Authors: Ella Grace
“Now the smart thing to do is tell your men to drop their weapons and surrender.”
“I am a Silva. We do not surrender.”
“And here I was thinking you’re not altogether stupid.” His gun still at Silva’s head, Ian glanced around. The armed goons had dropped their guns and were holding their hands in the air. At least two citizens of Midnight covered each one.
“Looks like your hired guns are a little smarter than you.”
“You think you’re so smart, Mr. Mackenzie. I have contacts and friends you could never fathom. You’ll be the one in jail for holding an innocent man against his will.”
Ian grinned. “That right? We’ll just see about that.”
Silva slumped, moaned dramatically. “I need medical assistance. My shoulder is injured.”
“And believe me, it was my pleasure.”
The front door opened. Zach walked out with a gun in his hand and a furious look on his face. He spotted Ian holding Silva, along with the other residents of Midnight with their guns on Silva’s men.
“Looks like you caught yourself a puny one, Mackenzie.”
He wanted to laugh at the joke but had to know one thing first. “Where’s Sabrina?”
“She’s right behind me.”
His hold on Silva tight, Ian couldn’t look away from the door. The instant Sabrina emerged, he began to breathe again.
Sabrina raced toward Ian, who stood beside an arrogant and harried looking Silva. Before she reached him, she did a once over of Ian’s body, ensuring he was safe. The angry words she’d hurled at him earlier completely forgotten. She could easily have lost him today. And one thing she realized in the midst of the barrage of bullets—when she hadn’t known if he was injured or dead—she couldn’t bear to lose Ian.
“Everyone okay?” Ian asked.
“Yeah. A lot of damage, but nothing that can’t be fixed.” She cut her eyes over to Silva. “I cannot wait to see you behind bars.”
“You’ll have a long wait, I assure you. Or did you think your friend Holden Marsh would be helping you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Simply put, I relocated three of my bullets into the traitor’s chest before I arrived here.”
Oh no. Poor Marsh.
Instead of being able to be the one who finally put him away, Silva had killed him.
“Son of a bitch,” Ian snarled. “Then you’ll be punished for his murder, too.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with. My attorneys will have me out of jail before nightfall.”
The oily smugness in Silva’s voice made Sabrina want to vomit. No way in hell would the asshole get away this time.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I need medical attention. I’ve been shot.”
She couldn’t argue with that. With the blood soaking his suit jacket, she was surprised he was still standing. Ian’s grasp on him kept him upright.
Buddy Lawson from Midnight’s volunteer fire department rolled a stretcher toward them. Ian pushed Silva onto the stretcher and using the handcuffs Zach threw him, cuffed both the man’s wrists to the railing.
Midnight’s deputies, along with Brody and Logan, handcuffed Silva’s men. In the middle of Zach reciting Miranda rights to them, a familiar noise came from above. For the second time in less than an hour, the thundering flutter of helicopter blades filled the air.
All eyes went to the sky and then watched as a silver helicopter landed on the street in front of the mansion. Five men jumped out. Another one got out much more slowly but was easily recognizable.
Sabrina grinned. “Looks like you might’ve made a mistake about those bullets, Silva.”
“That’s not possible.” Silva tried to get up and cursed when he realized how bound he was to the stretcher.
Holden Marsh walked toward them. “Everyone okay?”
“Yeah,” Sabrina said. “Glad to see you are, too. Silva said you were dead.”
“That’s because Mr. Silva can’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
“That’s not true. I hit you, you bastard. I know I did.”
Marsh touched his chest and grimaced. “You hit Kevlar, you idiot. Broke a couple of ribs. Bullet proof vests come in damn handy when dealing with murderous assholes.” He glanced at a man standing a few feet behind him. “Isn’t that right, Walker?”
“Yeah. Thankfully.”
Sabrina gasped and turned at the sound of a familiar voice.
“Hi, Sabrina.” Ryan Walker gave her a crooked grin. “Sorry about what happened.”
She shook her head. “Wow. Now I’m the one who’s questioning herself. I saw you die.”
“No,” Marsh said, “what you saw was a fake execution. Silva ordered Walker’s death. And since I kind of like the guy, I let him know what was going down.”
“You could’ve let me know, too.”
“Sorry,” Walker said, “but I did tell you to be prepared for anything.”
“You son of a bitch.”
The snarl came not from Silva but from Ian.
“Ian…don’t.”
Ignoring her, he continued to glare at the two men. “You let Cruz put his filthy hands on her, almost sexually assault her. And you did nothing to stop it.”
Walker eyes went glacial. “I killed the bastard. We had to let it play out or we never would have convinced Silva that we were both still with him.” His expression softened slightly when he looked at Sabrina. “That was the reason Marsh came in so soon. Silva would have been glad to let it play out longer, but we put a stop to it as soon as we could.”
She believed him but still resented not being told upfront. It would have saved her several bad moments.
“Don’t blame Walker,” Marsh said. “We were operating on need to know only.”
“Your concept of need to know items needs to be changed,” Ian said. “You scared the shit out of her for no reason.”
“Ian, it’s fine. Really.” Sabrina patted Ian’s tense arm soothingly and then nodded at both Walker and Marsh. “I am glad both of you are okay. And the entire town of Midnight is glad this is over.” She paused and added, “It is over, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Marsh said. He jerked his head forward. “Let’s get out of the crowd and I’ll tell you everything I can.”
Sabrina glanced down at Silva lying on the stretcher, pale and defeated, powerless and weak. It was a beautiful sight.
Perhaps it was small of her but couldn’t resist flashing him a bright smile and saying, “See you in court, asshole.”
Turning away before he could respond, she went with Ian, Marsh and Walker to the edge of the yard. On the way, she nodded and smiled her thanks to the Midnight residents who’d come to their aid. She vowed never to complain about their nosiness ever again. Without them, this wouldn’t have turned out near as well.
As she listened to Marsh and Walker discuss the various charges Silva would receive, Sabrina took a moment to look around. The house was a wreck. Almost every window was broken. Bullet holes were scattered like pockmarks along the front siding. Shattered flowerpots, dirt, and broken flower petals covered the front porch. Yes it was a mess, but everything could be fixed, repaired, replaced. Nothing of great significance had been harmed.
Her eyes searched out her loved ones. Savvy and Sammie stood with Lauren, talking with several of Midnight's residents. Quinn was moving from one injured man to the next, checking their wounds. Zach and his deputies, along with Logan and Brody, were seeing to the arrest of Silva's men. All were here and accounted for. That was what mattered. Everything else paled in comparison.
“Sorry about this,” Marsh was saying. “I didn’t know until it was too late that the asshole was headed here.”
Sabrina was too relieved at the outcome to be angry. “You said he’d gone over the deep end. I don’t think any of us expected he’d do anything this outrageous.”
“He seems to think he’ll get out of it,” Ian said.
Marsh snorted. “We’ve got an army of people ready to testify to make sure that doesn’t happen. Plus, we found two of his warehouses. It’s just a matter of time before we get them all. There’s no doubt this time…the bastard is going down.”
Sabrina glanced over to where Silva was being treated. The paramedics were slowly rolling the stretcher across the yard, headed toward the ambulance.
Ralph Henson stood talking with a group of men. Odd, she hadn’t even noticed he was here. She turned to say something to Ian about it and then stopped, studied. Something was off…wasn’t right. Henson was holding his gun low at his side, loosely, carelessly. The stretcher passed by Henson and Silva took advantage of the other man’s stupidity.
As if in slow motion, Sabrina watched the man’s arm swing toward them. She managed to shout, “Gun!” an instant before Silva fired.
And Ian, as always, put her safety above his. Throwing himself forward, he caught her in his arms, pushed her to the ground and lay on top of her, shielding her.
The ground slammed into her back. From a distance she heard shouting and multiple shots as chaos erupted. A deafening silence followed.
The body on top of her was a dead weight, utterly still.
“Ian?” she whispered.”
No answer.
Oh God, no, no, no.
Suddenly she was free as someone lifted Ian from her and laid him on the ground. Blood poured from the wound that had gone into his back and straight through the other side. Sabrina crawled over to him. Her heart shattered. His face was pale, still. He was unmoving, unconscious. Oh God, was he breathing?
“Move, Sabrina. Let me see to him.”
She scooted out of the way for Quinn to get to him but refused to release Ian’s hand. Unable to take her eyes away from him, a prayer, a mantra formed in her mind:
Please not, Ian. Please don’t take him, too.
Chapter Thirty
Ian blinked heavy eyes open. He was groggy, sore, and unaccountably angry for some reason. What had happened? Confusion dissolved as memory kicked in, panic quickly followed—Robert Silva and a gun.
Sabrina!
Hearing a slight sound, he shifted his head and his gaze fell upon a beautiful sight. Sabrina—thank you, God, healthy and safe. The expression on her too pale face was one of sadness, her beautiful eyes dark with worry. Then he remembered one other fact. Ah hell, he’d been shot.
“So what’s the verdict?”
“Hey!” She popped up from her chair, radiance replacing her darkness. “How are you feeling?”
“Like someone shot me. And I sure as hell hope somebody took care of that asshole who did.”
“That’s something you don’t have to worry about. Silva is dead.”
“I should’ve killed him when I had the chance. What happened? I remember seeing him pointing the gun toward you. That’s about it.”
“That’s because you were being the hero again. Saving my ass.”
“And what a pretty one it is, too.”
Instead of smiling, tears glimmered in her eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“Takes a bigger gun than that to take down a tough skinned guy like me.”
“Yeah. That’s why you were unconscious for almost twenty-four hours.”
“Hey, you’ll spoil my tough guy image if that gets around.” He glanced down at the large bandage covering his chest. “So what’s the damage?”
“Surprisingly minimal. Quinn said if you’re going to get shot in the back, you picked the perfect spot. No organs or arteries hit or even nicked. It was a through and through.”
“Good to know there’s a perfect place. I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”
“Seriously, Ian. You could’ve been killed.”
“But I wasn’t. I—” A sick thought came to him. “A through and through? Were you hit?”
She gave a slight shrug. “My shoulder. Barely a scrape. I didn’t even know it until we got to the hospital. It’s nothing.”
“Let me see.”
Unbuttoning her shirt, she lowered the material so he could see the small bandage on her shoulder.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not even a little. Didn’t even need stitches.”
“I’m pissed you were hurt that much.”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
He moved slightly, grimaced at the deep throb in his back and chest. He’d take the pain though. She was safe…that’s what counted. “Everyone else is okay, too?”
“Yes. I don’t know if Silva was aiming for me, Marsh or Walker. It might not have mattered to him. He just wanted to kill at least one of us.”
He’d seen Silva’s eyes when he’d turned that gun to aim. He would have killed Sabrina. Ian didn’t doubt that for a minute.
“And who’s the lucky one who got to kill Silva?”
“Hard to say. An instant after Silva fired, five people shot him. Zach, two of Marsh’s men, plus Logan and Brody.” She gave a sad smile. “Logan’s really hoping his bullet was the one that counted.”
“Can’t blame him for that. What about Marsh? Is he pissed off that Silva is dead?”