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“What do I do?”Panic had Jase’s voice breaking.“Stop the bleeding?Apply pressure?How do I stop it?”His hands pressed to Blain’s chest.“Boss, help me!”
Oliver stared at the chaos in front of him.Jase’s hands pressed desperately to Blain’s chest.Blain didn’t appear to be moving at all.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Oliver said.He’d left his phone in his bedroom.Lark is close.“Stay with him.”He whirled and raced down the hallway.“Lark!”Oliver bellowed.“I want you to—”
The door flew open.Lark stood there, aiming her gun.Right at him.
His breath shuddered out.
So did hers.She threw herself against him.Locked her arms around him.“I heard the gunshots.Was scared to death you’d been hit.”
He hugged her close, just for a moment.“Not me.Blain.I’ve got to call for backup and an ambulance.”Though judging by what he’d seen, he doubted anyone could help Blain.I thought for sure that bullet blasted through his heart.He let her go.“Lark, listen, Jase is here and I don’t—”
A gunshot thundered once more.A sound that he seemed to hear onlyafterthe pain exploded in his lower back.The hit had him staggering forward as it punched hard on his lower, left side.Sonofabitch.
“Oliver!”Lark screamed.
She grabbed for him, and he wound up taking her down with him.He fell on top of her.Saw her gun go skittering across the floor.The pain in his back burned and throbbed and he felt the blood soaking his shirt in the back.
When they hit the floor, Lark’s head nearly slammed into the hardwood.No.His fingers flew under her head even as the movement felt too late.Too slow.He let go of his weapon to cradle her head.
Keep her safe.Always protect Lark.Always.
But his body crushed hers.He tried to push himself up.Pain.It poured through him.
A moan slipped from Lark’s lips.Her eyelashes fluttered as she stared up at him.
The shooter would attack again.He had to get Lark—
“Not so fast,” Jase whispered in his ear right before something soft wrapped around Oliver’s neck.“It will work better if you go out this way.”And he tightened thefucking ropehe’d just looped around Oliver’s neck.
Bastard.Bastard.Bastard.Oliver’s fingers grabbed for the rope.
Lark grabbed the gun.She lifted her hand and fired it right over Oliver’s shoulder.
A loud ringing immediately filled his left ear.But the rope fell away.Jase’s weight disappeared from Oliver’s back as the bastard staggered and screamed.
Oliver shoved off Lark.He took the gun from her hand.
Her eyes were flared wide open.Horrified.And focused just behind him.
He spun—
Jase came at him with a hard tackle.Jase’s arms locked around Oliver’s stomach, and the man rammed Oliver all the way back until he hit the wall.The gun fell from Oliver’s hand even as the wound in his back seemed to erupt in a fury of agony.
Then Jase started pounding him.Punching into his stomach again and again.Blood poured from Jase’s ear.Or, from the half of his ear that was still there.Guess her bullet got you, huh?And the man was screaming something, but that stupid ringing still filled Oliver’s ears and he couldn’t quite hear—
“Gonna kill you.Then gonna take her.She’ll be mine.I’ll put her to sleep, and she’ll be—”
A guttural scream broke from Lark, and she jumped up behind Jase.She put the rope around his neck and twisted the edges as tightly as she could with her fists.Jase stumbled back.His hands flew up to swing at Lark.One fist went toward her face.
“The fuck you will,” Oliver promised him.
Jase shook her off.Lark fell to the floor.Right beside the backup gun she’d lost earlier when Oliver had taken her down onto the floor with him.
She picked up the weapon.Jase lunged toward her.
Oliver grabbed for the gun that had dropped from his hand moments before.He aimed at Jase.“Freeze, you sonofabitch!”
