Page 24 of Preacher

The fact she did know should probably have bothered me more than it did. Instead, I cupped the side of her face, careful of the bruise. “What happened?”

“They called from Luis’s phone. I got here before Smoke. Luis was on the ground, so I called 911 and got out of the car.”

“You got out after I told you to stay in the car.”

“Luis was bleeding on the ground, Preacher.” Her eyes flashed with anger because she knew I was being unreasonable. “He was lying on the ground.”

I closed my mouth because she was right, and arguing about it now would make me exactly the kind of controlling bastard she’d already accused me of being.

“What then?”

“They came out from behind the trucks. They wanted me to sign transfer papers and unlock the office files, so I stalled. I knew you would get here.”

Despite everything happening around us, pride moved through me.

“They were going to put me in the SUV,” she continued. “I pulled the fire alarm and hit the emergency shutter switch. It jammed halfway down, so they had to come back through the warehouse instead of using the rear loading door.”

That explained why they were still here when I arrived. “You bought enough time for me to get here.”

Gage came through the warehouse door dragging a man by the back of his jacket. “One got away.”

My head snapped toward him as the words registered.

“Black SUV took the service road before I could block it. Driver had somebody with him.”

“Vega?”

“Couldn’t see.”

Smoke stumbled in behind Gage, limping and furious, blood streaked along one forearm. Holly immediately pulled away from me. “You got hit? Are you okay?”

“Bike’s worse. Technically the car only nudged me.”

Gage snorted as Smoke limped farther inside. “At forty miles an hour.”

Smoke looked at the dead man beside the pallets, then at the unconscious one at my feet. “I miss anything?”

His eyes moved to Holly’s bruises, and the humor disappeared.

“Luis?”

“Alive,” Holly said. “He needs an ambulance. Already coming I guess.”

Sirens reached us less than a minute later. Only one was close enough to matter, and when I looked toward the open warehouse door, I already knew who it would be.

White’s cruiser came through the gate fast and stopped sideways beside the office. He got out with his weapon already drawn, eyes taking in my bike, the man in the dirt and the open warehouse.

“Holly?” he shouted.

“She’s safe,” I called back, and that was what mattered. Whatever happened next, Holly was beside me, alive and no longer in anybody’s hands.

White moved toward the warehouse while speaking into his radio. “County says backup’s twenty minutes out.”

“Useful,” Gage muttered.

White heard him. “I didn’t ask for commentary.” He reached the doorway, saw Holly and lowered the gun slightly. Then headlights flared behind him as the black SUV came back through the gate. The passenger window dropped before anyone could question why it had returned.

“Down!” I shouted.