He had seemed shocked, not only to find her alive but also to realize that he was a father. Given that they had exactly the same eyes and facial features, Brendan had instantly recognized the child as his. There had been no point for her to continue denying what it wouldn’t require a DNA test to prove.
“Are you usually on guard?” he asked her.
“Yes.” But when she’d learned of the assault on her father, she had dropped her guard. And it had nearly cost her everything. She couldn’t take any more risks. And trusting Brendan would be the greatest risk of all. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“No,” he said, as if he agreed with her. Or supported her. But then he added, “I won’t let you.”
And she tensed. She lifted her arms again and clasped her hands on her son’s shoulders. After nearly losing him on the rooftop, she should have held him so tightly that he would never get away. But he’d started wriggling in the elevator, and she’d loosened her grip just enough that Brendan had been able to easily pluck him from her.
A chill chased down her spine as she worried that he would take her son from her just that easily. And permanently.
Josie’s stomach rose as the elevator descended to the basement. Panic filled her throat, choking her. Then the bell dinged, signaling that they had reached their destination. They had gone from one extreme to another, one danger to another.
“We’ll take my car,” Brendan said as the doors slowly began to slide open.
We
. He didn’t intend to take her son and leave her alone, or as he’d left the men on the rooftop. Dead. But she and her son couldn’t leave with him, either. She shook her head.
“We don’t have time to argue right now,” he said, his deep voice gruff with impatience. “We need to get out of here.”
“Do you have a car seat?” she asked. She had posed the question to thwart him, thinking she already knew the answer. But she didn’t. As closely as she followed the news, she hadn’t heard or read anything about Brendan O’Hannigan’s personal life. Only about his business. Or his
alleged
business.
He’d kept his personal life far more private than his professional one. But she had been gone for more than three years. He could have met someone else. Could even have had another child, one he’d known about, one with whom he lived.
He clenched his jaw and shook his head.
“CJ is too little to ride without a car seat.”
“I’m not little!” her son heartily protested, as he twisted even more forcefully in Brendan’s grasp. Her hands slipped from his squirming shoulders. “I’m big!”
If CJ had been struggling like that in her arms, she would have lost him, and just as the doors opened fully. And he might have run off to hide again.
But Brendan held him firmly, but not so tightly that he hurt the boy. With his low pain threshold, her son would have been squealing if he’d felt the least bit of discomfort.
“You are big,” Josie assured him. “But the law says you’re not big enough to ride without your car seat.”
Arching a brow, she turned toward Brendan. “You don’t want to break the law, do you?”
A muscle twitched along his clenched jaw. He shook his head but then clarified, “I don’t want to risk CJ’s safety.”
But she had no illusions that if not for their son, he would have no qualms about breaking the law. She had no illusions about Brendan O’Hannigan anymore.
But she once had. She’d begun to believe that his inheriting his father’s legacy had forced him into a life he wouldn’t have chosen, one he’d actually run from when he was a kid. She’d thought he was better than that life, that he was a good man.
What a fool she’d been.
“Where’s your car?” he asked as he carried their son from the elevator.
She hurried after them, glancing at the cement pillars, looking at the signs.
“What letter, Mommy?” CJ asked. He’d been sleeping when she’d parked their small SUV, so he didn’t know. She could lie and he wouldn’t contradict her as he had earlier.
But lying about the parking level would only delay the inevitable. She wasn’t going to get CJ away from his father without a struggle, one that might hurt her son. Or at least scare him. And the little boy had already been frightened enough to last him a lifetime.
“A,”
she replied.
CJ pointed a finger at the sign. “That’s this one.”
“What kind of car?” Brendan asked.
“A—a white Ford Escape,” she murmured.
“And the plate?”
She shook her head and pointed toward where the rear bumper protruded beyond two bigger sport utility vehicles parked on either side of it. “It’s right there.”
Because CJ had been sleeping, she’d made certain to park close to the elevators so she wouldn’t have far to carry him. As he said, he was a big boy—at least big enough that carrying him too far or for too long strained her arms and her back.
She shoved her hand in her jeans pocket to retrieve the keys. She’d locked her purse inside the vehicle to protect her new identity just in case anyone recognized her inside the hospital. She was grateful she’d taken the precaution. But if she’d had her cell phone and her can of mace, maybe she wouldn’t have needed Brendan to come to her rescue.
Lifting the key fob, she pressed the unlock button. The lights flashed and the horn beeped. But then another sound drowned out that beep as gunshots rang out. The echo made it impossible to tell from which direction the shots were coming.
But she didn’t need to know where they were coming from to know where they were aimed—at her. Bullets whizzed past her head, stirring her hair.
A strong hand clasped her shoulder, pushing her down so forcefully that she dropped to the ground. Her knees struck the cement so hard that she involuntarily cried out in pain.
A cry echoed hers—CJ’s. He hadn’t fallen; he was still clasped tightly in Brendan’s arms. But one of those flying bullets could have struck him.
Now she couldn’t cry. She couldn’t move. She could only stay on the ground, frozen with terror and dread that she had failed her son once again.
Chapter Six
Vivid curses reverberated inside Brendan’s head, echoing the cries of the woman and the child. Those cries had to be of fear—just fear. He’d made certain that they wouldn’t be hit, keeping them low as the shots rang out. If only he’d had backup waiting...
But just as he had taken on the gunmen inside the hospital, he also had to confront this one alone—while trying to protect people he hadn’t even known were alive until tonight. So he didn’t utter those curses echoing inside his head, not only because of his son but also because he didn’t have time.
He’d taken the gun off the guy he’d left alive. But that didn’t mean the man hadn’t had another one on him, as Brendan always did. Or maybe if he’d come down to ambush them in the garage he’d retrieved a weapon from his vehicle.
Where the hell were the shots coming from? Since they ricocheted off the cement floor and ceiling and pillars, he couldn’t tell. So he couldn’t fire back—even if he’d had a free hand to grab one of his concealed weapons.
His hands were full, one clasping his son tightly to his chest while his other wrapped around Josie’s arm. He lifted her from the ground and tugged her toward the car she’d unlocked. Thankfully, it was next to two bigger SUVs that provided some cover as he ushered them between the vehicles.
“Do you still have the keys?” he asked.
Josie stared at him wide-eyed, as if too scared to comprehend what he was saying, or maybe the loud gunshots echoing throughout the parking structure had deafened her. Or she was just in shock.
Brendan leaned closer to her, his lips nearly brushing her ear as her hair tickled his cheek. Then he spoke louder. “Keys?”
She glanced down at her hand. A ring of keys dangled from her trembling fingers.
He released her arm to grab the keys from her. Then, with the keys jamming into his palm, he pulled open the back door and thrust her inside the vehicle.
“Stay low,” he said, handing their son to her. As he slammed the door shut behind them, a bullet hit the rear bumper. The other vehicles offered no protection if the shooter was behind them now.
Brendan let a curse slip out of his lips. Then he quickly pulled open the driver’s door. As he slid behind the steering wheel, he glanced into the rearview mirror. He couldn’t see anyone in the backseat. Josie had taken his advice and stayed low.
But he noticed someone else. A dark shadow moved between cars parked on the other side of the garage, rushing toward Josie’s SUV. In the dim lighting, he couldn’t see the guy’s face, couldn’t tell if this was the supposed orderly from the sixth floor. He couldn’t risk the guy getting close enough for Brendan to recognize him.
He shoved the keys in the ignition. As soon as the motor turned over, he reversed. He would have slammed into the cars behind them, would have tried to crush the shooter. But Josie and the boy were not buckled in, so he couldn’t risk their being tossed around the vehicle.
And Brendan couldn’t risk the gunman getting close enough to take more shots. If these guys were all hired professionals, they were bound to get an accurate shot. So he shifted into Drive and pressed his foot down on the accelerator. If only he could reach for one of his weapons and shoot back at the shadow running after them...
But he needed both hands on the wheel, needed to carefully careen around the sharp curves so he didn’t hit a concrete pillar, or fling Josie and his son out a window. He had to make sure that he didn’t kill them while he tried so desperately to save them.
Josie didn’t know what would kill them first: the gunshots or a car accident. Since Brendan was driving so fast, he must have outdistanced the gunman so no bullets could fly through the back window and strike CJ. She quickly strapped him into his booster seat. As short as he was, his head was still beneath the headrest.
“Stay down,” Brendan warned her from the front seat as he swerved around more sharp corners and headed up toward the street level and the exit. “There could be more—”
Hired killers? That was probably what he’d intended to say before stopping himself for their son’s sake, not wanting to scare the boy.
“Bad men?” she asked. She hadn’t expected any of them or she never would have brought her son to the hospital. She wouldn’t have put him at risk. How the hell had someone found out she was alive?
He had acted surprised. Had he really not known until tonight?
She had so many questions, but asking Brendan would have been a waste of time. He had never told her anything she’d wanted to know before. And she wasn’t certain that he would actually have any answers this time. If he really hadn’t known she was alive, he would have no idea who was trying to kill her.
She needed to talk to Charlotte.
Leaning forward, she reached under the driver’s seat and tugged out the purse she’d stashed there earlier. She hadn’t left only her identification inside but also her cell phones. Her personal phone and that special cell used only to call her handler. But Josie couldn’t make that confidential call, not with Brendan in the vehicle.
“What are you doing?” he asked, with a quick glance in the rearview mirror. He probably couldn’t see her, but he’d felt it when she’d reached under his seat. Was the man aware of everything going on around him? Given his life and his enemies, he probably had to be—or
he
wouldn’t be alive still.
“Getting my purse,” she said.
“Do you have a weapon in it?” he asked.
“Why?” Did he want her to use it or was he worried that she would? She reached inside the bag and wrapped her fingers around the can of mace. But even if he wasn’t driving so fast, she couldn’t have risked spraying it and hurting her son.
His gaze went to the rearview mirror again. “Never mind. I think we lost him,” he said. But he didn’t stop at the guard shack for the parking garage. Instead he crashed the SUV right through the gate.
CJ cried, and Josie turned to him with concern. But his cry was actually a squeal as his teal-blue eyes twinkled with excitement. What had happened to her timid son?
She leaned over the console between the seats. “Be careful.”
“Are you all right?” he asked. “And CJ?”
“We’re both fine. But is the car all right?” she asked. One of the headlamps wobbled, bouncing the beam of light around the street. “I need to be able to drive it home.”
But first she had to get rid of Brendan.
“You can’t go home,” he told her. “The gunman was coming up behind the vehicle. He could have gotten your plate and pulled up your registration online. He could already know where you live.”
She didn’t know what would be worse: the gunman knowing where she lived or Brendan knowing. But she wouldn’t need to worry about either scenario. Charlotte had made certain of that. “The vehicle isn’t registered to me.”
JJ Brandt was only one of the identities the U.S. marshal had set up for her. In case one of those identities was compromised, she could assume a new one. But for nearly four years, she had never come close to being recognized. Until tonight, when no one had been fooled by her new appearance or her new name.
Thanks to Brendan’s interference, JJ Brandt hadn’t died tonight. Literally. But she would have to die figuratively since Brendan might have learned that name. And she would have to assume one of the other identities.
But she couldn’t do anything until she figured out how to get rid of him. Maybe she needed to ask him how to do that. He was the one around whom people tended to disappear.
First her.
But according to the articles she’d read, there had been others. Some members of his “family” and some of his business rivals had disappeared over the past four years. No bodies had been found, so no charges had been brought against him. But the speculation was that he was responsible for those disappearances.
She’d believed he was responsible for hers, too, blaming him for those attempts on her life that had driven her into hiding. Since he’d saved her on the roof and again in the garage, she wanted to believe she’d been wrong about him.