He felt his emotions shutting down from the pain of knowing Jessie had already died. His fingers curled into fists though, rage flashed and he swore vengeance. He was going to find out where they held the sniper who’d killed her, if the man was still alive he was going to kill him with his bare hands. He’d tear the son of a bitch apart for killing Jessie, make him scream and suffer greatly before he died. Pure rage and pain battled until he regained control enough to speak.

Tim Oberto shared the room with four other men still dressed in their task-force uniforms. Justice had to keep taking deep breaths to stop himself from losing the shaky control he had found. The animal urges inside him pushed forward strongly, he wanted to tear the room apart and go insane from the knowledge that Jessie was gone.

Senator Hills glanced up, his hands dropped and his tear-filled gaze discovered Justice. He looked surprised to see the Species and stood on unsteady feet. “Justice, what are you doing here?”

Justice swallowed hard. “I heard about Jessie and flew here right away.”

The Senator blinked back more tears and approached. He wiped his hand on his slacks and held it out. “Thank you. I never expected any of you to come here but it means the world to me.”

They shook hands. “The doctor was just in here.” The Senator smiled. “I’m sorry for the show of tears but I thought my daughter was dying.” More tears flooded his eyes.

“She’s going to be fine though.”

Immense relief tore through Justice, followed by a sense of need to find Jessie.

“Where is she?”

“They are cleaning her up.” The Senator laughed. “I always said she had a thick head. The bullet grazed her skull but it didn’t penetrate.”

Justice closed his eyes to hide his raging emotions. Jessie was going to live and a graze meant she wasn’t seriously wounded as long as there was no brain trauma caused by the impact. He opened his eyes and took calming breaths. He needed to stay in control. What he really wanted to do was tear apart the hospital until he found Jessie.

He wanted to bury his face against her neck and breathe her in. He didn’t move though, afraid he wouldn’t stop there.

“She’s pissed about her hair.” The senator wiped at more tears, laughing. “Can you believe my daughter? She could have died and she’s upset that they had to shave her hair from the back of her head.”

“They shaved her head?” Justice growled. He took a deep breath. It was only her hair she’d lost instead of her life. It would grow back. The Senator tensed, eyeing him, stunned.

“We’re weird about head shaving,” Tiger stated, stepping forward to include himself in the conversation. He shot Justice a worried look but forced a smile. “We’re grateful that your female will live.”

Justice nodded. “I apologize. I’m upset that Jessie was harmed.” He forced himself to go into Justice North mode, the male who represented all of New Species. “We wanted to show our support.”

The senator smiled. “I knew you were a good man, Justice. My daughter would love to meet you. Would you mind hanging around for a little while? You did fly all this way and she would be tickled pink to get to meet the man I’ve told her so much about.”

“I’ve met her,” Justice informed him. “I would like to see her.”

The Senator appeared surprised. “You met Jessie?”

“Yes. She brought a group of our females to Reservation and stayed there until last night.”

“Your daughter can be quite persistent.” Tiger chuckled. “I thought she was going to shoot me if I told her she couldn’t escort our females and help them settle in at Reservation after the raid in Colorado.”

The Senator laughed. “That’s my girl. I raised her not to take no for an answer.

She’s a tough little shit. She took after her mother and it scared me because she was always so small but with such a big personality. You’d think she was a seven-foot linebacker with her attitude.” He showed fatherly pride. “She can be a handful.”

“Yeah,” Tim chuckled. “She is. Last night I was going to put her over my knee and spank her ass.”

The senator gasped. “You were going to what?”

Tim sobered. “She reminds me of my daughter. We had a situation where the Gift Female was being held. Two of our men were pinned down and three assailants broke into the back of the house. Jessie was ordered to stay out of it but refused to listen. She killed three of the bastards and kept them off my guys. Then when we couldn’t find the female she went looking and damned if she didn’t find her. We would have missed the female if Jessie hadn’t been so sure there was a Species there.”

One of the Task Team members stepped closer. “I’m Trey Roberts, Jessie’s team leader. She saved my ass and Mike’s.” He jerked his head to the other man standing next to him. “We were pinned down and those ass**les could have picked us off since we couldn’t retreat. We were under fire. Jessie shot all three of them.”

“She faked one out,” Mike chuckled. “She pretended to be shot and dying to get the son of a bitch to come finish her off. She took him down in a snap.”

The Senator’s mouth hung open. “She killed three men? No one told me that.”

Tim paled. “I would have but you just arrived. I ordered her to find a hole, sir. She should have hidden until we could reach her but she refused to listen to me. That’s why I was going to put her over my knee.”