Page 29 of Rekindled (The MacTavish Heirs #5)
In which certain lunatic French billionaires really don’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer.
Catriona…
“Down!”
I instantly drop to my knees, rolling behind a concrete pillar with a push from Lucas.
The old connection between us slides back into place like we had never separated, asset and bodyguard.
It’s all there, the defensive maneuvers he taught me, all the protective ways he covered me with his own body.
We move smoothly in tandem and he hands me his other gun. He always has a second gun.
“Aim for the left side,” he shouts as he pulls the trigger on his Glock, ammunition spraying as one of the shooters falls from the right side of the helicopter. Another is flung back by a bullet but manages to hold on, damnit.
I see the sunglasses of the man shooting at us on my side, his blank face, his hand on his gun -
Feck! The helicopter swoops past us and goes into a turn to the right, blocking my target. “Fecking son of a bitch bastard pus busting ratbag!”
Lucas’s arms sweep gracefully, keeping the gunners in his sight and drops another one. “I’ve got men on the way,” he shouts, curling his body over me as another line of bullets sends up a shower of concrete chips.
Eyeing the bullet spray, he frowns, dropping out his empty clip from his gun and slapping in a new one. “They’re hemming us in, but they’re not shooting at us directly.”
The left gunman is back in my sights.
Breathe, focus, pull the trigger.
The shot goes slightly off but it’s enough, the side of his neck and shoulder explode in a spray of gore and he falls out of the helicopter, dropping like a sack of meat.
There’s a rush of boots I can barely hear over the chopper blades, but when the door slams open, my heart drops. They’re not ours.
Lucas and I swing our guns toward the newcomers, they’re the threat now and feck, they’re good.
We benefit because it's clear now that they’re not trying to kill me .
Every one of them is shooting at Lucas and tendrils of panic are curling around my heart.
He takes down two of them and lets out a pained grunt .
“Shite, your shoulder!” He’s still firing grimly as blood streams through the hole torn in his suit jacket.
I canna let go of my gun to try to stop the bleeding. My next shot is clean, the man flies back, half his head missing.
Three down.
The dust from the pulverized concrete is so thick that no one can see where they’re shooting and the helicopter blades are whipping up a frenzy of debris as it lands.
“Next pillar over!” Lucas shouts, and we roll. It’s got to be killing him, rolling on the wound.
Feck. The helicopter doors open and two more men jump out.
It’s Dubois’ people. It has to be.
Lucas must come to the same conclusion. “There’s a concrete lip that runs along the front of the parked cars.” He grabs my arm. “Stay low and run to the stairwell, ye can skirt the back of the gunmen and get down the back way. I’ll hold them off.”
I shake my head frantically.
“GO!” he roars.
There’s a new volley of gunfire, huge, percussive ammunition that takes out the front windscreen of the helicopter and blows the pilot to pieces. Now Dubois’ men are on the defensive and when the dust clears, they lay sprawled around the parking lot, nothing more than piles of blood and bone.
A blonde woman strides over to the wreckage of the helicopter, shoving what’s left of the pilot out of his seat and shutting down the rotor blades. Black-suited men descend on us, I recognize Raul from before, he puts a hand down to help me up. “Nice to see ye again, Mrs. Stewart.”
Lucas’s hand, bloody from his own damn wound, slaps Raul’s hand away, helping me up himself.
“Nice to see ye too, boss,” Raul says, refusing to take offense.
“We need to get Cat out of this area immediately,” Lucas says, grim and hyper focused. “What’s the situation with the MacTavish flats?”
“They pulled out fifteen minutes ago right after the helicopter fired on ye here, it must have been a diversion.”
Another man steps up, opening a med kit and checks Lucas’s wound and packing it with gauze. “Went straight through, we’ll get it stitched when we have ye out of here.”
An armored SUV pulls up. Lucas, the medic and I are packed in the back and we’re blazing out of the parking garage in seconds .
“We’ve been waiting for Dubois’ next move.” Lucas dinnae make a sound as the medic pulls out a suture gun, clipping the torn flesh from the bullet hole closed. “He’s been keeping ahead of us and cozying up to politicians and the like, knowing we canna get near him. “
“He’s too vindictive to leave this alone,” I agree. “It’s likely he knows I pulled data about C-1161, so he’s desperate to retrieve it.”
“He’s desperate to retrieve you,” Lucas corrected.
“All snod,” the medic says cheerfully, packing the wound with clean gauze and tape. “I’m Alex Robertson, Ma’am,” he nods to me. “Pleased to meet ye.”
“Another buddy from the service?” I shake his hand, ignoring my husband’s glower. “Glad to meet ye, and very happy that ye have the training to patch Lucas back up.”
He chuckles. “It’s not the first time, Ma’am. The man is a patchwork quilt made of scars, burns and bullet holes.”
This, I know from tracing and kissing every one of Lucas’s tattoos and asking stories about the scars they cover.
“I must say, I dinnae expect such a cohesive team so soon,” I take out a sterile wipe and hold it up to Lucas.
“I’d like to get some of this blood off ye, husband.
” I dinnae know how he wants me to handle interaction in front of his team.
Some of my cousins never cared about protocol with the men and women they led, but Lucas as a leader is new to me, he’s more formal than I’m used to.
He leans his head to the side, letting me get to the worst of it. “Any casualties at the MacTavish flats?”
“No,” Raul answers from the front seat. “The MacTavishes know how to build some solid structures. It would have taken more than a couple wee flash-bang grenades and a bit of gunfire to make that building go down. Aside from Mrs. Stewart’s flat, there’s surprisingly little damage and minimal injuries. ”
“Hey, Raul, I’m thinking we’re friends now, aye? Call me Catriona, if ye please.”
Lucas is dying to snap, “Ye call her Mrs. Stewart!” I can see it, but he grits his teeth as his second in command grins at me.
“A pleasure, Catriona. Anytime ye want the dirt on your husband, ye know where to come.”
“Ach, you’re gonna be serving the tea,” I grin.
The drop from the adrenaline is coming, I know how this goes.
I’m covered in filth from the pulverized concrete and rolling around on a dirty parking structure, there’s a few cuts I dinnae notice from shrapnel on my chest and suddenly, going home seems like a grand idea .
Home.
Lucas’s place. I thought of it as home from the first time he took me there. From the moment I first walked in it felt right to me.
It’s small, only two bedrooms, and a high-tech command center eats up a lot of the space downstairs. The warm, comfortable kitchen and the great room piled with books and a big fireplace, though, those rooms welcomed me home the moment I saw them.
“You’re hurt.” Lucas pulls aside my blouse enough to see three tiny cuts. He takes the kit from Alex and pulls out some alcohol wipes.
“Just a couple of nicks,” I say, knowing he’s already going to want a full body scan the second we get home.
However, the SUV turns toward my parent’s estate and I realize this day is just gonna get worse. When Lucas hears what I‘m thinking, the firefight’s gonna look like a tea party in comparison.
***
All snod - Scottish slang for all fixed up.