Page 22 of Ferocious Protector

It’s a fine balance, watching carefully, making sure not one of those men climbing up that hill have even the slightest chance to get their weapons up in the air.

The minute Beckett and Mason kiss their wives I start taking the enemies out. One by one they fall. They may not be dead, intentionally, but they don’t have a chance in hell of getting up and causing any harm. Tommy’s boys are going to have plenty of men to interrogate and hopefully lots of intel to glean.

Damian’s voice comes over the radio on my hip. “All of the targets in front of us are down. We hear fire behind the house.”

“Roger that. Twelve bastards trying to flank us from the back are down. Tommy and his boys are going to need a big-ass cleanup crew. All of the friendlies are safe.”

“Son of a bitch. Roger that. I’ll call it into Tommy.”

“I’m going to stay here until they get here, and I know no one else is laying wait to take out our crew.”

“Roger that.”

I watch carefully through the scope, scanning the distance, not worried about the wedding party who the guys have moved into the safety of the house double time, but instead making sure the enemy doesn’t have a secondary move on the hill.

The radio crackles at my hip. “Enemies are down. Reinforcements are in place. I’m on my way to you.”

Damian walks in through the same path I took, carefully navigating the terrain but knowing I’ve got his six.

The minute he reaches me he extends a hand. “That was some damn good shooting. You had those fuckers pegged.”

“I think Tucker was with them but can’t be sure. He was wearing a hat.”

“We’ll have Tommy and his boys check it out, but in the meantime, I’ve been asked to take over here and get you to the plane.”

My eyes narrow. “What plane?”

“The Larussio jet.”

“You want to give me a clue what’s going on?”

Damian shakes his head. “Wish I could. All I know is they want you on that jet and you need to leave now.”

“I’m going to go and say goodbye to Patti Ann, then I’ll go.”

Damian sucks in a breath. “Sorry, Blake. It doesn’t quite work that way. You need to go now. The Larussios have a jet out on the private strip, and they want you to go now. Apparently, they’re in route and plan to meet you somewhere between here and Vegas.”

“That’s a pretty large spread. I’ve heard stories about mobsters meeting you out in the middle of nowhere and those stories don’t end so well.”

“You did good work here. That doesn’t usually end with you in a body bag.”

22

Patti

My friends eye me with sympathy. I hate it. I wish they would at least say something instead of looking at me with those sad eyes of regret. This is why I don’t do romance. Because I’m just always destined to be sitting in this bar with my friends and no one special of my own.

One week exactly, and not a word, a text or anything from Blake. After he probably saved all of our lives, just to disappear. It doesn’t even make sense to me. I may not have thought we were going to end in the fairy tale romance, even though I had already started to hope that we would, but I didn’t expect him to bug out without a word, or to ghost me like the plague.

The town may have settled back down, all the enemies rounded up by Tommy’s men and taken to who knows where, but that doesn’t make the pain in my heart go away. The same slow song that was playing when Blake first took me in his arms comes on and instead of wanting to dance, it just makes me sad.

I take another long sip of my beer, bound and determined not to let on how much that man ended up meaning to me. Lacy gives me wide eyes and a little grin. I narrow my eyes at her. Whatever she’s up to, it’s a hard no. No doubt she and Lettie have cooked up some scheme to play matchmaker again.

A tap on my shoulder while watching all of my friends suddenly start to smile causes me to turn and look up at the bright blue eyes burning into me from above. My breath catches. “Blake.”

He holds a hand out. “I believe this is our dance.”

The butterflies swarm in my belly so hard I think I might die, but he takes my hand and draws me up, bringing me so close my body begins to heat. “Let’s dance and we’ll talk.”