Anja snorted, but her gaze never stopped moving.She reached Leo first, her presence solid.“Did you see anything or notice anyone watching you?”
“No.I was inside.Came out and,” he gestured helplessly at the empty curb, “poof.”
Chloe opened her door, concern etched across her face.“Leo, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said automatically.“It’s just a car.”
Even as the words left his mouth, an inexplicable prickle crept up his spine.That was when the world cracked open.
The sound was sharp, violent, and wrong.
Leo didn’t even register the shot, only the sudden explosion of plastic and fruit as his smoothie disintegrated in his hand.A hot spray hit his sleeve.Could be mango and kale, could be blood.He didn’t feel a hit, but sometimes shock had a way of muting pain.
Something yanked him backward hard enough to knock the breath out of his lungs.
Anja.
She slammed into him, driving them both to the pavement as another crack echoed down the street.People screamed and shouted.Glass shattered somewhere close.
“Down!”Anja barked, one arm locked over his torso, her body covering his without hesitation.
Leo lay stunned beneath her, heart trying to claw its way out of his ribcage.His mind screamed that she shouldn’t be protecting him; he should be the one protecting her.
“Oh, my God,” Chloe gasped from inside the SUV.
He heard another scream, this one higher-pitched and sounding panicked.
“He’s been hit!”a woman cried.
Kayne was already moving.
“Chloe, stay in the vehicle!”His voice cut through the chaos, sharp and absolute.“Do not get out.Please.”
Kayne sprinted toward the sidewalk where a man had gone down, blood blooming through his shirt.He dropped to his knees, hands steady, already applying pressure.
“Call 911!”he shouted.“Tell them we have a gunshot wound, male, conscious but bleeding heavily.”
Leo forced himself upright, Anja’s hand still braced against him.
“I’m okay,” he said hoarsely.“I think.”
She studied his face, quick and clinical, then nodded once.“You’re lucky.”
He looked down at the shredded remains of his smoothie cup scattered across the pavement.
“Yeah,” he said faintly.“That was supposed to be breakfast.”
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder.
Leo’s gaze tracked to Kayne, kneeling in a pool of someone else’s blood, calm and focused amid the screaming crowd.To Chloe, pale and shaking but safe inside the vehicle, talking to the emergency dispatcher.To Anja, still crouched beside him, a human shield without a second thought.
His car was gone.Someone had just tried to kill him.And this was no longer a warning shot.
It was an opening move.
#
Anja’s hands didn’tshake.
