Shot.
I can’t tear my eyes from the ripped sleeve of his sweatshirt, torn from the bullet that came only millimeters from hitting him.
Someoneshotat him.
He could have been killed.
“It’s nothing,” he assured me the second he opened the closet door. “Not even a graze. I’m fine. I promise.”
But he almost wasn’t. If Alec had moved a fewinches to the side, he would have been hit. In his arm, his chest, hisheart?—
There was a third attacker, Alec explained, who was waiting in the woods as a lookout while the other two were supposed to break into my house. “It’s my fault,” Alec grumbled. “I shouldn’t have assumed it was just the two of them. I should have known better.”
They were all apprehended. Thankfully. From what Alec told me, he got the first one on his own, then Ronan disarmed the second. Then Knox and Gage went after the gunman hiding in the woods and captured him before he could escape.
Now all three criminals—burglars? kidnappers? attempted murderers?—are on the floor in my living room, zip tied within an inch of their lives and staring at Alec and his teammates with fear in their eyes.
My attention keeps jumping back to Alec’s arm, his ripped sleeve a terrifying reminder of just how close he came to being hurt. A chilling reminder of howIalmost got him hurt.
“We’re going to interrogate them ourselves,” Alec told me as I followed him out of the closet. “Not that any information we get can be used in court, but we can use it in our own investigation.” He inspected my face before adding, “You don’t need to be there for it. You can stay in the bedroom. Or go into the office.There’s no need for you to be around those men at all.”
But I want to be here. I want to know everything. I don’t want to hear the truth doled out in bits and pieces, cushioned with reassurances and softened edges. I want to know the hard reality of it.
If Alec nearly died trying to stop these men, the least I can do is face them instead of hiding again.
So I’m squished into the corner of the couch while Ronan, Alec, Gage, and Knox take turns pacing around the living room. They’re all throwing angry, threatening glances at the three restrained men, and I know if I were on the receiving end of those looks, I’d be peeing my pants at the very least.
Whenever Alec passes by the man with an apparently broken nose—at least judging from the crooked angle of it and the blood coating his chin and chest—he mutters something under his breath that makes the man pale. And Ronan keeps spinning his wicked-looking knife, tossing it up in the air and catching it effortlessly.
After a few minutes of quiet intimidation, Alec’s the first to speak. He approaches the broken-nosed man and comes to a stop by his head. Looming over him, looking more intimidating than I’ve ever seen him, Alec growls, “Here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to answer our questions. All of them. And if you don’t, you’re not going to like what happens next.”
As Alec crosses his arms across his chest for emphasis, my gaze jumps to his sleeve again. But instead of seeing a tanned patch of unmarked skin, a violent wound superimposes itself over it. It’s deep. Painful. Bloody.
It was too close.
The terrifying reality of it slams into me again.
Alec could have been killed.
Because of me.
Panic keeps bubbling up, threatening to take over. The only way I can keep it at bay is by digging my nails into my palms to the point of pain and gritting my teeth hard enough to send shooting daggers through my jaw and neck.
I can’t fall apart now. Not when there are more important things to deal with. Like the three men who came here with the intention of… What? Kidnapping me? Killing me? Holding me at gunpoint and violating me?
A low moan works its way up the back of my throat, but I swallow it back. My eyes burn and my nose prickles.
Alec casts a quick glance at me, his eyebrows raising in silent question. His worry is a visible thing.
I force a weak smile and mouth,I’m fine. Even though I feel the furthest thing from it.
He hesitates for a moment before giving me a quick nod. Then he turns back to the man on the floor and snaps, “Why were you here?”
The man scowls at Alec. “Why should I tell you?”
Faster than I can blink, Alec whips his gun from his holster and points it at him. “Because I’ll shoot you if you don’t.”
“His name is Wyatt Canton,” Gage offers, holding up a canvas wallet as he says it. “At least, that’s what his ID says. And the photo looks like him.” To the man—Wyatt, apparently—Gage adds in a conversational tone, “Not very smart. Bringing your wallet to a home invasion. You could have dropped it at any time, and then where would you be?”
