Grabbing Matt by the neck, Tuck jerks him off the bench and lets him fall to the floor. Matt’s eyes are wide and wild as he looks up at Tuck in shock. “Who the fuck are you?”
Standing over his body, Tuck reaches down and grabs Matt’s jacket to pull his upper body off the floor to get in his face before he growls, “I’m the hick that will hunt you down and gut you from stem to stern and still sleep like a fucking baby at night. You even look in her direction again, and I swear to fucking God, I will end you.”
Tuck shoves him to the floor, letting go of his jacket before he looks at me, it’s the same look I saw when he grabbed the guy in the pub - the look that claims me as his with a promise to protect me come hell or high water.
Standing upright, he slides his weapon back into its holster and holds his hand out to me. “Come here, sugar. You okay?”
Not wanting to slide across the blood, I pull my feet up to stand on the seat. Taking Tuck’s hand, I step over the blood and then set my hand on his shoulder so I can step down, but he grabs my waist and lifts me over Matt to pull me into him.
He only holds me for a second before he leans back. “I have to go. If they see me here, they’ll charge me with interfering with an investigation. Rhys will be here any second, are you okay to wait for him without me?”
I don’t want him to be charged, so I nod and look over his shoulder at the FBI van screeching into the parking lot. “Yes. Go!”
He kisses me before he fast-limps to the back of the store, his limp more pronounced. When he disappears around a corner, I open my palm and let the button fall to the ground next to Matt.
Men pour through the front door with guns drawn, wearing jackets that say FBI on them, and they surround me and Matt. Rhys pushes through the men and grabs my arm to pull me away.
He looks down at me and moves close to my ear. “Is he gone?”
Looking up into his eyes after he leans away, I weigh whether I can trust him but remind myself that he’s Kinley’s husband and she would skin him alive if anything happened to her brother, so I give him a small nod.
He takes a deep breath and turns toward the men surrounding Matt.
33
TUCKER
WHEN NORAwalks through the door with Rhys behind her, she runs right to me like I’m her shelter, and I gladly pull her to me.
I almost had a heart attack when I heard Mason through our comms say, “On the way, right hand, back booth.” Which means he took the shot, and was confirmation that Matt attempted to touch her. I nearly lost my composure - something I never do - and I had to get to her as quick as I could.
It hurt like fuck to do it, but I pushed through the pain.
She’s been at the FBI field office in Tulsa all evening. Rhys told us to stay away since they knew we’d fucked up their sting operation, but they couldn’t prove it. Callum knew what we were doing and told Spits to scrub any footage with me in it.
The only reason I stayed away was that I knew Rhys would take care of her, otherwise, I would have told them to go fuck themselves.
Rhys pushes the front door closed, and he looks like he’s been scrubbing his fingers through his hair. His expression is severe when he looks at me. “He refused to answer questions, and his father is getting involved.”
Nora moves to my left side, her arms around me like she doesn’t want to let go, and I gladly shift my weight to that leg to keep my arm around her. “He wants to do it the hard way.”
Rhys hangs his hands on his hips and rolls his head to loosen the muscles in his neck. “Of course he fucking does.” Cupping the back of his neck, he winces as he tilts his head to the side and looks at Nora with one eye closed. “We found the microphone from your shirt on the floor, did he grab you? Is that when he got shot?”
Nora straightens, and her shoulders tighten under my arm before she clears her throat. “Oh, uhm, I’m not sure. Everything happened so fast, he may have grabbed my shirt, and that’s why the blood splattered on my face.”
Rhys nods and looks at the floor as he stretches his neck forward. At least he didn’t notice her body go rigid, he usually notices everything. “That makes sense. Just stay where they can find you because they’ll probably be a permanent part of your life for a while.”
Sliding my hand down the scruff of my jaw, I say, “We’re going to Tennessee the day after tomorrow. I’m taking a job with Mason’s team, and we’ll be moving there soon. They’ll have to find her there.”
Rhys shrugs his shoulders. “As long as they know where to find her. I’ve got to get home to Kinley; she wasn’t feeling good this morning, and I’ve been away too long.”
After he closes the door and we’re alone in the foyer, I turn to her. “What was that about?”
Her eyes are locked on mine as she shrugs her shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to be there, so I took the wire off and held it in my hand until you left.”
Grabbing her hips, I gently shake her as a smile splits my face. “Sugar, do you have any idea what you did?”
She looks like a deer caught in headlights. “What? I couldn’t let them know you were there.”
