Lisa Childs - Guarding His Witness

But when she peeled away the edges of the torn jacket and shirt, he flinched, and a curse slipped out between his gritted teeth. “Pouring salt in it?” he asked.

Her full lips curved slightly. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any with me.”

She touched it again, and pain radiated down his arm. He asked, “Are you sure?”

“I didn’t have time to grab the shaker before you tossed me out the window,” she reminded him. “The blood is starting to clot. But you’re going to need some stitches so you don’t have a jagged scar. And some antibiotics. You must have hit it on the edge of the dumpster, because I don’t see a bullet.”

“Bullet probably would have hurt less.” The minute the words left his lips, he regretted it—especially when he saw the smile slide away from her lips, turning them down into a grimace.

She pulled her hand away from his shoulder. “Javier probably wouldn’t agree with you—if he had survived.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. But he knew the apology, which he’d uttered many times, would never be enough for her. It wouldn’t bring back her little brother, and that was the only way she would ever forgive him.

But even if he couldn’t gain her forgiveness, he needed her trust. “We’re here,” he said, and gestured toward the building. Lights glowed through the windows in the brick walls.

She glanced at the building. “Good.” When she reached for the door handle, Clint caught her shoulder to hold her back.

“You can’t get out yet.”

She turned toward him with her dark eyes narrowed. “You can’t keep me—”

He already knew that. “I have to make sure it’s safe,” he explained.

“Nobody could have followed us here,” she said, “not with the crazy way you were driving.”

He glanced around the parking lot, which was brightly lit with streetlamps. “Not followed,” he agreed. “But they could be here.”

“How?”

“You don’t think any of Luther’s shooters would recognize me?” he asked. He’d worked vice so long that most of them had to know who he was. “You don’t think Luther knows where I work now?”

She shivered as she looked out the windows, too. “Then you shouldn’t have brought me here, either.”

He sighed because he couldn’t argue with her. “I probably shouldn’t have. But the chief is here. He wants to talk to all of you.”

“The chief?”

“Police Chief Woodrow Lynch.”

“The former FBI guy.” She shivered again.

Lynch was intimidating, which was probably one reason why Parker hadn’t refused the assignment. Another was that Parker felt like Clint did—like they all did—about Luther Mills. He had to be stopped.

“And who is all of us?”

“Everybody Luther threatened in those phone calls. The CSI tech, the prosecutor, the judge’s daughter, the arresting officer...” All of Luther’s victims in one place.

It had been stupid to bring her here, to bring any of them here. A wave of nausea washed over him at the thought that he might have put her in more danger.

“Are you okay?” Rosie asked as she turned fully toward him again. She reached out and pressed her hand to his face.

Clint braced himself, but her touch affected him, making his pulse quicken and his breath catch in his lungs.

“You’re really warm,” she said. “Have you had a tetanus shot lately? You could be getting an infection from the metal that cut your shoulder.”

He was getting hot, but that was more from her touch than anything else. Her hand was cool against his face, but her soft skin made his tingle.

“When was your last tetanus shot?” she persisted.

From Javier singing her praises and from what Clint himself heard around the hospital about her, he already knew that she was a good nurse. But now he knew how good, that she could put aside her hatred of him for concern for his health.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“We need to get you to the ER,” she said. “You need stitches and a tetanus shot.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

He wasn’t worried about himself. He was worried about her, that he might have put her in more danger by bringing her here. He’d made a promise to her brother, and this one he would not break.

But when he noticed shadows near the building, he realized that the choice might not be left up to him. There were people out there moving within those shadows.

He had made damn certain the shooters from her apartment hadn’t followed them. But they wouldn’t have had to follow them. They could have followed any one of the other bodyguards back here from collecting the person he or she had been assigned to protect. Other Payne Protection SUVs were already parked in the lot.

Luther hadn’t ordered a hit on everyone for tonight. Just Rosie.

But Luther was such a control freak that he would probably have some of his people watching his other potential victims, so he would know where they were when he was ready to take them out. And if Luther had learned the Payne Protection Agency was guarding them, he could have figured out where they would all meet up.

And if he had figured it out, he had to be laughing his ass off that they’d made it so easy for him to take out all his victims in one place.

Maybe he was just being paranoid and giving Luther way too much credit. But he knew the drug dealer too well to ever underestimate him again. Luther Mills was always at least one step ahead of everyone else. Usually more. That was how he had avoided prosecution for so many years.

No. Clint would not make the mistake of underestimating him ever again. The last time he had, someone had died. Rosie’s brother.

A curse slipped out, and Clint reached for the keys still dangling from the ignition.

“What?” Rosie asked, her eyes widening with fear. “What’s wrong?”

Just as Clint started up the SUV again, those shadows moved away from the building toward his vehicle. He could drive over one or two of them—but not all of them.

Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he reached for his weapon as he pushed Rosie below the windows. “Get down!” he told her.

He would do his best to protect her. But the guilt that always weighed on his shoulders now reminded him that his best had not been good enough for Javier.

“Put down the gun!” Parker shouted as he pulled open the driver’s door of the SUV. He was not going to get shot in front of his own damn agency. And definitely not by a member of his team.

“Damn it!” Clint cursed him. “I nearly shot you. Why the hell were you all sneaking up on me?”

Parker was not alone. “You were sitting out here for a while,” he said. And he and some of the other guards—ones he’d borrowed from his brothers’ agencies to secure the perimeter during their meeting—had grown concerned. And maybe with good reason. “We thought something was wrong.”

As Clint slid his weapon back into his holster, a grimace crossed his face with the movement. He was hurt.

“What the hell happened?” Parker asked.

Clint had warned him that he was the last man the witness would want to protect her. Apparently, Parker should have listened to him.

The witness answered before Clint could. “He threw us out a third-story window,” she said.

Maybe Clint was the one Parker should have been worried about. “What?” he asked.

She had to be lying, maybe trying to get her bodyguard in trouble.

“We were being shot at,” Clint explained. “When you all started creeping up on us, I thought the shooters might have followed us here.”

“Not with the way you were driving,” the brunette remarked. From her disparaging tone, it was clear that Clint had not exaggerated how Rosie Mendez felt about him.