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I walked over, took the phone and pressed it to my ear.
“Hello?” I answered, curious.
“Your woman just called in a home invasion through 9-1-1. She sounds okay, but I think you should get there anyway.”
The other day, Sunny had asked me what my relationship was with Luce. I’d explained that, although I wanted more, there was a bit of a difficult situation when it came to us. He’d rolled his eyes, told me “to get over that difficult situation” and to pull the lead out. Because, according to him, she was gorgeous and wouldn’t last long single.
I agreed.
“What?” I barked. “I’ll be right there.”
I tossed the phone at the worried-looking guy that handed it to me, said ‘gotta go’ to Marshall and was out of my job without a second thought two minutes later.
It took me five minutes to get to her apartment and a minute to make my way through the police officers that were arriving outside before I arrived in Luce’s apartment.
I found her with her legs around a man’s throat, her arms around his waist and the man struggling to breathe.
Sunny was walking toward her, and Luce was snarling at him to hurry up.
“Holy fuck,” I heard said from behind me.
I looked back to see a deputy.
Moving toward the man that was getting choked out by my girl—and did I say how much of a turn-on it was to see her defending herself so thoroughly?—I dropped down to one knee and caught the guy’s arm.
“Let him go,” I urged.
Sunny took the other arm, and we peeled him away from Luce, who was reluctant to let him go.
“We got him, baby,” I said softly. “You can let go now.”
She did and when I pulled the guy away from her, tossing him toward Sunny in disgust, it was to see her whole front covered in blood.
“It’s not mine,” she hurried to assure me. “It’s all his. I’m okay. I think I might’ve bruised my big toe in the scuffle when he tried to get me into a choke hold after I hit him. But other than that, I’m perfectly fine.”
I blinked.
Then shook my head as I said, “God, you’re fuckin’ awesome.”
She scoffed, got up without my help, then said, “Well, just wait. It’s going to get even weirder. I asked him why he was here. Who sent him. You want to know the name he gave me?”
No, I wasn’t sure that I did.
“Sure,” I said with very little enthusiasm.
“Braxton,” she dropped the bomb.
“Braxton,” I repeated, voice monotone, as I tried to process it.
“Braxton,” she confirmed. “He said he’d been hired to kill me right when he walked in.”
Sunny nodded, flipping the guy she’d been holding over onto his back.
We all frowned.
“He was alive when I let go of him,” Luce pointed out.
“He was.” Sunny patted his chest. “I have a bodycam. Department mandated on every shift from now on. Thanks to the old sheriff. Anyway, it’ll show he was alive.”
“Good,” Luce said as she stared. “Is he alive?”
“Um.” Sunny shrugged. “He kind of has a pulse.”
“Kind of isn’t that great,” I heard a female voice say. “Move so we can get to him.”
We all filed to the side so they could fit through and didn’t say a word until they had him out of the room.
Turns out, he didn’t have a pulse. And by the time they left, one girl was performing CPR while the other was pushing her toward the ambulance.
“Well,” Sunny said as he watched them go. “That was exciting.”
I snorted. “Tell me what happened, darlin’.”
She sighed. “Can I change? I feel gross. When I get done, I’ll tell you everything.”
So while she did that, Sunny and I looked around the apartment in awe.
“Looks like he broke the door,” Sunny said as he flicked his head toward the doorframe that was obviously broken. “That what woke her, you think?”
“What woke me…” Luce came out of her room tugging the t-shirt she’d worn last night down over her abdomen. “Was a clinking sound of metal on metal. I’m a deep sleeper, though. So who knows how much noise he made before he actually woke me. I looked at my phone, thinking it was you, and got your message that you wouldn’t be making it back early. Then realized that the person entering my apartment wasn’t you. That’s when I got my bat and called 9-1-1.”
“Good job,” Sunny nodded in approval.
I walked toward Luce and pulled her into my arms.
She came willingly and pressed her face into my neck.
“I might throw up now,” she admitted.
I snorted and squeezed her just a little bit tighter.
“You scared me,” I whispered into her hair.
“Scared myself,” she grumbled. “Do you think what he said was real?”
I sure the fuck hoped not.
“I have a call out to the boys. We’ll pick your brother up and ask him a few questions,” Sunny said to both me and Luce. “Obviously, he has motive, being your ex and all. We’ll look into it. In the meantime, this is a crime scene and we need you to get out.”
