My heart sped up as he unlocked the gate and drove us up the driveway. Before we got out, he sent a quick text to Cal and the team.
Then we climbed the stairs. I’d never clung to a man so close before in my life.
The house felt wrong the moment we stepped inside.
I couldn’t have explained it to anyone.
Nothing was visibly out of place. The entry looked exactly as we’d left it.
But it felt dangerous where it had felt comforting before.
I should have gone to a safe house, like he wanted.
Bronson moved ahead of me into the main room, handed me a taser and signaled silently for me to stay in the entryway.
This time, I stayedexactlywhere he’d put me, my back to the entry wall, the taser pointed straight ahead of me, as I watched him disappear around the corner toward the kitchen.
The silence stretched.
He was gone too long.
And then I became aware of a shift of movement from one of the bedrooms. It was a quiet sound, barely audible above the crashing of the waves outside.
“Bronson?” I called out, hoping he’d come back.
The taser shook in my hands.
A man came out of the hallway fast, and my brain refused to process it at first.
Then the fear hit, and I pressed back against the wall, a loud scream tearing out of my lungs as the man pointed a gun straight at me.
And what did I do? I dropped the taser. Of course I did.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die right here.
And I never even got to kiss Bronson.
Those thoughts ran through my head in a millisecond as the intruder cocked the gun.
But before he could fire, Bronson ran into view, a predator on the attack.
He closed the distance between himself and the man in three steps, as I screamed and screamed and screamed.
The fight was over so fast that I couldn’t say exactly what Bronson had done.
One second the man was standing, pointing a gun at me. And the next, he’d gone down hard.
Bronson had him pinned and secured before I’d managed to take a full breath.
I stood against the wall, still screaming, but it had gone silent now. My mouth was open, no sound coming out.
Bronson wasn’t even breathing hard as he zip-tied the intruder’s wrists.
He looked up at me from where he crouched over the man on the floor, my hero, and his voice was calm. “You okay?”
I nodded, but my whole body was shaking. I’d never been around a gun before, other than the ones strapped to my security guards’ belts. And they’d never had a reason to pull them before. At least not in my presence.
