Page 6 of Fearless Protector (Ruthless Guardians #3)

Mason

P J’s eyes spark. “I’m coming with you!”

“I need to get in their fast. I don’t have time to argue with you or look after you right now, or you’ll learn what a spanking for bad behavior feels like from me.”

Her eyes widen in surprise, but I don’t miss the little smile she tries to hide.

“This shouldn’t take long if things go according to plan.

” I lean over and open the glove compartment.

I hear the inhalation of breath as I remove my weapon.

“Let’s hope it’s just precautionary.” I pocket the Glock before closing the door quietly and making my way toward the cabin.

I sneak around back, staying close to the walls of the house, skirting along the evergreen bushes heavily dusted with a sheen of ice.

The first window I come to looks to be a bedroom.

I glance in, keeping my weapon down but on the ready.

The room is empty other than a twin-sized bed and nightstand with a lamp.

The minute I get closer to the patio door, voices spill through the walls.

“You’re going to regret the day you ever laid eyes on me, Bobby Ray.

They’re going to come for you, and when they do… ”

“Shut up, Jules. Just shut the hell up. I need to think, and you flapping your lips is not helping a damn thing,” a man yells.

I head back the way I came, skirting around the house and toward the front, farthest away from their quarreling in the back and right up to the front door.

I turn the knob lightly, not expecting it to open, but it does.

I make my way into the living area cautiously, walking softly on the carpeted floors in the dark, stepping around the couches, and around the corner, heading toward the sound of their voices.

Jules sits in a high-backed wooden dining room chair with her back to me, wrapped with blue rope that looks like it belongs on a fishing boat and should have an anchor tied to its end.

I sneak into the room and place the butt of my gun at the base of Bobby Ray’s neck before he has time to realize I’m there or react. “Take a seat, Bobby Ray.”

He doesn’t comply; instead, he continues to stand in place. I keep my gun right where it is nudging him forward, in front of Jules and another chair. He exhales loudly. “Look, I don’t want any trouble, man. This isn’t my fight. I’m just holding her for Jake and his boys, that’s all.”

I laugh. “I think whether you want it or not, trouble just found you.” I push him into the seat next to Jules. “Sit. Don’t move, or I’ll shoot. No other warning about that, got it?”

He glares at me, but he has a healthy respect for the gun in my hand, and I don’t plan to give him a reason to think I won’t use it. Because I will, if I have to.

I look around the room and grab a length of the blue rope that’s laying in a heap on the floor next to Jules. Her eyes are focused on the gun too. She’s talking so fast at first, I can barely make out a word she says. I stop her. “Slow, breath, and tell me slowly what happened, okay?”

Jules swallows hard, gives me a little nod, but looks at me with eyes that still look hazy and glazed. “One minute we were dancing, the next I was feeling ill. We went outside for some fresh air. I remember him wanting to get some smokes from his truck and then bam, everything went dark.”

I tug on his ropes to make sure he’s nice and secure, while refraining from slugging the guy who likes to drug women.

“You’re safe now, Jules.” Ice starts hitting the window coming in sideways and hard, causing a pelting sound to echo through the cabin.

“I’m going to go get PJ. She’s waiting in my vehicle. I’ll be back in a…”

PJ walks into the room, the same way I came, looking as guilty as she should. I close the distance between us in a few steps. “Did I not leave you in the vehicle and ask you to stay?”

Her eyes flash up at me. “I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing when one of my friends was in trouble. I was trying to help. You could say thank you.”

My eyes narrow at the sassy little miss, who at least has sobered up for the most part since leaving the bar.

“You, I’ll deal with later. Right now, help me get Jules untied.

” I find a pair of scissors in the kitchen drawer and work through the bulky rope, while PJ rubs her wrists as we get her out of the binds that were digging into her skin.

I put the scissors back where I found them in case Bobby Ray gets any ideas, because like it or not, we’re all here to stay for a while. At least, until mother nature is done storming outside. I kick Bobby Ray’s black boot. “What did you give Jules; the truth?”

His eyes dart around the room. He knows that none of his friends are coming to help him. It’s just him and me now. “Date rape drug.”

PJ throws her arms around Jules and holds her tight. I connect with Garrett while keeping an eye on the big, bearded dude who sits glaring at me as though he didn’t have everything he got coming or that he’s not deserving of so damn much more after what he did.

Garret answers on the first ring. “You have Jules?”

“We’ve got her. Bobby Ray had her tied up, but she wasn’t hurt. He used the date rape drug to knock her out. Fortunately, the side effects aren’t long lasting.”

Nothing that a little sleep and steady hydration won’t fix.

The weather’s gotten worse, though. There’s no way we’re getting out of here for a while.

The roads were like an ice rink the last couple miles here, and it’s way worse now.

The windows on the cabin are solid sheets of ice.

We’re going to have to wait it out. We’ll do our best to get to town first thing in the morning.

Hopefully the salt trucks have been out by then. Hope to see you tomorrow, buddy.”