By the time they made it and Vance kicked in the door, four more shots had been fired.

* * * * *

Jules

I fell down on my ass, reached out toward a prone Roam, couldn’t find the strength or my breath, to make it to him so I fell to my back.

I closed my eyes, fighting the pain and thinking about getting to a phone. When I opened my eyes again Vance’s face was the only thing I saw.

“Hey,” I said because I figured I’d passed out (I didn’t think I died, the pain of multiple gunshot wounds hurt like a mother and I didn’t figure they had pain in heaven) and this was a dream so I smiled at him.

“Hey, Princess,” he replied, eyes on me, hands working somewhere else then I felt my shirt ripped open from hem to collar.

“Get a goddamned medic here,” I heard Luke bark from somewhere in the room.

I turned my head to see where Luke was but instead saw Hector kneeling over Roam.

I looked back to Vance. “Is Roam okay?” I asked.

“Let’s worry about you right now,” Vance said. He moved away from sight and I saw his hands catch something. When Vance wasn’t filling my vision I was pretty certain I was seeing things because I could swear I caught a glimpse of Darius and then Vance came back to me.

I was losing it, fading, and I knew it. My body was going into shock. I could feel the warm blood sliding out of me even as Vance put pressure on the wounds to stop the bleeding. I didn’t know if I went unconscious if I’d wake up again.

I blinked. “Crowe,” I called.

His eyes had moved from mine to my torso but they came back to me. “Yeah?”

I had a lot of things to tell him, a lot of things I needed him to understand and I knew I didn’t have a lot of time.

I lifted my hand but couldn’t keep it up. Before it fell Vance caught it.

I looked into his eyes as his strong fingers closed around mine and I said the only thing I could think to communicate everything he needed to know.

“Home.”

Then everything went black.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Waiting

Jet

It was the middle of the night and Eddie’s phone was ringing.

This happened a lot seeing as Eddie was a cop so we were kind of practiced at him answering it without disturbing me (too much).

I was curled into his side. His arm went to the nightstand, he nabbed the phone, flipped it open one-handed and said quietly, “Yeah?”

He listened for five seconds then I felt his body go completely solid.

My head shot up.

Eddie rolled away and turned on the light. When he rolled back, his black eyes were on me. I didn’t like what I saw and I pushed up, one hand at his abs, one hand in the bed.

“Where’re they takin’ her?” Eddie asked.

Oh no.

No, no, no.

My first thought was Mom. My Mom had a stroke nearly a year ago and it had been bad but she had made it. My greatest fear was that it would happen again and worse. Without asking, I whirled around, threw back the covers and jumped out of the bed.

“Right. Later,” Eddie said, his voice urgent.

I was hopping around, pulling on my jeans when Eddie caught me by the waist. “Jet,” he said softly.

I turned to him and pushed off, going back to pulling on my jeans but looking up at him. “Is it Mom? Where is she?”

“It isn’t your Mom,” I stopped and stared at him. He didn’t make me wait. “It’s Jules. She’s been shot.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“It’s not good,” Eddie said.

I stayed still, I couldn’t move, I just stayed still, a foot away from Eddie, staring at him.

“How not good?” I finally asked.

“Chest and gut.”

I felt somehow as if an imaginary bullet tore through me in each place.

“Twice?” I cried, my voice shrill.

“Cariña,” he came forward but I jumped away, pulling up my jeans at the same time.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“There’s nothin’ we can do.”

I yanked off his t-shirt that I’d drunkenly pulled on before I’d fallen into bed what seemed like only minutes ago and I turned to the chest of drawers, pulled out a bra and put it on while I glared at him.

“Let’s go.”

He stared at me a beat then bent to grab his jeans from the floor.

Within five minutes we were out the backdoor and in the garage. I was yanking open the passenger side door to Eddie’s red Dodge Ram when Eddie shoved it closed. I turned to him, mouth open to ask him what he was doing when he put a hand to my belly and pushed me up against the truck, following me there and pinning me with his body.

His forehead came to mine, his one hand between us at my belly, his other hand came to my neck and we just stood there looking into each other’s eyes and breathing.

“Fuck,” Eddie murmured.

“I love you,” I told him.

His mouth touched mine and with his lips still there, he said, “Me too.”

I nodded, my forehead rolling against his. He took in a deep breath, moved away, we got in the truck and he drove us to Denver Health.

* * * * *

Indy

“Hey, gorgeous,” Lee said in my ear.

I opened my eyes and in the dark I could see his h*ps clad in jeans on the bed beside me.

I was tangled up in the sheets. This meant I’d been sleeping alone for awhile. I was an active sleeper. If Lee was with me he controlled it by pinning me deliciously to the bed with his hard body. Sometime between me drunkenly falling into bed wearing nothing but my underwear and now, Lee had been somewhere.

I came up on my elbow and Lee reached out and turned on the light.

I stared as he did it.

Lee’s work had no office hours but he went to pains to make certain this didn’t affect me. Never in five months of living together had he turned on the light when he got home in the dead of night which happened a lot. Every time he came home he woke me up, as he’d promised, to let me know he was okay but he’d never turned on the light.

My eyes moved to him and my heart started beating hard in my chest.

Lee was sitting there, for that I could be thankful. But a lot of people I loved had dangerous jobs, Hank for one, Eddie for another, my Dad, who was a cop, Lee’s Dad, who was a cop too, then there was Lee’s whole workforce.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Jules has been shot.”

I sucked in breath, not expecting to hear that, and came up to a sitting position.

Lee’s eyes moved with me, never leaving mine. “Chest and gut. It isn’t good. She’s at Denver Health. Vance wanted to go get her uncle but I told him we’d do it.”