that she hadn’t been in love with Nicholas Rus.
“Where is he?” she asked Nikki.
Tears brimmed in her brown eyes. She shook her head and tousled her already tangled auburn curls around her pale face. “I don’t know...”
Logan cursed.
Nikki flinched—either over his reaction or because she was in pain. She had obviously been roughed up. But she had refused medical attention for her injuries. She had rushed into the lobby instead—to fill in Logan on what had happened in the garage.
The men who’d stolen Annalise’s car had come back. They had been waiting in the parking garage.
For her?
For Nikki?
For Nick?
Why? What did they want?
Annalise owned nothing of value to anyone but her. After all the times they’d broken into her home and her office and stolen her vehicle, they had to realize that she had nothing they wanted. So why wouldn’t they leave her alone?
Unless it really wasn’t her that they were after...
The trouble hadn’t started for her until after Nick had been to Chicago, until after that night they had made love in the house where he’d grown up.
“Nick chased them out of the parking garage. And I don’t know how he could...” Nikki’s voice cracked with emotion as she continued, “I think he was hit. I know he was hit.”
“Hit?” Panic clenched Annalise’s heart. “You think he was shot?”
Biting her lip, Nikki nodded. “He was bleeding. There was blood all over the cement.” She shuddered. “But it didn’t stop him.”
Nothing stopped Nick from going after what he wanted. The son of a drug addict single mother—the odds had been against his making anything of his life. But he had accomplished everything he’d wanted. He’d joined the Marines, gone to college and earned a high position in the FBI. No, nothing stopped Nick.
“So he must not have been hurt badly,” Nikki said as if she was trying to convince herself.
But his half sister didn’t know Nick like Annalise did. She had no idea how determined—how single-minded—he could be.
“He needs medical attention,” Annalise said. How long could he survive with a bullet in him? Even Nick had limits to what he could endure.
“Cooper will find him,” Logan assured them.
Then he focused on his sister, and a muscle twitched in his cheek, above his tightly clenched jaw. Annalise recognized the telltale sign of stress and tension. She’d seen that same muscle twitch in Nick’s cheek so many times. But she had seen him clench his jaw like that even when he hadn’t been stressed or angry. She’d seen it when she’d hugged him. She had thought that was because he didn’t like being touched.
But maybe her hugging him had stressed him out. Maybe he’d had to struggle for control of the passion she’d experienced the night they’d made a child together.
“And while Cooper is finding Nick,” Logan said, “you’re going to the emergency room to get checked out.” When he took his sister’s arm, she flinched. “Nikki, you are hurt!” And he swung her up in his arms as if she were a child.
Embarrassment flushed Nikki’s face with color even brighter than the mark on her cheek. Annalise’s heart swelled with concern and sympathy for the other woman. She understood what it was like to be underestimated—like Nikki’s brothers obviously underestimated their little sister. She also understood what it was like to be hurt and need their comfort and protection. She could recognize that Nikki was torn between wanting to be a tough, independent woman and the little girl who needed her big brothers.
The wheelchair forgotten, Annalise hurried after the brother and sister as Logan carried Nikki back to the ER. Logan shouldered open the door marked No Admittance. There was no security guard to stop him. They were all in the parking garage—looking for Nick and the men who’d shot at Nikki and him.
Not just at.
Nick had taken a bullet. He was bleeding. He needed to be in the ER, too.
“I’m fine,” Nikki said as she wriggled in Logan’s arms. “I’m not the one who needs medical attention.”
She was worried about Nick, too. But then, she’d been there. She knew how badly he’d been hurt.
“You shouldn’t be back here,” the doctor who’d treated Annalise agreed. “We have critically wounded coming in!”
“Critical?” Annalise uttered the word on a gasp of shock and pain.
A ding rang out, and doors to an elevator at the end of the hall opened. Two men—dressed in scrubs like the doctor—pushed out a gurney. A sheet covered the patient from head to toe.
She couldn’t see the man’s face. But his legs dangled from the end of the gurney. He was tall and broad. His shoulders hung over the sides.
Her heart pounded furiously with fear and dread. Nick was tall. Nick was broad. But it couldn’t be Nick.
It couldn’t be.
When he’d enlisted in the Marines, she had been so afraid that she would lose him. And when he’d joined the FBI...
He had been in so much danger so many times and had survived. Today he’d only been going down to the parking garage to retrieve his vehicle—for her. He shouldn’t have been in danger there. Of course, she shouldn’t have been in danger outside the Payne Protection Agency, either.
Her voice cracking, Nikki asked the question burning in Annalise’s throat. “Is he dead?”
The medical professionals ignored her—until the doctor standing beside them asked, “Did you pronounce him?”
One of the doctors nodded.
“There was nothing we could do,” the other one said. “He bled out before security cleared the parking garage for us to treat him.”
Tears burned Annalise’s eyes. Nick had bled to death while waiting for help?
She couldn’t bear the thought that he had been alone and hurt. But then Nick was always alone. He insisted that was the way he’d wanted it. That was the reason he’d given for always pushing her away.
Nikki gasped, too, and the tears that had brimmed in her eyes spilled over. “No...”
They had been named for the same man. If they had anything else in common besides their names, they might not have pushed each other away. Now Nikki would never have the chance to connect with the brother she’d obviously resented.
And Annalise’s baby would never get to meet his or her father—just as Nick had never had the chance to meet his. Horror and regret overwhelmed Annalise, making her legs tremble and threaten to fold beneath her. Before she could fall, though, strong arms closed around her, holding her
