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Juliette’s muscles tightened, ready to fight, ready to kill him if it came to that, but the redhead jerked him back, sending Daniel crashing to the ground. He landed on his ass.
“I told you—he’s fine,” Ronan said, stepping on Daniel’s fingers as he made his way around the car, pulling another round of spitting and howling from Daniel’s lips.
She couldn’t tell if it’d been purposeful. She hoped it was.
Daniel was still snarling at her as Ronan popped the trunk. Juliette raised her hand. Then her middle finger.
“Jesus fuck.” The heavy Irish drawl boomed around the open trunk as the officer climbed from inside. Short and stocky, bright orange hair. Ronan’s partner.
They’d used Daniel’s own trick against him—shot him through the backseat from the trunk. And this had been the most logical place for Daniel to come—the only place he might believe he could take care of Ronan quickly and quietly.
But narcissistic villains never skipped the opportunity to tell you how smart they were—she hoped that meant he’d confessed. Though they’d had to dismantle Ronan’s trunk to make it work, added a metal panel behind the driver’s seat, she had the feeling Ronan didn’t care one bit.
She couldn’t suppress a smile as Ronan headed back around the car toward her. Her heart was still throbbing against her ribs, but slower, calmer now that Ronan was in her line of sight—now that she knew he was safe. But he glanced away as another man approached.
“Did you get it?” Ronan asked the officer—no. The badge on his chest was different. The chief?
The gray-haired man nodded, one hand resting on his thick gut—not cheeseburger thick. Muscular thick. “Damn right we did.” He cut his eyes at Juliette and her hackles rose—was he going to arrest her?—but then he turned away and headed off into the dark beyond the ambulance.
Ronan raised a hand to his head, rubbing at his ear. Probably half-deaf after that gunshot at close range. No wonder he’d been talking loudly enough for her to hear from across the lot.
“Hey.”
She resisted the urge to fold herself into his arms and gestured in the direction the chief had vanished. “So… what did you get?”
Ronan grinned. “Enough to put Daniel away for Waylon’s murder, for one. He even showed his face to the traffic cams after you almost burned out his retinas.”
Her heart sank. “Even if the cameras show he was there, you can’t convict him on circumstantial?—”
“Between your testimony, Eli Dawson’s statement, what Ortega found, and the confession we got from a second bug embedded in the seat…” He said the last part extra loud.
Daniel, now halfway to the ambulance, jerked around and tried to lunge out of the redhead’s grasp once more. The officer yanked hard, and Daniel took another stumbling step toward the gurney.
“Stop antagonizing this dickbag,” the redhead shouted. “He’s got two bullets in him.”
“You never let me have any fun,” Ronan fired back, but he was still smiling when he turned back to Juliette.
“What did Ortega…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t even matter. Are you telling me that it’s over? Really over?”
“You’ll have some things to answer for, but I’ve already talked to the authorities in Ravenbrook. They aren’t interested in prosecuting you—they’ve got egg on their face with their own sheriff being a killer. They’ve also agreed to allow Ortega to examine the body they found this morning under your mother’s porch.”
“Sanchez?” she asked, but she knew the answer before he nodded.
“Yo!”
They both turned as Ronan’s partner clapped him on the back—Paddy, right?
“Welcome back to the force.” The man winked.
But Ronan looked at Juliette. “Speaking of that… I think it’s time for me to shift gears.”
Paddy’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? After all that? I mean, you’ve got a pension coming, brother. Just twenty more years and you’re home free. If you end up with too much spare time, you’ll grow hair on your palms. Take it from me.”
Paddy clapped his back again, but Ronan didn’t flinch. His eyes never left hers, the liquid heat in his gaze warming the space around her heart—the place where only panic had lived for so long.
Ronan smiled. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Chapter 28