even like them, but she was too stubborn to remove them now. She was too stubborn to give in.
Even if she’d had the chance to drive off, she would have stood her ground. She would have fought to prove herself. That was why Cooper had hired her for his team. He wanted to convince her to believe in herself.
“What the hell happened here?” the security guard wondered aloud, his voice unsteady with fear.
Cooper shook his head. He hadn’t holstered his weapon. He gripped it tightly as he moved around the coupe to the passenger side. The door hung open, and so did the glove box. A box of ammo lay on the concrete next to some spent shells. And some more broken glass. The rear window was broken, and bullets had dented the trunk.
He looked again at the ground—looked for the blood he’d found around the SUV. The search must have distracted him, because he heard a gun cock—a gun too close to him. How the hell had someone gotten the jump on him?
He swung around, pointing his gun barrel behind him—into the pale face of his little sister. His breath shuddered out. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. But she was trembling. So badly that she nearly dropped her gun when she lowered it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”
He didn’t care that she’d pointed the gun at him. “Were you hit?” he asked.
Her curly hair was usually messy, but it nearly stood on end now—almost as if someone had pulled it. There was a red mark on her cheek that would undoubtedly become a bruise, and her sleeve had nearly been torn free of her jacket. She’d been in a hell of a fight.
Concern and anger both gripped him. He wanted to make sure she was okay even while he wanted to rip someone apart—whoever had hurt her.
“We need to get you to the ER.” He holstered his weapon now and reached for her. He would carry her there—like he’d carried other soldiers from combat. Nikki looked like she’d been to war.
She stepped back and shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said. But her voice cracked on the claim, and her brown eyes glistened as tears pooled. “Thanks to Nick.”
Cooper tensed. That might have been the first time she’d referred to their half brother by his first name.
“Where’s Nick?” he asked, and his voice cracked now as he remembered all the blood he’d found. Had that been Nick’s blood?
Nikki shook her head. “I don’t know...but I think he got hit.”
The blood had been Nick’s—at least some of it.
A tear slipped between her furiously blinking lashes and trailed down the red mark on her cheek. “We need to find him.”
Depending on where he had been hit, they might not have much time to find him and get him help before it was too late.
Before Nick couldn’t be saved...
He was a dead man.
Nick had learned long ago that there was no honor among thieves. His own mother had turned on her former boss and lover and testified against him—to save herself from a prison sentence.
Nick had just witnessed that lack of honor again as one of the gunmen, with no regard for his injured partner, had jumped into his vehicle. Or was it the one they had stolen from Annalise earlier that day? The little SUV wasn’t the older model sedan she’d had six months ago. But the Honda had an Illinois license plate. Maybe the men were from Illinois, too. Maybe they had followed her to Michigan.
But why? Why would anyone want to harm sweet Annalise?
Nick intended to find out. But the man sped off in the little SUV, leaving his partner behind. His concern was only for himself. Nick had pursued the vehicle first, running after it as it careened around the corners of the parking structure. He’d fired shots into the rear window, taking out the glass like the gunman had taken the glass out of his SUV, when they’d fired at him through it.
And Nikki...
Rage gripped him as he remembered what he’d stumbled upon when he had headed toward his vehicle. The fight. Those men had hurt Nikki. They had pulled her hair, punched her face. She’d fought. His sister was a hell of a fighter. She had punched back. She had kicked. She had pulled moves he hadn’t known she knew. But she’d been outnumbered...
The rage kept him from reacting to his gunshot wound—from one of the bullets fired through the broken window of his SUV. He’d felt the sting of it and could feel the blood oozing from his torn flesh to soak his shirt. But he ignored the pain to pursue the vehicle—until it was clear he wouldn’t catch it. The engine revved as it pulled out of the parking garage and onto the street. Horns honked as other vehicles nearly crashed into it. The Honda sped off. One of the gunmen had gotten away.
The other man couldn’t.
He had been hit. Nick wasn’t sure which one of them had fired the shot, him or Nikki. As well as a good fighter, she was a good shot. If she wasn’t, the men might have abducted Annalise outside Payne Protection. Was that why they had come to the hospital parking garage? Had they been determined to try again?
But if they’d been after Annalise, why had they been attacking Nikki? Why had they been standing beside Nick’s government-issue SUV?
Who the hell was their real target?
Nikki?
Her coupe had been parked near his SUV—near enough that she had been able to go for her gun. If she hadn’t, he might not have survived the onslaught of ammunition the other men had fired at him. Sometimes she acted like she hated him, but she had helped him. Hell, she’d probably saved his life.
And instead of making certain she was okay, he had left her alone. Sure, the other gunman was injured. But he was still armed. He could hurt her.
Of course, the injured man had been running after his partner, too—until he’d seen Nick behind him. Then he had dived between some parked cars. Nick hurried back toward where he’d remembered losing him—between a Hummer and a Cadillac—in the reserved staff parking section.
It was easy to track him. All he had to do was follow the blood trail—the one that wasn’t his. His blood was running down his arm and dripping from his fingertips. At least it was his right shoulder that had been hit, since he was left-handed.
He gripped his gun more tightly as he tracked the blood to where it turned from a trail to a pool. But he didn’t need a weapon. He found the man leaning against the side of the Hummer. Deep gouges marred his face. Someone had scratched him. Nikki? Or Annalise? His eyes were open. So was his mouth.
But he wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t answer any of Nick’s many questions. He was dead.
Then Nick heard the telltale metallic click of another gun cocking—near his head. And he worried that he might be a dead man, too.
* * *
Annalise had loved Nick too long to lose him now. Not that
