I don’t have time to marvel at the soundproofing because Kai’s hand is on my arm, and he is moving me toward the back of the shop. Past the whiskey aisle. Past the restrooms.
“Storage,” he says, and he’s already testing the handle of a steel door on the left. It opens. A small room full of boxedinventory and the smell of cardboard. He pushes me in, follows, and locks the door behind us.
Then he turns, and I see his right shoulder. The charcoal suit fabric is dark, but under the bare bulb, I can see the wet shine. A stain is spreading from a tear in the fabric near the top of the deltoid.
“You’re hit.” I can already hear my panic.
“It’s a scratch.” He’s pulling the phone from inside his jacket, dialing.
“Kai. You are bleeding!”
“It’s a scratch, Diana. I need you to sit down and stay calm.”
The phone connects. His voice drops into a register I have never heard from him. Clipped. Stripped of everything personal.
“Line 13. This is Romero. Detail for Jensen. We’re at Tinder Box. Shots were fired from the street, at least three rounds. Vehicle’s tires are hit. One graze on me, non-critical. Client is secure. We’re locked in a back storage room.”
A pause. I can hear the voice on the other end, rapid and male.
“Copy,” Kai says.
He lowers the phone. “Backup’s on the way. We stay here.”
I nod and lean back against the wall of boxes. My heart is slamming behind my ribs. The call is over, and now the only sound in the room is me, my breathing.
Nobody has ever shot at me before. I have been sent a dead rat in a Tiffany box once, by a man who lost a custody case. But nobody has ever pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger.
My hands won’t stop shaking. I press them flat against my thighs and will them still and they refuse to obey me. My breath is coming faster now, short, shallow pulls that aren’t filling my lungs.
I can feel the adrenaline turning into panic, and I hate it. I hate the helplessness. I hate that my body is betraying the composure I have spent years perfecting.
Kai crouches in front of me. His face is level with mine. Those blue-gray eyes. His hand reaches for my face. Warm against my cheek.
“Don’t be scared. I’m here.” His voice is low, and it is the most certain sound I have ever heard from another human being. “Nobody’s getting to you while I’m around. Remember that.“
I look at him. This young man with a bullet in his shoulder and no fear in his face.
I reach for him. My arms go around his torso and I pull him into me until he’s kneeling, his good arm coming around my back. He holds me tight. I press my face into the curve of his neck where his skin is warm and his pulse is steady, and I breathe him in.
10
Kai
THE WOMAN I was hired to protect is bleeding warmth into my neck, and the only thought my brain can hold is that I’d take ten more bullets to keep her right here, safe.
Her arms stay locked around my torso. My shoulder is on fire. The adrenaline is thinning out, and the nerve endings underneath are clocking back in with a vengeance.
I don’t move. My good hand is flat against her back, holding her steady, feeling her ribs lifting against my palm with each breath she takes. Slower now. More even.
I need to know she’s okay.
Pulling back enough to see her face, I look. Her eyes are dry. The shake in her hands has stopped. The woman looking back at me is the same one who walked into the gym for the first time. The panic that had her a few minutes ago is gone.
When she catches me watching, the corner of her mouth lifts. She leans her head against the box behind her, eyes never leaving my face. Something in her expression doesn’t quite add up.
“I know who you are, Kai.”
“What do you mean?”
