Page 38 of When He Fights (Protector & Defender #3)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Logan!” Emerson kept her hands up as she neared the edge of the sidewalk.

She wasn’t going onto those steps that led up to Ana’s home.

She’d given her word to Grayson, and she intended to keep that word.

“Logan, it’s me! It’s Dr. Emerson Marlowe!

” She could feel eyes on her. The Feds. The cops.

The cops were behind her, with their parked patrol cars at the edge of the property.

Feds were with them. Just as there were Feds hidden at the house next door.

Hidden behind Ana’s home. Hidden pretty much everywhere.

Grayson was watching her. Grayson was also talking in the small earpiece-slash-transmitter that he’d insisted she wear.

“Do not get on those steps, you understand me, Emerson?” Grayson snarled.

She barely controlled a wince. She wanted to tell the man to trust her, but she also didn’t want to give away the fact that she was wearing an earpiece.

So she kept her gaze on the front of the house.

Yellow police tape flapped in the wind, and the smashed windows had been boarded up. “Logan, I know you’re in there!”

Traffic was being diverted from the immediate area on Grayson’s command. The whole place was eerily quiet, except for the crashing of the waves on the nearby beach.

Emerson tried again, shouting, “Logan, I’m here to help you!”

The front door opened. A squeak of sound.

Emerson held her breath.

“I didn’t ask to see you, Dr. Marlowe.” Logan’s voice drifted to her. Amused. “I wanted my Anastasia.”

He was just out of sight. The door had only opened a few inches. Precious, precious inches.

“Ana…Anastasia is close by,” she promised him. “But she’s not coming in. At least, not until I have proof that her friend Zuri is alive. You have to give me proof.”

Silence. And then?—

A woman’s scream.

Emerson lunged forward.

“Don’t you dare get on that step,” Grayson snapped in her ear. “Don’t you do it.”

A woman appeared at the door. A gun was shoved beneath her chin. Emerson immediately recognized the photo Grayson had shown her of Zuri Harris just moments before.

Right height.

Right weight.

Hair.

Eyes.

Face—

Logan jerked the woman back. “Happy? She’s alive. For now.”

Another scream from inside.

Emerson’s foot pressed to the bottom step.

“What in the sweet hell are you doing?” Grayson demanded. “Hold your position. Keep him focused. Kane is at the back of the house right now. He’s going in. Insisted on being the one to lead the charge. All you have to do is keep Logan distracted. Stay where you are. Do you hear me? Stay there. ”

Her breath shuddered out.

“I don’t want to see you, Dr. Marlowe,” Logan informed her, petulant and demanding at the same time. “I want Anastasia. If she’s not here in the next five seconds, her friend Zuri dies. Be a dear and relay that message for me, will you? Either Anastasia comes in or Zuri goes out in a body bag.”

“Is there a bomb here?” A stark question that burst from Emerson. “Are you just going to blow up Anastasia if she rushes inside?”

He laughed. “To do that, I’d have to kill myself. I’m not planning to die today.”

If she’s not here in the next five seconds, her friend Zuri dies.

She’d heard her friend scream. And thanks to the tiny earpiece that Grayson had given Emerson, Ana had been able to hear every word that Logan and Emerson exchanged. Grayson had been broadcasting the conversation on a speaker inside of Mrs. Shirley’s house.

And as soon as she heard the five seconds part …

Ana ran for the door.

“No, Ana!” Grayson bellowed.

She didn’t stop.

One of the Feds tried to grab her arm, but she ducked, then elbowed him. She ripped open that front door, and she ran toward her house. Jumping over the azalea bushes, rushing beneath the long, twisting branches of the oak trees. Branches weighed down by swaying Spanish moss.

Her breath heaved in her lungs and then, “I’m here!” Ana yelled. “Don’t hurt Zuri!”

Emerson whirled around. The Feds near the street—those hunkered down with the cops—sprang up, and she knew Grayson had given them a command to stop her.

Ana ran faster. The bulletproof vest she wore bumped against her chest and back.

Kane was at the rear of her house. No, no, Kane should be inside the house by now. Kane who was so big but could move so quietly. He’d insisted on going inside to take out Logan.

And she was going to make certain that she held Logan’s attention so that Kane could get close enough to subdue the other man.

“Ana!” Emerson’s eyes were wide. “You shouldn’t be here! Go back!”

Gunfire erupted. It came from the house, and Emerson jerked, her body shoving forward, right before she screamed. Emerson fell to the ground, but she rolled, twisted, and gasped.

“Not like the shot killed her,” Logan taunted as his voice carried easily to Ana.

“That’s what bulletproof vests are for, am I right, Dr. Marlowe?

To keep you alive when you’re shot. But I can kill you.

I can aim for your head, where you have no protection from a bullet.

And I will, unless Anastasia gets her ass inside. Now. ”

Was Kane already in the house?

Ana climbed the first step.

Another bullet exploded from the house. It hit the ground near Emerson.

“Don’t move, Dr. Marlowe! The invitation wasn’t for you! It was just for Anastasia!”

Ana climbed the second step. “Send Zuri out, and I’ll come in with you.”

He smiled even as most of his body remained concealed behind the partially open door. “Why in the hell would I want to do that?”

“Because Zuri hasn’t done anything to you.” Emerson had said Logan was focused on the eye-for-an-eye mentality of revenge.

But then again, Emerson hadn’t done anything to Logan, and he just fired at her. A shot that he’d deliberately aimed to hit the bulletproof vest. And the second bullet had hit the ground near Emerson.

He hadn’t killed Emerson.

Zuri appeared in the doorway. Logan had shoved her forward. Tears tracked down Zuri’s cheeks. “Ana?”

Ana rushed up the last two steps. She hurtled toward her friend. Put her arms around Zuri and held tight.

“Say goodbye, Anastasia,” Logan ordered her.

Her gaze jumped to him. A shadowy form behind Zuri. He still had his gun, and it was aimed right at the back of Zuri’s head.

She choked down her fear. “Goodbye, Zuri.”

“Ana?” Zuri’s nails bit into her.

“Run to the cops, Zuri. Go, now.” She shoved Zuri. Felt her friend’s nails tear into her arm, but then Ana positioned herself right in front of Logan. Between Logan and Zuri.

Zuri would get away. Her pounding footsteps told Ana that she was escaping.

And as for Ana…

Logan reached out. Curled his left hand around her neck. He hauled her into the house. Slammed the door shut behind her.

“My sweet, sweet Anastasia.” His handsome face twisted with his fury as the fingers of his left hand tightened around her throat. “I’ve missed you, you lying bitch.”

“Kane, I know you can hear me.” Gray eased out a hard breath. “Ana is in the house, and your ass better be in there, too.” He’d wanted to go in the back of the home himself, but Kane had insisted on doing the job.

Tyler—hell, Gray knew that Tyler was supposed to be watching Kane’s six. Were they both in the house? They’d better be.

“Zuri is secure.” Gray could see her with the cops. The cops also had Emerson. The bastard shot Emerson. “Logan is armed with a gun, but I’m thinking you know that.” His teeth snapped together. “Suspect is armed and dangerous. Defend yourself.”

As if he didn’t already know what Kane intended…Why Kane had been so adamant that he had to go into the house…

Logan Catalano is a dead man.

Gray just didn’t want the guy to drag anyone else down with him on his way to the grave.

Ana shouldn’t have been in the house.

She should never have left Gray’s side.

But she was there, and Kane didn’t need Gray’s voice in his ear telling him that fact. He could see her. Logan had her pinned between his body and the closed, front door. The bastard had a gun to Ana’s side.

And he was saying?—

“You’re gonna pay for what you did, Anastasia. I’ve waited a long time for this.”

“I don’t love you, Logan.” Her voice rasped. Almost like she’d been choked.

Was the bastard choking her? Kane couldn’t see the front of Ana’s body. Logan blocked his view.

“I-I never loved you,” she gasped.

Logan jerked back from her, as if he’d been burned. “What?”

“Don’t be surprised.” Clearer. Stronger.

There was no fear from Ana. “I’m sure you figured this out long ago.

” She remained near the door. “But in case there is any doubt, let me be completely honest. I don’t love you.

I love Kane Harte. And when you’re back in prison, I will be living my best life ever with him. ”

“No!” Logan took another step back. “No, no, you won’t, because I am going to kill?—”

Kane attacked. The gun was angled away from his Ana, and Kane knew he had to seize the moment. He lunged forward, and he swept out with the knife he’d gripped in his right hand. One slice to the back of Logan’s right leg. Down low, near the ankle.

The man screamed and whirled even as he sank toward the floor.

Kane drove his knife into the bastard’s gut.

Logan jerked. Blasted his gun.

The bullet went wild. And Ana—she launched at Logan’s back. She slammed into him, hitting with her fists, but Logan shook her off. Ana fell, sliding across the floor toward the harp and it’s broken strings. Strings that had been ripped and partially destroyed in the drive-by.

Kane pulled back his knife and prepared to slice the Logan’s throat right then and there.

It’s what you do to your enemies, isn’t it, Logan? You often slice their throats. You shoot them. You blow them up. You kill. And that’s what I am going to do to you. Kill you.

“Kane!” That fierce shout didn’t come from Ana.

She was on the floor, grabbing for her broken harp.