“He’s here,” she said softly. “His scent is fresh. He got here a minute or so before we did.”
“Shit,” Braden swore.
Pulling his gun, he headed for the back door. Dreya did the same. Despite the target practice and training they’d done yesterday, it still felt strange to carry a weapon.
They were still a few feet away from the ornate stone and wood pergola when Dreya noticed the French doors were open. She heard a sound from inside the house that could have been a whimper, followed by soft, guttural, heavily accented words.
Dreya tightened her grip on the gun, her mind replaying every single piece of instruction that Braden, Danica, and Clayne had given her. No safety, keep her finger off the trigger until she was ready to shoot, take slow, steady breaths, use a firm but gentle grip, aim for the center of the target, don’t jerk. The list of things she needed to do seemed endless, and suddenly, she wished the DCO would have spent a lot more time teaching her to shoot than having her run around obstacle courses.
But none of that mattered now. Braden was moving through the French doors already, and she was going with him.
Her eyes immediately shifted as she entered the dark living room. She didn’t bother to try to stop it. She didn’t care if anyone saw the strange green glow of her reflective pupils. She needed to be able to see clearly.
What she saw almost made her heart stop. On the far side of the living room in the open-concept kitchen, a curly-haired middle-aged woman in a robe and slippers was standing beside the refrigerator, a carton of milk in her hands. A tall, dark-haired man stood behind her. He had one arm wrapped around her middle in an embrace that almost seemed romantic—if it hadn’t been for the woman’s completely rigid stance and the gun Cabo was pointing at her head.
“Drop the gun, Cabo!” Braden ordered, moving slightly to the left to get a better angle on the killer.
Pulse beating fast, Dreya mimicked his movements, sliding to the right.
The cartel assassin spun around to face them, dragging Barbara Herrera with him, using her as a shield.
Dreya pointed her weapon at the man, but she kept her finger away from the trigger. Even though Cabo was a good six inches taller than the attorney, he held the woman tightly against him, which made the target he presented too small for Dreya to consider taking a shot. She simply wasn’t that comfortable with a weapon yet.
The killer looked at Braden, then Dreya, his eyes widening a little in surprise when he met her gaze. No doubt the glow of her eyes freaked him out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to get him to let Barbara Herrera go. Instead, his expression hardened, and he pressed the barrel of the gun’s silencer harder against the side of the woman’s head, making her groan.
“I don’t think so,” Cabo said. “If you two don’t move away right now, I’ll shoot her while you watch.”
Dreya’s stomach clenched at the threat. She hadn’t realized you could smell fear, but the terror coming off the woman filled the air.
“You shoot her, and we both shoot you. I’m guessing you’re not in this line of work to die,” Braden told Cabo. “Right now, you’re looking at breaking and entering, assault with intent, maybe a few misdemeanor gun charges. With a good cartel lawyer, like the ones at the Martz Law Firm, you’ll be out in three to five years. But if you pull that trigger, it’s all over.”
Cabo stared at Braden for a moment, like he might be considering Braden’s words. Barbara stayed perfectly still, her gaze nervously flicking back and forth between Dreya and Braden.
Dreya thought talking Cabo down might actually work, but then a little girl with a tangle of dark hair and a stuffed pony in her hands walked into the kitchen and stopped halfway in between Dreya and Barbara.
“Mommy, Starlight wants a cookie,” the girl said in a sleepy voice.
Pure panic washed over the woman’s face as tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s too early for Starlight to eat cookies,” she said, half sobbing. “Go back to bed, baby.”
But it was too late for that. Cabo realized that he’d been given a gift that drastically changed the standoff between him and them. In a heartbeat, he pulled the gun barrel from Barbara’s head and swung it toward the little girl.
Dreya lunged for the child, her shifter reflexes and strength kicking in. She tried to be gentle as she scooped the little girl up in her arms and hit the floor rolling, but she was moving fast, and there was only so much she could do. The scream of shock the girl let out was louder than thepop, pop, popof the silenced weapon being fired at them.
Bullets hit the floor, tearing into the wood and ricocheting under Dreya as she tumbled into the living room with the girl wrapped in her protective embrace.
Left with no other choice, Braden fired.
A split second later, more pops from the silencer filled the air.
Dreya’s heart lurched.
Her shoulder slammed into a wall, bringing her to an abrupt stop. Telling the little girl to stay put, she sprang to her feet and charged into the kitchen, not knowing what she was going to find. Had Cabo shot the attorney—or Braden?
Barbara Herrera was lying unmoving on the floor of the kitchen while Braden and Cabo were fighting hand to hand and trying to kill each other a few feet away from the woman. Dreya smelled blood, but it wasn’t Braden’s, thank God. However, whether it was the attorney’s or Cabo’s, she didn’t know.
Braden and Cabo were moving and twisting so fast as they punched, jabbed, and kicked each other to keep their opponent’s gun pointed in a safe direction that there was no way Dreya could take a shot at the Argentinian hit man. She wasn’t going to stand there and watch either. Taking a deep breath, she closed the distance between her and the two combatants, claws extended.
Cabo must have seen her coming, because he twisted around to put Braden between him and Dreya. She didn’t slow but simply dropped to the tiled floor of the kitchen, sliding on her hip the last few feet like a baseball player at home plate. As she passed Cabo, she lashed out with her left hand, letting her claws rip through the blue jeans he wore all the way to the muscles of his left thigh. Her claws dug so deep, she was sure they hit bone.
