Page 53 of Danger and Dominance (Black Fox Security Doms #1)

Cassidy

It was her literal worst nightmare.

Don, in the flesh, and he’d gotten her alone. Vulnerable.

Except she wasn’t listening to him anymore.

And she’d been training. She couldn’t punch him or kick him the way she’d done in training.

He was too close. Not just standing there waiting for it or dancing around her.

No, he was holding on to her, and she was shaking so badly, it was a wonder she could move at all.

But she hadn’t panicked and lost her head.

And she wasn’t letting him take her to a second location.

I’d rather die right here in this alley.

Part of her hoped that useless flirt had gone to get someone who would actually help, but she didn’t hold out a whole lot of hope.

Part of her realized Ashley and Jennifer would get out of the bathroom and realize she was missing. But she was also afraid someone would come to help and end up getting shot.

Exactly what she thought was going to happen when David burst through the door.

Her heart dropped into her stomach, but seeing him gave her a second wind on struggling against Don’s hold. She lashed out, kicking Don in the thigh, feeling savage satisfaction when he flinched and aimed the gun back at her.

“Hey, let’s talk about this,” David said, his voice filling the alley. Cassidy didn’t have time to react, didn’t have time to do anything .

“No,” Don said, pointing the gun at David and pulling the trigger. Cassidy screamed, lurching up toward Don’s arm, hands outstretched, but it was too late. Don cursed, trying to pull away from her, but her arms were around his wrist, aiming the gun toward the sky.

Cassidy screamed again, right in his face this time, and saw the shock that flitted across his expression.

He couldn’t believe she was fighting back.

The surge of adrenaline allowed her to push him back, and for a moment, she felt triumph, but then he seemed to come back to himself.

“Stupid bitch!” He turned them, slamming her against the brick wall of the alley, and her head snapped back. Pain exploded from the back of her skull, disorienting her. She could hear things, shouting, but she wasn’t sure if it was real or not, it sounded so far away.

Don wrapped his hand around her throat, stepping back as he squeezed with his fingers, but his full attention wasn’t on her, so she could still breathe somewhat.

Then he outstretched his arm, pointing the gun at someone or something down the alley.

Cassidy couldn’t see anyone or anything but him, but it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter what happened to her. She just needed whoever it was to save David.

Because he was still alive.

She had to believe he was still alive.

Digging her fingernails into Don’s wrist, she lashed out with her foot again, hoping she was aiming for his balls. He yelled, jerking, his hand tightening on her throat, shooting again.

Had he hit someone?

She didn’t know.

Couldn’t tell.

She tried to kick him again, and this time, he yelled even louder, pulling her toward him, then slamming her back against the wall. It didn’t hurt as much this time, but she also couldn’t seem to stand anymore. Her legs were sinking, and she was going down with them.

Don dragged her forward, away from the wall, and she stumbled, falling, but he was holding her up.

Something appeared in his throat.

Black and silver and sticking out of his neck.

Oh God.

There was a knife in his neck.

Don’s gaze met hers, and he blinked as if confused. His grip relaxed, and he let her go. Cassidy sank down to her knees, staring in utter disbelief as Don groped at his throat, then pulled the knife out. Blood sprayed across her, around her, but she couldn’t find her voice to scream.

David

Disbelief poured through David as he watched the absolute dumbass pull David’s knife from his throat. If he hadn’t done that, if he’d waited till an ambulance arrived, he might have had a chance.

A small chance.

But a chance.

Cursing as blood spattered over Cassidy, David pushed himself up to his feet and stumbled forward. Don hit the ground in the alley with a sickening thud. He would be dead in moments, David knew, bleeding out from the wound because he’d been dumb enough to pull out the knife.

On the other hand, it was a quicker death, and David sure as hell couldn’t regret it.

At the other end of the alley, Mason and Jensen were already running toward them. He heard the door he’d come through open, but he was already moving toward Cassidy, not waiting to see who else was joining them.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured as he hit his knees beside her, using his right arm to pull her back against him. She turned into his shoulder, shock written all over her face. Don’s blood decorated her pale skin, standing out stark and red. Fuck. He hadn’t meant for that to happen to her.

It wasn’t like she’d needed to be more traumatized.

She burrowed into him, obviously wanting his comfort, despite the fact he’d literally just killed a man in front of her. Drew jumped down from the roof of the building, rolling as he hit the ground and bouncing to his feet right next to Don’s body, just as Mason and Jensen pulled up beside him.

“Dammit. I wanted to beat the shit out of this asshole,” Jensen complained, kicking the corpse’s leg. Mason and Drew shook their heads at him, Drew lifting up his hand to run it over his dreads and giving them a hard tug.

Behind David, Lincoln coughed. He must have been the one coming out the door.

“There are security cameras in this alley, Jensen,” Lincoln said, though his tone was only mildly reproving. They’d all been thinking the same thing.

David at least got some satisfaction from knowing it was his knife that was buried in Don’s throat. No, he didn’t feel bad about it at all. It had been clear self-defense on his part, not to mention defending Cassidy. Who knows what Don would have done with her if he’d managed to kidnap her?

Tightening his grip on her, David twisted, pulling her farther away from Don’s body and obscuring her view.

Sirens were already wailing in the distance.

“Mason, can you come check Cassidy over? And where’s Claudia?” he asked, looking around. She was the only one missing, which wasn’t like her.

“Keeping watch over the others, just in case,” Lincoln said. He put his hand on David’s shoulder. His right one, thankfully. “We weren’t entirely sure what the threat was and what was going on when Ashley and Jennifer came running back in.”

“That and she was the drunkest,” Jensen added. “Since it’s her birthday.”

“Dammit. You know she’s going to be even more of a pain in the ass about celebrating her birthday next year,” Mason muttered, narrowing his eyes at David. “You’ve been shot. You dumbass, why didn’t you say anything?” He dropped down to his knees on David’s left, reaching to unbutton David’s shirt.

“Well, if you wanted to get me naked, you could have just said so,” he quipped. “I’ll be fine, though. It’s just a flesh wound. Check Cassidy.” He was starting to get really worried about the fact that she hadn’t said a single word.

Police cars came to a screeching halt at the end of the alley, along with an ambulance, which was good. David and Cassidy would need them, but he still wanted Mason’s opinion of how she was. Thankfully, his teammate was already quickly checking her over.

David felt himself slowly relax.

Everything was going to be okay.

Cassidy

“I can’t believe you killed him,” Claudia complained. “It’s my birthday. I should have gotten to kill him.”

That couldn’t be right. Either Cassidy had misheard, she was hallucinating, or…

“You were drunk,” Lincoln said sternly. “Besides, a dead body is not an appropriate birthday present.”

“Says you,” Claudia grumbled. “I’m never drinking on my birthday ever again. I didn’t get anything I wanted for my birthday.”

Cassidy opened her eyes and saw nothing but white. It took her a moment to realize she was staring up at a ceiling.

“Hey, Cassidy’s awake!” Jennifer’s face blocked out the ceiling, pure relief covering her expression. “Oh my God, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I’m okay?” It came out as a question, even though, technically, she did feel mostly okay. Her head was a little woozy, but nothing hurt. She tried to lift her head to see who else was in the room, but she couldn’t.

“Hey, don’t try to move around too much,” Jennifer said, putting her hand on Cassidy’s shoulder to keep her pinned to the bed. “You fainted when the EMTs were checking you over and one of them touched the back of your head. You got really banged up there.”

As she was talking, more people appeared around Cassidy’s bed. Claudia, Ashley, Lincoln, Yasmine, Naomi, Drew, Jensen, Mason…

“Where’s David?” Fear suffused her. The last thing she remembered was seeing him on the ground.

No… wait… he’d been holding her.

No, he’d been shot. She must have imagined him holding her.

Oh God, had she imagined him holding her because he was dead? Had it been some metaphysical?—

“David’s fine. He’s in surgery to get the bullet out of his shoulder,” Mason said soothingly, patting near the foot of the bed and managing to catch her ankle.

He was alive.

Cassidy burst into tears.

“Okay, okay, let’s clear the room and give her some space,” Claudia ordered. “Everybody out.”

‘Everybody’ didn’t really mean everybody, it turned out.

It meant everyone except Claudia and Naomi, who both stayed to provide a supportive shoulder and give her a rundown on what had been happening while she was out.

Cassidy did her best to pay attention, though whatever painkillers they’d put her on was making it difficult, and it became even more so when the nurses came in to check on her now that she was awake.

She got the general gist of everything, though.

David had been shot, but he was going to be okay. The bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. He was going to need some physical therapy to help him with movement after he healed, but nothing too terrible. Cassidy still felt horribly guilty, but she was also relieved it wasn’t anything worse.

The biggest relief came from hearing that Don was dead.

Which made her feel like a bad person.

She felt worse about feeling relief than she did about him being dead.

She was going to have plenty to talk about at her next therapy appointment.

Once the nurses were done checking her over, they told her the doctor would be by to see her shortly and started to leave. The door was still open when they came to a halt, blocking entry to someone out in the hall.

“That is my granddaughter in there, and I am going in to see her!” Brenda’s voice came through loud and shrill.

“That’s Brenda,” Cassidy said, blinking in surprise because she was pretty sure Brenda was trying to get into her room, but obviously, Brenda wasn’t her grandmother. She was David’s grandmother.

“Let her in, please,” Naomi called out, getting to her feet, but it ended up being unnecessary because once she called out her approval, the nurses parted, and Brenda came bustling in.

There were tears in her eyes as she hurried over to Cassidy’s side, pure worry etched across her features that only lessened a tiny bit when she met Cassidy’s gaze.

“My goodness, you and David. Getting attacked, getting shot, and all without me there! What were you thinking?” She bent over to very gently kiss Cassidy’s forehead. “I didn’t even get to kick the fucker.”

“Don’t worry, Jensen handled that apparently, though Don had already caught a bad case of the dead before he did it, so it’s not like he could feel it,” Jennifer reassured her.

Brenda sniffed derisively. “Yeah, but I wanted to. Is he in the morgue here? Do you think they’d let me in?”

Cassidy couldn’t help it; she started laughing.