wouldn’t stop them. Those men were in a hurry to get out of there, and they’d drive on the rims if they had to.
The men raced out the door of the house, making a beeline for the car. They were just yards away when Nicky heard a sound she didn’t want to hear.
Footsteps.
Behind Holden and her.
Holden pivoted, aiming his gun, but it was already too late.
The man seemed to come out of nowhere.
Before Holden could do anything to stop him, the guy grabbed Nicky by her hair, hauled her back against his chest and jammed a gun to her head.
Damn.
This was not how Holden wanted things to play out.
He hoped there would be time to curse himself later for this botched rescue attempt. He should have waited until he had better measures in place. But maybe he could still figure out a way to fix this before it was too late for Nicky, him and, especially, the baby.
Holden scrambled to the front end of the car so he could take cover. That didn’t do a darn thing to help Nicky, but he wouldn’t be able to help her at all unless he stayed alive. Of course, another thug could gun him down, but right now using the car was the only option he had.
Nicky didn’t stay put, either. Despite having a gun to her head, she rammed her elbow into the guy’s stomach. The guy called her a couple of bad names and staggered back a step, but then latched onto her even harder.
“Try that again and I’ll bash you upside the head with this gun,” the thug growled.
Even though it was a clear enough warning, Nicky must have realized that he truly didn’t intend to kill her. Holden could see her face tighten, could practically feel her gearing up for a fight.
“No,” Holden warned her. “Don’t.”
And much to his surprise, Nicky listened. She also looked at Holden as if expecting him to tell her what to do next. He would.
When he figured out what the next step was.
For now, though, he didn’t want her in a wrestling match with a goon who was twice her size. Just because the guy had no plans to shoot her, it didn’t mean the gun wouldn’t accidentally go off, and Holden couldn’t risk a misfired bullet. Not just for Nicky’s sake, but for the baby’s.
“Can I punch her?” the thug asked his comrades approaching him.
“Not yet,” the guy carrying the baby answered. “I don’t want her bleeding in the car. Too hard to clean up.”
His voice was ice-cold. As was his expression. He was the one wearing a baseball cap and was also the one who’d talked about torching Nicky’s house and car. Holden figured he was the boss.
Well, the boss of these three anyway.
They were likely working for the person who’d been on the other end of that phone conversation. If Holden could just get the guy’s phone, he might learn who that was. First, though, he had to get them out of this alive.
All three of the men were dressed in black—that was probably the reason Holden hadn’t seen the third one sneaking up on them. They were all also heavily armed and wearing masks.
“Any sign of the locals?” the boss asked.
“No. But we got somebody watching the road. If they try to get here, we’ll see ’em.”
Holden hoped not. He hadn’t made that last text sound like a life-and-death matter, but his cousin would come prepared for trouble. Which was exactly what Holden and Nicky were facing right now.
“The marshal flattened two tires,” the one holding Nicky said. “What do you want me to do about that?”
“Nothing.” The boss, again. He adjusted the baby carrier in his hand so he could read a text he got. “Someone’s already on the way to pick us up. They should be here any second now.”
Hell. More hired guns. Just what Holden didn’t need.
Holden knew he had to do something fast, but he still wasn’t sure what that would be. Maybe he’d get a chance when the other car arrived. The men would no doubt look in the direction of the vehicle when it approached, and Holden could use that distraction.
Maybe.
But Landon also had to be nearby, too, and Holden had told him to do a quiet approach. Maybe his cousin would be in place before the thugs’ backup arrived.
The one holding Nicky made eye contact with Holden before glancing at his partners. “You want me to go ahead and shoot the marshal?”
“No shots around the kid, remember,” the boss insisted. “This is our million-dollar baby, and we can’t risk it.”
Even in the darkness, Holden could see Nicky’s eyes widen slightly. A million bucks. That was a lot of money to pay for a baby. So, maybe this wasn’t just some black-market deal.
But if it wasn’t that, then what the hell was it?
Holden glanced on the other side of the car at the two men approaching, and thanks to the angle of the lights coming out of the house windows, he saw the baby then.
And he felt as if someone had slugged him.
He’d thought when he saw the kid that it would take some hard proof before he would believe the baby was Emmett and Annie’s. It hadn’t taken more than a glimpse. The kid was theirs, all right. The proof was all over the baby’s face and that hair. However, Holden pushed aside his thoughts and concentrated on the situation directly in front of him.
“You obviously have a buyer for the baby,” Nicky said. “Well, I’ll match whatever offer you have. I can have the money to you within an hour.”
That was probably a lie. Nicky came from money, but it would take more than an hour to gather up that much cash even if Holden was contributing. Which he would. No way did he want his nephew sold like property, and neither would anyone in his family.
He wasn’t sure paying a ransom to the thugs would actually get them the baby, though. No. These men would just probably take the cash and the baby while going through with the plan to kill him. They wouldn’t want to leave a marshal alive.
The boss huffed. “Save your breath, sweetheart,” he said to Nicky. “I’m not gonna listen to a thing you try to tempt me with. Making a deal like that with you would get me killed the hard way.”
Later, Holden would want to know what the guy meant by that, but for now he had to focus on the mess that was unfolding right in front of him. He heard the car engine. Saw the headlights, too.
And he knew this wasn’t his cousin because Landon would be doing a quiet approach. In fact, Landon could already be there, but he wouldn’t have let these snakes know about it.
