learned that she was still alive. “I was caught off guard.”
Brendan stared down at the boy he held in his arms. “I can relate.”
He had seemed shocked, not only to find her alive but also to realize that he was a father. Given that they had exactly the same eyes and facial features, Brendan had instantly recognized the child as his. There had been no point for her to continue denying what it wouldn’t require a DNA test to prove.
“Are you usually on guard?” he asked her.
“Yes.” But when she’d learned of the assault on her father, she had dropped her guard. And it had nearly cost her everything. She couldn’t take any more risks. And trusting Brendan would be the greatest risk of all. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“No,” he said, as if he agreed with her. Or supported her. But then he added, “I won’t let you.”
And she tensed. She lifted her arms again and clasped her hands on her son’s shoulders. After nearly losing him on the rooftop, she should have held him so tightly that he would never get away. But he’d started wriggling in the elevator, and she’d loosened her grip just enough that Brendan had been able to easily pluck him from her.
A chill chased down her spine as she worried that he would take her son from her just that easily. And permanently.
Josie’s stomach rose as the elevator descended to the basement. Panic filled her throat, choking her. Then the bell dinged, signaling that they had reached their destination. They had gone from one extreme to another, one danger to another.
“We’ll take my car,” Brendan said as the doors slowly began to slide open.
We. He didn’t intend to take her son and leave her alone, or as he’d left the men on the rooftop. Dead. But she and her son couldn’t leave with him, either. She shook her head.
“We don’t have time to argue right now,” he said, his deep voice gruff with impatience. “We need to get out of here.”
“Do you have a car seat?” she asked. She had posed the question to thwart him, thinking she already knew the answer. But she didn’t. As closely as she followed the news, she hadn’t heard or read anything about Brendan O’Hannigan’s personal life. Only about his business. Or his alleged business.
He’d kept his personal life far more private than his professional one. But she had been gone for more than three years. He could have met someone else. Could even have had another child, one he’d known about, one with whom he lived.
He clenched his jaw and shook his head.
“CJ is too little to ride without a car seat.”
“I’m not little!” her son heartily protested, as he twisted even more forcefully in Brendan’s grasp. Her hands slipped from his squirming shoulders. “I’m big!”
If CJ had been struggling like that in her arms, she would have lost him, and just as the doors opened fully. And he might have run off to hide again.
But Brendan held him firmly, but not so tightly that he hurt the boy. With his low pain threshold, her son would have been squealing if he’d felt the least bit of discomfort.
“You are big,” Josie assured him. “But the law says you’re not big enough to ride without your car seat.”
Arching a brow, she turned toward Brendan. “You don’t want to break the law, do you?”
A muscle twitched along his clenched jaw. He shook his head but then clarified, “I don’t want to risk CJ’s safety.”
But she had no illusions that if not for their son, he would have no qualms about breaking the law. She had no illusions about Brendan O’Hannigan anymore.
But she once had. She’d begun to believe that his inheriting his father’s legacy had forced him into a life he wouldn’t have chosen, one he’d actually run from when he was a kid. She’d thought he was better than that life, that he was a good man.
What a fool she’d been.
“Where’s your car?” he asked as he carried their son from the elevator.
She hurried after them, glancing at the cement pillars, looking at the signs.
“What letter, Mommy?” CJ asked. He’d been sleeping when she’d parked their small SUV, so he didn’t know. She could lie and he wouldn’t contradict her as he had earlier.
But lying about the parking level would only delay the inevitable. She wasn’t going to get CJ away from his father without a struggle, one that might hurt her son. Or at least scare him. And the little boy had already been frightened enough to last him a lifetime.
“A,” she replied.
CJ pointed a finger at the sign. “That’s this one.”
“What kind of car?” Brendan asked.
“A—a white Ford Escape,” she murmured.
“And the plate?”
She shook her head and pointed toward where the rear bumper protruded beyond two bigger sport utility vehicles parked on either side of it. “It’s right there.”
Because CJ had been sleeping, she’d made certain to park close to the elevators so she wouldn’t have far to carry him. As he said, he was a big boy—at least big enough that carrying him too far or for too long strained her arms and her back.
She shoved her hand in her jeans pocket to retrieve the keys. She’d locked her purse inside the vehicle to protect her new identity just in case anyone recognized her inside the hospital. She was grateful she’d taken the precaution. But if she’d had her cell phone and her can of mace, maybe she wouldn’t have needed Brendan to come to her rescue.
Lifting the key fob, she pressed the unlock button. The lights flashed and the horn beeped. But then another sound drowned out that beep as gunshots rang out. The echo made it impossible to tell from which direction the shots were coming.
But she didn’t need to know where they were coming from to know where they were aimed—at her. Bullets whizzed past her head, stirring her hair.
A strong hand clasped her shoulder, pushing her down so forcefully that she dropped to the ground. Her knees struck the cement so hard that she involuntarily cried out in pain.
A cry echoed hers—CJ’s. He hadn’t fallen; he was still clasped tightly in Brendan’s arms. But one of those flying bullets could have struck him.
Now she couldn’t cry. She couldn’t move. She could only stay on the ground, frozen with terror and dread that she had failed her son once again.
Vivid curses reverberated inside Brendan’s head, echoing the cries of the woman and the child. Those cries had to be of fear—just fear. He’d made certain
