Page 5 of The Enforcer (Damn! #2)

But just as he angled toward the underground garage, two dark sedans surged from the opposite intersection.

One clipped the front of the SUV, hard.

Zane cursed, yanking the wheel. A second later, gunfire exploded around them.

Men. Armed. Closing in fast.

“Down!” he barked, slamming the SUV into reverse.

Bullets pinged off the frame, glass spiderwebbing across the edges of the windshield.

Zane twisted the wheel hard, slamming into one of the sedans with enough force to send it careening into a fire hydrant.

He didn’t wait. He ducked low, shifting gears, and drew the weapon holstered under the console.

He fired clean and fast, two rounds through the driver’s side of the second car. One man dropped immediately. The other dove for cover, returning fire with shaky desperation.

Zane stepped out while the SUV rolled forward in neutral, using the door as a shield. Three more shots. Two more men down.

One bullet grazed his side, burning hot as it tore across his ribs. He hissed through his teeth but didn’t slow down. A final burst from his Glock silenced the last shooter.

The sudden silence rang louder than the gunfire.

Zane jumped back into the SUV. “Stay down,” he snapped at Lily.

She remained low in her seat, uninjured but pale, wide-eyed, her breathing shallow as the echo of gunfire faded.

Zane kept one hand tight on the wheel, the other pressed to his side where blood spilled steadily.

When they reached the underground entrance, he reached up, ignoring the sting, and keyed in the entry code one-handed, knuckles streaked with red.

She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just sat rigid beside him as the heavy door began to rise. The garage door creaked open.

He roared inside, tires screeching against the concrete as he skidded through the entrance. Everything echoed. Tires. Breathing. The low, metallic hum of city noise beyond the concrete.

He didn’t wait.

Zane parked the SUV in the farthest corner, away from camera sightlines.

He was already out of the vehicle and on his cellphone by the time Lily reached for the handle, blood seeping down his side in a slow, dark line.

When she hesitated, stunned or maybe just gathering herself, he reached across and yanked the door open.

“Out,” he growled. Then to whomever he’d called. “Get people here. Now. Perimeter and in the hallway outside the penthouse.”

She climbed out quickly this time, and he grabbed her arm again, less violent than before, but firm. Commanding. Urgent.

She tried to say something, but he wasn’t in the mood.

They hastened to the elevator, his grip like iron around her, movements clipped and fast, every step echoing with urgency.

Once inside, he leaned against the wall, reaching for the panel and keying in the lock for the penthouse.

Blood was soaking steadily through the fabric at his ribs now, warm and wet.

Still, he didn’t let go of her.

Not even for a second.

When the elevator doors slid open to the hallway outside his penthouse, he shoved her down the corridor and inside the apartment ahead of him, one hand still clamped around her arm.

The second the penthouse doors closed behind them, sealing them in, Zane let go, but only so he could stagger to the island counter, bracing himself with one blood-slick hand.

Lily hovered a few steps behind, uncertain.

“Strip,” he ordered, his voice sharp despite the strain.

She blinked. “What?”

“I said strip.” He looked up, eyes like stone. “I just got shot. You’re going to stand there and tell me there’s not a chance you’ve been tagged? Bugged? Carrying something you don’t know about?”

Her lips parted in protest, instinct, pride, but he cut her off with a look that said he had exactly zero patience left.

“Strip. Or I’ll do it for you.”

She didn’t move at first. Just stared at him like she couldn’t believe he meant it.

But then she must have realized he was dead serious.

Her hands moved, shaky, reluctant. Not fast. Not graceful. But deliberate.

Zane didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just watched her through narrowed eyes, each layer she removed pulling tension tighter through the room. He wasn’t looking for curves. He was looking for cold metal. Hidden transmitters. A flash of something that didn’t belong.

She stripped to her bra and underwear, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

“Keep going,” he said.

She hesitated again, one final flicker of resistance, but finished it. And then she stood there, trembling, humiliated, but alive.

He stepped in, eyes sweeping her body clinically, at first. But the longer he looked, the more his gaze caught on details he didn’t mean to register.

The flush rising on her chest. The delicate curve of her waist. The slight tremble in her thighs, not from cold, but adrenaline. The beautiful swell of her breasts.

He scanned for tech, for weapons, for anything embedded. But awareness stirred, sharp, hot, unwanted. His fingers twitched at his side, and he forced his gaze to stay professional.

Mostly.

Because she was beautiful, and she was bare, and she was standing there because he’d ordered her to. And no matter how hard he tried to shut it down, a darker part of him liked that more than it should.

Because if she was hiding anything else, he needed to know.

And if she wasn’t?

Then maybe, just maybe, she’d proven she wasn’t stupid enough to get herself killed.