

Then Fiona screamed.

Angel moved before I could grab him.

“Angel!”

He didn’t look back.

Thore started after him, and I was already moving too because whatever careful plan we’d brought into the swamp had just gone straight to hell.

Angel hit the clearing at a dead run.

And this time, I didn’t try to stop him.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Romeo

Something shifted beyond the back window, too fast and too deliberate to be one of the creatures that had spent the last two weeks deciding Fiona and I were harmless enough to ignore. I caught her around the waist before she could turn toward it and pulled her away from the glass. Her hands closed around my forearms as I moved us deeper into the cabin, and when I looked again, there was nothing beyond the window but cypress trunks, tangled brush, and water gone still beneath the trees.

“Jasper?” she asked quietly.

“Stay with me.”

She did without arguing, which scared me more than if she had fired off ten questions. I pulled the pistol from the back of my waistband and checked the room again, measuring the entrances differently now that I knew someone was close enough to cross a window. The cabin had been perfect for disappearing. Not so fucking perfect once somebody found you.

I opened the kitchen drawer where Gator had left another gun and held it toward Fiona. Instead of taking it, she stared at the weapon for a second before her eyes lifted to mine.

“I don’t know how to use a gun.”

That surprised me enough to pull my attention from the windows. Then I thought about Georgie, Granny, Frank, and everyone else who had spent years putting themselves between Fiona and anything ugly enough to reach her. She understood guns. She’d been around bikers long enough that seeing one didn’t make her nervous, but apparently nobody had ever decided she needed to know what to do with one.

I put the extra pistol into the back of my jeans. “First fuckin’ thing we do when we get home is teach you to fuckin’ shoot.”

Her expression changed. It was small, just a softening around her eyes before she nodded, but her fingers tightened briefly around my wrist.

“Okay.”

I caught the back of her neck and kissed her forehead. “Until then, you stay behind me. If I tell you to move, you move. If I tell you to get down, you get down.”

“That’s very bossy.”

“Been told it’s one of my finer qualities.”

The corner of her mouth twitched, and some tight place in my chest loosened. Even scared, she was still Fiona.

Three hard knocks struck the front door.

Her almost-smile vanished.

I turned toward the sound, every muscle tightening again. Men sneaking through the bayou with weapons and enough sense to hide their boat didn’t usually stop to knock. Instead of approaching the door, I moved to the side window and angled myself far enough to see the porch without putting my body directly in front of the glass.

The man standing outside was one I recognized.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”

Fiona remained tucked behind the interior wall. “What?”