Boom!
Orange fire blinked from the end of Brady’s sidearm, but his aim was shit and the round ranged wide, plowing into the floorboards a foot to the right of Doc’s sprawled form.
Doc didn’t even flinch. Partly because he was used to being shot at, but mostly because he was one-hundred-percent focused on his next move.
He could’ve ended both men then and there. With Fin’s gun secure in his non-dominant hand—he was still pretty good at firing left-handed;anotherskill he’d been trained on—he was perfectly poised to aim at both men simultaneously and send rounds through the center mass of each of them. But Fin no longer posed a threat since he was disarmed. And Doc knew how to stop Brady without putting a period to the man’s life.
And in the confusion and chaos of the moment, that small fact felt like a miracle.
When he squeezed his trigger, his bullet flew true, hitting Brady in his firing shoulder. Brady spun like a top, specks of blood flying in an arc at the same time his gun dropped to the floor with a thud and a rattle.
“Dalton!” he heard Cami yell from downstairs and realized she’d been screaming his name over and over since the first shot. The horror in her voice was enough to shift his focus. He heard the footsteps pounding up the staircase.
It took less than a second to slip Brady’s sidearm into a side pocket of his cargo shorts. And half that time for him to note that Brady had slid down into the doorway, a hand pressed to his shoulder wound. Fin was on his knees in the center of the room, ripping his mask off his face so he could hold the material over the blood oozing through his shirt.
Darting over to the wall nearest the door, Doc pressed his back against the shiplap and counted his heartbeats at the same time he counted the approaching footfalls.
Just one set.
Which meant the gunmen had left one of their number downstairs to guard the Wayfair Islanders. That wouldseemlike the right thing to do. Keep an eye and a weapon on the hostages. But in truth, it gave Doc the advantage.
In battle, that old sawdivide and conquerheld true one-hundred percent of the time.
With grim determination, he tightened his finger around his rigger.
“Will!” Brady wheezed. His gaze looked dazed as he lifted his eyes to the figure racing down the hall. “Watch out! He’s got—”
Doc didn’t wait for Brady to finish his warning. He poked his arm and head around the doorjamb and fired.
Bam!
The hallway wasn’t as dark as his bedroom, thanks to the candle burning in the bathroom and casting its dim glow into the space. So Doc saw the instant he hit Will.
The man screamed and staggered, his shoulder slamming into the wall and causing two of the framed photographs hanging there to bounce off their nails and fall to the floor, their glass shattering on impact.
With a mighty roar, Doc jumped over Brady and tackled Will to the ground. Using Will’s stunned agony to his advantage, he shoved his pistol beneath the man’s chin and said softly, “Drop your weapon or I’ll blow the top of your head off.”
Will’s gun made athuddingsound when it landed on the wooden floorboards. Doc used his free hand, still curled around Fin’s weapon, to push Will’s gun out of reach.
Then, slowly, carefully, he shoved to a stand.
Will pushed himself into a seated position with his back resting against the wall. Using his right hand, he covered the wound on his left bicep.
With his adrenaline raging, and while keeping his Sig alternately pointing between Will and Brady, Doc pocketed Fin’s gun so he could bend and palm Will’s. In less than thirty seconds, he’d gone from having zero weapons to having four.
Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.
“Jesus, Will.” Brady panted against his pain. “We’re fucked.”
Doc didn’t wait for Will’s reply before saying, “I’ll tend to your wounds once my friends are safe. But I swear on all that’s holy, if any of you try to follow me down the hall or down those stairs, I won’t be merciful when I shoot you a third time. You hear what I’m saying?”
Will nodded limply and Brady whimpered his acquiescence. Doc had barely turned to make his way downstairs to deal with Jace when he heard Cami call his name again.
This time, the fear in her voice had his blood running cold. It was no longer fear for him. It was fear for herself. Fear for the others.
He knew what he’d find before he crept down the stairs.
Even so, he wasn’t prepared for the scene that met his gaze. He wasn’t prepared to see Jace’s pistol pressed tightly against Cami’s temple or the terrified tears that’d welled up in her beautiful, dark eyes.
