Page 267 of Lorenzo

Our security is being engaged somewhere behind us, close enough that I can hear the exchange through the closed vehicle but far enough that I cannot see what is happening.

“Stay down,” I tell Donna.

She gives me a look that would be almost insulting under any other circumstances.

“Until we know where the fire is coming from.”

“That’s better.”

I draw my gun and lean forward enough to look through the windshield.

The SUV is angled partly off the road, the front end shoved into a shallow ditch. A headlight throws a crooked beam across wet pavement and the side of a low industrial building farther ahead.

Rinaldi’s seat is empty.

The driver’s door hangs open.

My stomach drops.

“Rinaldi.”

Donna follows my line of sight. “He must have been thrown out.”

There is no blood visible from here, although that tells me very little.

If I were alone, I would already be outside looking for him.

But I am not alone.

Donna is beside me, and someone has just forced our vehicle off the road, and I have a very good feeling I know who it was.

Protecting her comes first.

I hate the choice even as I make it.

“We need out of the vehicle,” I say. “We are trapped in here if they surround us.”

Donna nods once.

I glance toward Mocha.

He is focused on the rear passenger door now, body tight, a low growl building in his chest.

Donna sees it too.

“Mocha. Watch.”

His attention sharpens immediately.

I shift toward the door, keeping low, already calculating how fast I can get Donna behind the engine block or around the far side of the SUV.

We never get the chance.

The rear door jerks open.

Cold air and rain rush into the vehicle as a man appears in the opening with a gun leveled directly at us.

The moment I see it's not Rinaldi or one of my other men, I fire without hesitation.