“Yo,” someone answered.

“This is Jules,” I said into the phone.

“Shit. Do you have another pick up?” It was Mace. “I thought you and Vance were out tonight.”

“No. Listen. I’m at my house and Vance says someone’s outside. He’s gone –” I stopped talking and my body went stiff when I heard gunfire. It was close.

Quick as I froze, I unfroze, started talking again and I bent down to pull at the buckle of the ankle strap of one of my shoes. “Gunfire, Mace, f**k.”

“We’re on it,” Mace’s voice wasn’t teasing, it was all business.

“Do you need my address?”

“No. Stay inside, stay safe –”

I heard more gunfire as I kicked off a shoe.

I interrupted him. “More gunfire.”

“Stay inside. Keep your house armed.”

“I’m going out there.”

“Stay inside, Law,” Mace ordered. “We’ll be there in five.”

I kicked off the other shoe. “We don’t have five,” I snapped, flipped the phone shut and threw it on the bed.

I ran to the closet, pulled out my Pumas, yanked them on and tied them as quickly as I could. Then with my gun I ran through the house, unarmed the alarm and went out.

I barely cleared the backdoor when Sal Cordova careened into me, I went backward and his arm went around me.

“Fuck, he shot me,” Sal groaned, looking up at me and leaning deep into me. I took on most of his weight and staggered with it. “Your f**kin’ partner shot me in the ass.”

With the arm not locked around me, Sal was holding onto his backside.

“Jules. God dammit,” Vance was standing a few feet away. I spared him a glance; he had his gun trained on Cordova.

I bent at the knees, taking Sal down with me and planting his ass on the ground. He gave out a howl and rolled to the side. I shrugged off his arm, bent down to yank his gun out of his hand and took a step away.

“You shot me. You shot me in my goddamned ass,” Sal whined to Vance and any worry I had for him was lost. His voice was strong, strong enough to whine. I figured he’d be okay. “You didn’t have to shoot me,” Sal went on.

Vance grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back so I was behind him.

“You shot first,” Vance returned sharply. “What the f**k were you thinkin’?”

Um… Vance sounded pissed right the hell off. Then again, he’d been working at getting in my panties for a few days now. He was probably not pleased that five minutes after achieving his aim he’d been interrupted by having to shoot someone.

“You’re movin’ in on my action,” Sal explained.

It was my turn to be not pleased.

I turned to Sal. “Oh for God’s sake. Seriously, Sal?” I asked, not believing my ears.

“You got the hots for me, I know it. Sat right across from me –” Sal started.

“I sat across from you and threatened you,” I told him.

“Playin’ hard to get. You women always play hard to get,” Sal replied.

“Maybe it isn’t because we’re playing hard to get. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to get got in the first place,” I explained.

“Naw. It’s not that.”

Yes, Sal was that stupid.

“Do we need to call an ambulance?” This came from somewhere to Vance and my left then Luke materialized and came to stand by Vance. He looked down on Sal.

“Yeah,” Vance responded, “although I’d rather let him bleed to death.”

“Shit,” Sal moaned.

Luke pulled out his phone. I listened to Luke calling the control room and asking for the ambulance and the police. While I did this I thought about the current situation.

The good news was, Vance hadn’t figured out I was a virgin.

The bad news was, Vance had been stopped at a really good part.

I turned to Vance. “How long is this gonna take?” I asked impatiently.

I felt his eyes on me in the dark. Then I saw the flash of white as he smiled. Then his arm came around me and he pulled me to him. I could focus on him better at closer range and caught his arrogant grin close up.

“Probably awhile, Princess. Longer ‘cause I’ll have to get stitches.”

My breath fled my body.

When I sucked in air, I asked, “Why?”

“He tagged me. Thigh, just skimmed. I’ll need to have it looked at.”

“You’re hit?” Luke said from beside us.

“It’s nothing,” Vance said and I saw Luke nod, apparently that was good enough for him.

“Crowe,” I said, weird feelings going through me, feelings I never felt before and feelings I didn’t like.

“It’s nothing,” Vance repeated.

“Crowe! It is not nothing! You’ve been shot!”

“I’ve been shot before, Jules, trust me, this is nothing.”

This time instead of my breath fleeing, I sucked in air on a gasp.

“You’ve been shot before?” I asked on the exhale.

“Yeah, last time wasn’t pretty,” Luke volunteered.

“Luke’s had worse,” Vance informed me, “gut wound.”

“Survived,” Luke said casually, “you got it in the lung.”

Oh my God.

“Stop talking,” I snapped, cutting into their gruesome, macho trip down memory lane.

I heard Luke chuckle.

“Stop chuckling,” I clipped.

He didn’t stop chuckling but luckily the sirens heading our way drowned him out.

Then the outside light came on, the backdoor opened and Nick stood there. He took us all in wearing a real life rendition of his Morgue Face.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“God dammit,” I muttered under my breath.

* * * * *

I was in my bathroom washing my face.

Vance was somewhere in my duplex doing whatever he did before going to bed.

I didn’t know how I got talked into letting him spend the night with me, though I had to admit, it didn’t take much. I figured it was partially payback for the favor to be nice to Roam, partially the fact that I felt responsible for him getting shot.

Earlier, outside, before the ambulance came, I’d explained things to Nick and his mouth got tight. He looked like he was ready to tie me up in an attic room and leave me there until I died so I wouldn’t get anyone else shot in one of my fool crusades (luckily, we didn’t have an attic room).