Page 90 of Xavier

He stood behind her, holding the gun at her head. “Then you will die with them.”

Lissette caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye.

On instinct, she dropped to the floor.

A gun went off.

Benoit fell, landing on top of Lissette, warm liquid soaked into her clothes. She tried to move, but the man was a dead weight, pinning her to the ground and making it difficult to breathe.

Dead weight.

Benoit was dead.

“Lissette,” Xavier’s voice called out.

Benoit’s body lifted away from her.

A moment later, she was in Xavier’s arms.

“Are you hurt? Did he shoot you?” He held her away from him, his face going pale. “All this blood. Where are you hit?”

“It’s not mine,” she said.

Xavier pulled her into his arms again and held her for a long, exquisite moment.

“Grand-mère,” she said, pushing him back.

“I’m here, mon cher,” her grandmother said.

“Oh, thank God,” Lissette cried.

Xavier smiled down at her. “She was the one who saved you. She swept Benoit’s legs out from under him.”

“I only distracted de man,” her grandmother said. “Your man did de rest.”

“He’s not my man,” Lissette murmured, her cheek pressed to Xavier’s chest, but oh, how she wished he was.

The wind howled through the hole in the roof and ripped off another sheet of tin, sending it crashing through.

“Watch out!” Remy yelled.

Men scrambled out of the way as the sheet dropped to the concrete floor.

“We have to get out of here,” Remy said above the screaming wind and rain pounding against the tin of the remaining roof.

“It’s too late to go back,” Xavier said. “There’s a bunker somewhere. We have to get to it.”

Lights blinked out, the only illumination coming from the flashes of lightning.

Flashlights blinked on around the room.

“Find the bunker,” Remy called out. “And hurry. This building’s coming apart.”

Another roof panel was blown away, and the sides of the building swayed.

Lissette’s grandmother caught her arm. “I know where be de bunker.” She turned and picked her way toward the back wall, as spry as any younger woman.

Xavier unclipped a flashlight from his belt and shined it in front of the older woman.