Page 40 of When He Fights (Protector & Defender #3)

Chapter Twenty-Three

“He locked me in the trunk of my car.” Tears poured down Zuri’s cheeks. “I had just arrived at the restaurant. You know I always arrive before everyone else. He came up behind me. Grabbed me. I tried to fight him, but he was too strong.”

Ana held her friend’s hands. Their foreheads pressed together as they huddled in front of Ana’s house.

The crime scene. The chaos scene.

Logan was being loaded into the back of an ambulance. All of the color had left his face—he’d looked ashen, probably from the blood loss. And the beating.

And me nearly strangling him to death with broken harp strings.

“I was in that trunk for hours. He…he told me what he was doing.” A shuddering breath from Zuri.

“He left me in the trunk while he met those men at th-the dojo. Turner’s dojo.

He was inside when they arrived. He’d gagged me, tied me up, and I couldn’t get out.

He disabled the trunk release lever right in front of my eyes.

I couldn’t get out!” she said again. “I banged and banged, but no one heard me. I knew he was going in there to kill them, he told me that he was. I wanted to stop him, but I couldn’t.

And then…then he was back. I don’t even know how long he was gone.

He opened the trunk to look at me. There was blood on his clothes, and he told me that he’d tied up loose ends. ”

Tied up loose ends. By that, Ana knew Logan had meant that he’d stabbed Turner Mitchell and the lawyer, Kyle Sanchez. He’d also left a deadly trap for Kane and Gray.

Kane.

“He was waiting for something when we were parked near the dojo.” Zuri backed away a bit. “When he had the trunk open to check on me, he kept looking to the sky like he should see something.”

An explosion?

“And when he didn’t, he got mad. He hit some black device he had, and then he slammed the trunk shut, and I-I heard a big boom. Felt like the world was exploding.”

Not the world. Just the dojo.

But when I thought Kane was in the wreckage, I thought for sure my world had exploded.

Her gaze darted to the left. She found Kane watching her. He was talking to Gray, with Tyler standing close to them. She knew Kane was giving his statement to the other Feds, the ones wearing dark suits. But Kane’s gaze burned as it pinned her.

“I was in the car that whole time, and I-I think he was killing people.”

“They aren’t dead.” Emerson appeared at Ana’s side. A very subdued Emerson. One who no longer wore a bulletproof vest.

Ana had removed her vest, too.

“Turner Mitchell and Kyle Sanchez are in ICU. They aren’t dead.” Emerson’s lips pulled down. “At least, they aren’t dead yet.

Zuri’s breath left her in a whoosh. “I want to go home. Can I please go home?”

Emerson nodded. “You can. There are just a few questions we need you to answer first.”

Zuri pulled her hands from Ana’s grip. Wet tear tracks lingered on her cheeks. “That’s the ex, huh?” She jerked her thumb toward the ambulance. The rear doors were closed. Two uniformed cops waited outside the vehicle. Ana knew a Fed had been stationed inside with Logan.

“That’s him.” Ana’s voice was grim.

“I like the new boyfriend way better,” Zuri told her. “ Way better.”

Ana blinked. Her lips began to kick up. Leave it to Zuri to find a bright spot in the middle of this madness. “I like him way better, too.”

“Thanks for saving me,” Zuri told Emerson. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but?—”

A gunshot rang out. From inside the ambulance. Ana’s head turned toward the sound. Her heartbeat seemed to stop. Every single moment seemed too slow as she watched those rear ambulance doors fly open.

Logan—Logan was there. With a gun. How the hell had he gotten another gun?

He looked at her. Aimed the weapon.

This can’t be happening. Can’t. Why won’t he just stop?

No bulletproof vest. She’d taken it off.

She’d—

Another gunshot blast.

One blast.

Two.

Three.

All the bullets hit Logan, and he fell. Not back into the ambulance, but right onto the ground.

Uniformed cops swarmed. Ana didn’t move. For a moment, she couldn’t even breathe. Then, slowly, her gaze swept the area.

Kane had a gun up and still aimed at Logan.

Gray was armed, too. His weapon pointed at Logan’s slumped figure.

And Tyler? His face was ice-cold as he held his gun and gazed at Logan.

There were lots of shouts. Lots of jumping into action. The Fed who’d been in the back of the ambulance leapt out, with his left shoulder bleeding. General chaos ensued.

But Ana knew, even as the first responders went to work on Logan, she knew that he was gone. Three shots. By three men who knew how to kill. Who’d fired first? Did it even matter?

Her breath slowly expelled. Then she inhaled. Exhaled. In and out.

Time picked up again.

“OhmyGod!” Zuri shuddered. “He’s…he’s dead, isn’t he? Dead. ” There was horror in her voice. And relief.

Ana understood. She felt the same way. Horrified. Relieved. Scared to the soles of her feet. And…Her gaze darted back to Kane.

He was watching Logan. Not moving.

He fired first.

She would have bet her life on that fact.

“No choice,” Gray announced to everyone and to no one.

Just saying the words. “Couldn’t let the man fire that gun at a crowd.

Federal agent in the ambulance should have damn well known better than to have an unsecured weapon back there.

Hell, I thought Logan was restrained. Thought he was down for the count.

You severed his Achilles tendon, for shit’s sake.

Not like he could go running off with that kind of injury. ”

Logan would never be running anywhere again. Kane knew his bullet had torn its way into Logan’s heart. He’d always been a little faster on the trigger than Gray.

“It was mine,” Tyler said from beside him. “My bullet took him out.”

“The hell it did,” Kane denied. “It was mine.”

“Bullshit,” Gray called. “Even basically one-handed, I fired faster than both of you bastards. It was my bullet. I’m sure of it.”

Tyler shrugged. “We don’t miss,” he noted simply. “None of us.” A pause. “Ana is safe now. No more running. No more hiding. She gets her life back.”

Logan’s body had been loaded into the back of the ambulance. Was someone doing chest compressions on him? Cute, but that wasn’t going to help.

“What do you think she’s gonna want to do with that life?” Tyler asked.

Before Kane could answer, Ana was there. She threw her body against his. Ignored the gun he held. Ignored the men next to him. She wrapped her arms around him, and she held him in a fierce grip.

“Yep,” Tyler sighed. “That’s pretty much what I thought she’d do. Invite me to the wedding, will you? My Esme loves a wedding.”

Ana wasn’t turning away because of the violence Kane carried. She wasn’t afraid of him. Wasn’t desperate to get away. Instead, she’d strangled a man with harp strings in order to help Kane.

And now, the monster from her past was dead.

Ana tilted her head back. She stared straight up at Kane, and she told him, “I love you.”

His friends were watching him. Hell, reporters might be pulling up now, too. So much for keeping the scene under wraps. But Logan was dead. There would be no more need for secrets when it came to Ana.

And Kane wasn’t going to hold back with her. Not ever again. When she’d gone through that door at her house…

Dammit, Ana, that had not been the plan!

His heart had stopped.

His world had stopped.

I’d live and die for you, Ana. I’d kill for you, too.

He had, in fact.

“I love you, too,” he told her.

Ana smiled at him. A big, beautiful grin that lit her eyes. “I know.”

He bent to kiss her because, yes, she did know. The woman knew everything about him now. No secrets. No lies. She knew all of his dark places. And she loved him still.

He was one lucky SOB.

His Ana. His sweet, determined, willing-to-fight-to-the-death Ana. She held his heart in the palm of her delicate hand.