Page 155 of Reckless Vengeance

The amount of bullets meant whoever it was, most likely the Soldiers, had their hands on fucking machine guns.

In her panic, Rory tried to get up to run, but I held her tighter.

“Stay down. Shuffle towards the van more. Do not get up,” I ordered over the noise, moving with her as the gunfire continued. Windows smashed as the whole front of the house was riddled with bullets, the van giving us better shelter as we waited it out.

She went to lift her head but I gently pushed it back down to the ground, tucking her in against me more to make sure she was covered.

Tires screeched as the car took off, and I carefully looked around before slowly getting to my feet, motioning for her to stay down while I made sure. Thankfully, she listened and waited until I offered her a hand to pull her up, my heartbeat hammering as I automatically started inspecting her.

“I’m fine. You’re not,” she growled, her hands pushing my jacket off my shoulders to get a better look at me. A bullet had grazed me, but it looked a lot worse than it was.

“Aurora!” Skeeter barked as he came barreling out of the house, his hands instantly running over her like mine had. “Are you hit?”

“No, Hunter⁠—”

“It’s a graze,” I promised, motioning to the house. “Inside. They could come back and we don’t want to be out here if they do.”

“Caden!” I heard Josie scream, looking towards the house to find Caden running over to us.

“Everyone’s fine. Get inside, stop scaring your mother,” I snapped, getting a dirty look in return, but he followed us back to the house.

I could tell that Josie wasn’t happy to see me as she ushered us all deeper into the house where it was safe.

“Police are coming. Did you see who it was? Did you lead them here?” she asked me directly.

“I didn’t see anyone or hear a car following me, so they must have already been parked out front waiting. It was just gunfire and then their tires skidding when they left,” I answered, kind of liking it when Rory forced me to sit down as she eased my jacket off my arms. Her fingers were cool on my skin as she removed my shirt next, rummaging in the cupboard for a medical kit.

“He’s fine, Aurora,” Skeeter grumbled, but she ignored him and soaked a cloth before walking back to me, dabbing at the wound as Skeeter glared at me. “You’re enjoying this way too much, asshole.”

“You know I’m a sucker for a hot nurse,” I joked, and as tempting as it was to slide an arm around her and tug her onto my lap, I thought better of it.

Sirens sounded outside, and none of us moved until the cops entered the house to let us know the attacker was definitely gone.

I declined medical assistance, being more than happy to let Rory fuss over me while pissing her guys off in the process. Tyler didn’t seem that bothered, being too busy on his phone to give a shit about his girlfriend’s hands all over me.

As expected, the cops blamed me, trying to pin it on some kind of crew war that I’d brought to the doorstep, even trying to say it was probably my guys that did it.

That didn’t make sense when I was the one that got skimmed with a bullet.

Rory argued with them for ages about it, and Skeeter sat in a chair beside mine, his voice gruff.

“You took a bullet for her.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

“You used yourself as a shield. I saw you getting off her,” he answered, eyeing the cops across the room that eyed us warily as if waiting for us to start shooting at each other. “Thank you.”

“You’ve been saying that a lot lately,” I smiled, putting a hand up to show I was teasing and making the cops all jerk as they put their hands over their guns. “But you’re welcome.”

“You can’t have her,” Skeeter warned.

“We’ll see.”

“I mean it, Hunt,” he said more softly, flicking his gaze to mine. “I can’t with you two. I’m glad you like her enough to take a bullet, it means a lot that you’d keep her safe, but it can’t become anything more.”

There was arguing in the other room before Marco barged in, heading straight towards me.

“You good?”