Istilled. The shot had been loud. But I was still thinking and apparently not dead. Why wasn’t I dead? Slowly, I opened my eyes to see Pucci face-down in the river with blood flowing from his head. I turned to see Aiden and Saber running toward me through the river, and Aiden’s gun was still in his hand. Confusion bore through my brain like a hundred buzzing bees.
Aiden landed on his knees in front of me. “Anna? Anna, talk to me.” His hands were everywhere. On my arms, my legs, my face. “Say something.”
I blinked. “You were shot. Three times.”
Aiden looked over his shoulder. “She’s going into shock.”
Saber flipped Pucci over, and his eyes were wide in death. “Jesus. Nice shot. You got him right in the temple.”
Aiden shrugged out of his leather jacket. “Put this on, sweetheart. It’s warm and it’ll keep you from shock. Just hold on.” He gently pushed my arms into his sleeves, and I settled into the safe smell of leather, motor oil, and man. Aiden’s scent. “There you go.” He zipped up the enormous jacket, and warmth began to seep into my bones.
The moonlight shone over his rugged face, bringing out the light and dangerous hues of his eyes. “The cops are coming,” I whispered.
He gently brushed a couple of curls off my face. “They’re already here, Angel.”
I tried to concentrate, but between the concussion and apparently the shock, it was difficult. “You were shot.” Hadn’t I already said that? My gaze dropped to his chest, which should be covered in bullet holes. Instead, a black bulletproof vest spread across his wide chest with the letters ATF across it with POLICE in big letters beneath it. A silver badge was stamped next to the letters. “ATF?”
He nodded, lowering his head to better see my eyes. “You’re definitely concussed.”
Hope leaped into my confused brain. “They let you borrow a vest?” Maybe he was an informant, and they’d let him off. “I don’t want to stop dating.” Tears filled my eyes. If they took Aiden away, what would I do? “We can fix this.” Wait a minute. I’d said that before, too.
Saber stood over Aiden’s shoulder and peered into my eyes. “Yeah. She’s definitely concussed. We have paramedics en route.”
Aiden ran his palms down my legs again. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“I have no idea,” I sighed, scrapes on my hands starting to ache. “I don’t understand what’s happening, and my head hurts.”
A couple of men wearing full assault gear and ATF uniforms jogged up in the middle of the river. Water splashed all around them. “We have the camp under control. Three of theirs dead, none of ours. Drag was hit, but it isn’t fatal,” the first guy said. “Looks like Pucci isn’t going to face racketeering charges after all.”
“No,” Aiden said, his hand remaining reassuringly on my thigh. My entire thigh. “But he has second and third in commands who are just as dirty, and I want everything thrown at them. Start with charges of violating the Organized Crime Control Act, and we’ll go from there.” He looked over his shoulder. “Looks like the locals are arriving?”
The first guy scouted the area with a world-weary gaze. “Yeah. We coordinated quick, and you’re going to need to handle it.”
“I’ve got it,” Saber said, pulling off his Lordes jacket to reveal a bulletproof vest just like Aiden’s. His silver badge had a scratch through it, obviously having had been used before. “You’re gonna need to bring her to the ambulance. They can’t get down here. I’ll be right back.”
Aiden wiped dirt off my shirt. “No. I need you on the body. Pictures, diagrams, and interviews. Also, take my service weapon out of my holster and clock it in for evidence. There’ll be a hearing for the shooting. Clancy? Go deal with the locals until I can, all right?”
“Yep.” The first guy turned to head back up the river with his buddy by his side.
I tilted my head and reached out to touch his badge. Surprise and relief and a whole lot of other emotions I couldn’t quite track spread through me. “You said you weren’t ATF.”
He grasped my chin and turned my head to the side, examining my forehead. “You never asked about ATF. You asked about the FBI, DHS, and the CIA, I believe. And I told you I wasn’t an informant.”
So he hadn’t lied to me. Wait a minute. Yes, he had.
Saber leaned over Aiden and took a gun out of the back of his waist. “We like to stay under the radar, you know?”
They were good at it. “You’re a Fed,” I murmured.
Aiden ran his knuckles across a bruise I could feel on my cheekbone. “You’re bruised but nothing is broken, I don’t think. To answer your question, I’ve been undercover for almost three years for this campaign, and I had to go through the Lordes to do it. I’ll explain everything later. Right now, we need to get you checked out.”
Yeah, everything was still pretty numb, including my brain. But my heart was beating fast and out of control, and for the first time that day, it wasn’t because of terror. It was because of Aiden. “I knew you were a good guy.”
Saber snorted. “Ha. Boy, do you have her fooled.” He took a picture of Pucci’s dead body with his phone.
“Nah,” Aiden said, cupping my jaw. “She’s had me figured out since the beginning.” He frowned and brushed a finger along my neck. “You’re bleeding. It’s not bad, but we need to go.” Then he stood and lifted me, grunting when I settled against his chest.
“You’re hurt.” I tried to remain still and stiff. While I didn’t know a lot about bulletproof vests, I had seen on television where somebody could have a couple of broken ribs after being shot while wearing one.
