“Get her in the car, fucking now!”
“There’s blood. Hell, it’s everywhere. It’s on her dress! Where’s she hurt?”
“N-no–”
“In the fucking car. Get her away from here.”
“N-not.”
“It’s not her. She’s fine. It’s alright, love.”
“She’s bleeding!”
“Shut up. You’re the one panicking her, Drake. Love. Look at me. We’re in the car. You’re safe. He’s gone. Shut the fuck up about the blood. It’s not her.”
“Hendrick?”
“I said, get off her. The blood’s mine. The fucker shot me.”
CHAPTER ONE
HENDRICK
I break all the rules in the first thirty seconds as I bleed all over her pristine limo.
Hands are on me, but not on her. That’s good, because I know she doesn't like to be touched, my new asset. My client. It’s bad, because I had to haul her into the vehicle the moment the bullet pierced my shoulder. Drake will want me gone when he hands me over to Calhoun, but that’s their problem to duke it out. Because blue eyes laced with streaks of moonlight and endless night stare back at me.
The classical artist whose fact sheet says she never looks at anyone, who distances herself from the world and never speaks to anyone or replies? This woman right here stares at me with curious eyes. An enigma who watches the man who’s taken the bullet meant for her, and who’s bled all over the pretty white dress she wears. The moment that she stepped out of the building I swear is designed to kill her, I knew my night had gone to hell before we started with her crazy set of rules. Rules I hated on sight despite that I live by a rigid set of my own.
Bright, white light like a fucking halo blinded me the moment the door opened. I could barely see her on the steep, short steps never made for stiletto heels and formal wear that draped the ground. Or her silky dress, covered in its glittery, tiny beads that fracture the white light behind her, sending tiny rainbows dancing across my vision.
Her body folded beneath mine when I lunged for her. Fragile, so breakable as she tumbled down those steps. I kept waiting for a bone to crack as hell erupted above us.
But the damage was already done, and no one seemed to know. He—whoever the fuck he is—is long gone. The shot was taken, and missed. Because the moment those lights flared out behind my asset, even before she was handed over to me, I fuckingknew.
He wasn’t the only one to shoot his shot.
Blood trails down my back, a drip missed as Drake stuffs his shirt over the hole and tears mine to create a makeshift bandage.
“You didn't have to strip for her,” I mutter out of the corner of my mouth without taking my eyes off her, or hers leaving mine. “I put a medical kit inside the door. There.” I lift one finger lazily and point. Shit. How much blood have I lost? It’s only a freaking graze.
Fuck. Not that much as Drake stitches me up. And yet her eyes don’t flinch from mine, considering this must be the first time she’s seen blood coats the fawn colored leather of her limo seats. Or seen a man bleed all over them.
For her.
Adora. One name only. The adored—ha—world renowned classical harp player who refuses to speak to her fans, or anyone else apparently. Hell, with media she refuses to look at cameras, talk with paparazzi, or speak with interviewers. And for what? The woman before me is stunning. Curious eyes stareunflinchingly at me, like I'm the most fascinating phenomenon she’s ever seen.
Who knows? Maybe in her cloistered world, I am.
And the strangest thing about tonight? It sure as fuck isn’t being stitched back together in her limo while we’re driven to the place I fully intend to carry out the job I was hired to do by Calhoun over at Lone Star Security before this shit show fell apart the moment it started. Before, even.
It’s the sense of serenity underlying the stunning face that watches me. That’s the strangest thing right now. Because in her face, there’s not an inkling of fear etched in her midnight gaze.
She’s not afraid.
As though this is what she expected from tonight.
Adora knew the shot would come. Maybe not the where, or even the when. But she knew it would happen. Perhaps the only thing she didn’t know was that the bullet wouldn't be taken by her. Maybe that’s what makes my presence so much of a curiosity to her.
