Lisa Childs - Bodyguard Daddy

Despite her legs shaking as she trembled with fear, she pressed hard on the accelerator, and the minivan jumped forward.

“Mommy!” Michael cried out in protest. “I want Jewel!”

It wouldn’t matter whether or not he had the bear if they didn’t survive. She couldn’t trust Agent Rus—couldn’t trust he didn’t pose a threat to her. She knew Milek was dangerous; he’d already hurt her more than anyone else ever could have.

“We have to leave,” she told her son. “Now!”

His tears broke her heart, but she was too scared to cave—too scared to do anything but run. She pressed harder on the accelerator and sped away.

* * *

Milek watched her drive off, and once again he was paralyzed. Not with fear this time. But with shock. “She’s alive...”

The back windows of her vehicle were tinted, so he hadn’t been able to peer through the dark glass to clearly see his son. But there had been a shadow back there. Michael had to be with her.

They were both alive—just as Rus had claimed. But Milek hadn’t allowed himself to believe him—to hope. He’d needed to see for himself.

“Son of a bitch!” Nicholas Rus cursed and gestured at the vehicle following the minivan down the street. “That’s the Ghost.”

“Ghost?” Amber wasn’t dead; Milek had just seen her.

“Campanelli!”

“No!” The paralysis ended as he ran toward the running SUV. He pulled open the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. He was already steering away from the curb when Rus jumped into the passenger’s side.

“Damn it!” the FBI agent cursed.

Milek didn’t know and didn’t care if he was cursing him. He had to catch up to Amber before Campanelli did. “How the hell did he find her?”

Rus cursed again. “I don’t know. I don’t know...”

At the moment it didn’t matter how, though—it only mattered that he had.

Milek sped up to close the distance between his SUV and the rental sedan ahead of them. “Is this it?”

The car’s windows weren’t tinted. He could see clearly inside—could see a big man was in the driver’s seat. But he must have had only one hand on the wheel, because he lifted a gun with his other hand and pointed it toward the minivan in front of him.

“That’s him!” Rus shouted. He lifted his gun as Campanelli had. But then he shook his head. “I can’t shoot—I can’t risk it. The bullet could go through the car and into the van.”

Milek didn’t need a gun; he had the SUV. He stomped on the accelerator, propelling the vehicle forward so its front bumper rammed the rear bumper of the sedan.

Metal crunched and tires squealed.

Was there a shot?

Had the man fired the gun?

Milek peered through the car to the van ahead of it. The rear window was shattered, glass raining down from it onto the street and into the back of the van. His heart constricted; fear squeezing it.

He cursed. “The son of a bitch...”

Campanelli had fired the gun. Had a bullet struck Amber or the little boy? Milek was certain his son had been in the backseat.

Anger joined his fear. He pressed harder on the accelerator and struck the sedan again. But as he struck it, the car catapulted forward and hit the van. Maybe that was why the minivan swerved—or maybe it was because Amber had been shot.

A cry burned Milek’s throat, but his jaw was clenched too tightly to utter it. A curse slipped through Rus’s lips and resonated inside the SUV.

Tires squealing, the van scraped along a row of parked cars. Metal crunched, sparks flying from the contact. Then the van swerved again across the street. The turn was so sharp, the van tipped and rolled onto the driver’s side. The car swerved, just missing the van as it squeezed between it and those parked cars.

Milek drove forward and stopped beside the undercarriage of the van. He didn’t care that the Ghost was getting away. He cared only about Amber and Michael, and making sure they were all right. But as he reached for the driver’s door, Nicholas Rus grabbed his arm to stop him.

“He’s coming back.”

Apparently the car had turned around on the other side of the van and was heading right toward them. But it wasn’t the vehicle they needed to worry about—it was the gun held out the window, the barrel pointed directly at them.

Bullets pinged off the metal of the SUV and shattered the glass. As it had rained into the van, it rained onto them. He and Rus raised their weapons and returned fire.

* * *

Pain throbbed in Amber’s head, pounding as fast and frantically as her heart. She blinked, trying to clear her blurred vision. But it wasn’t her vision that was blurred—or it wasn’t just her vision. The windshield had cracked like a spiderweb and ballooned inside—toward her face.

She blinked again as something trickled down her forehead and into her eye. She lifted her hand and brushed it away, and blood, bright red and sticky, smeared her fingers.

She didn’t care about herself, though. Her fear was all for someone else. Her baby...

Pinned beneath the steering wheel, she struggled to twist around—to peer into the backseat. Fear choking her, she could only hoarsely whisper, “Are you okay?”

Big tears rolled down his flushed face. He was terrified. Too scared to even utter the sobs that should have gone with his tears.

She couldn’t cry, either. She could barely breathe as her heart continued to hammer frantically in her chest. It sounded like a war zone outside the crumpled van. Gunfire erupted in angry bursts, probably as the men reloaded. She flinched with each shot.

Had it been a bullet that had shattered her rear window? Unlike the front window, which had only spiderwebbed, the glass had fallen completely out of the back window—some of it had fallen inside. Shards were strewn about the vehicle—like the other articles that had flown from the moving boxes when the van rolled.

She didn’t care about possessions, though. She shouldn’t have taken the time to pack them. And she shouldn’t have risked returning—even for Jewel. She had put her son in danger.

Had that bullet struck anything besides the glass? She reached out for Michael. Strapped into his booster chair in the middle of the backseat, he was up higher than she was, which put him in danger if any of those shots flew through that broken rear window.

The van lay on the driver’s side, the metal crumpled beneath her. Pieces of that metal and the plastic interior shell of the door protruded into her seat, poking her arm and her hip. She struggled with her seat belt, pushing the button to free the clasp. But it held tightly. Her fingers trembling, she pushed hard on the button and tugged on the strap.

And finally it snapped back. She settled heavily against that crumpled door, wincing as the metal dug through her clothes and into her skin. But that was only a minor discomfort in relation to her overwhelming fear for her son.

She reached up again—for the seat belt holding Michael’s booster chair against the backseat.

“Are you hurt?” she asked him. “Do you feel any pain?”

His eyes wide, he shook his head.

But she couldn’t trust he wasn’t like her—in shock, with so much adrenaline coursing through her that she might not have realized if she’d been shot.

What about Milek? Was he shooting or getting shot?

What the hell was going on outside her van?

Then suddenly the gunfire ended—leaving an eerie silence behind but for the squeal of tires against asphalt. Someone was driving away.

Who? Which shooter?

Did it matter? She could trust no one.

She had to get away. “I’m going to undo your seat belt,” she warned Michael. “And you’re going to fall. Fall toward me, and I will catch you.”