“Oh my God, Monty,” I whispered into the phone. “Mace is on the move.”

“Fuckin’ fuck, f**k, f**k. Maverick. Fuck! ” Monty clipped in my ear.

I didn’t feel particularly soothed by this reaction and because of that I felt tears wel in my eyes then I felt Preston close and heard Juno whine. I looked to my dog to see her low on her bel y but her eyes were aimed at where Mace disappeared.

My dog loved my man.

I loved my man.

And he was going to keep me safe.

Or die doing it.

Oh God.

“Monty,” I breathed, my breath now coming fast, in pants, more adrenalin tearing through me, so much, I was tingling from head-to-toe, so much, I could feel it saturating my system. I was drowning in it.

“He’s good, Stel a, he knows what he’s doin’ and he’s been in worse spots than this,” Monty told me.

This was not exactly welcome information. It was actual y scary information but nowhere near scarier than my current scary situation so I let it slide.

Then I thought no more when the sound of more gunfire fil ed the air but through this I heard furniture move (no joke!) and then a door open (oh God!) then a grunt, a shout, more gunfire, more gunfire, stil more gunfire, another grunt, a thud, a man’s scream, more gunfire, another thud, another man’s shout, the sickening sound of bone breaking, a man’s strangled cry, more gunfire…

Then silence.

I held my breath, eyes on my dog, Juno’s eyes not having moved from the spot where she last saw Mace.

“Stel a?” Monty cal ed in the phone.

My head turned and my gaze shifted, catching Preston’s.

He was on his knees, bent forward, torso twisted my way, his body mostly shielding mine from the door. His eyes were on me and I saw it, clear as day, fear was written al over his face and not the kind of fear a man feels when his life was in imminent danger. The kind of fear a man feels when his mind is consumed with the possibility that another one of his children had been struck low.

Even considering the terror I felt which took most of my attention, it was stil difficult to witness.

“Stel a?” Monty’s voice was sharp in my ear.

“Monty,” I whispered back, having nothing else to say, holding Preston’s gaze, reading his look, knowing I was wearing the same terror with only a nuance of difference on my face.

“Please, God, not again,” Preston breathed, my heart twisted, it hurt like a mother then we heard footfal s.

We both jerked our heads toward them, my neck went way back and my eyes fil ed with wet that instantly spil ed over when I saw Mace casual y striding toward us.

His jacket was torn at the shoulder.

That was it.

Just his jacket was torn at his shoulder.

Lordy be.

I surged to my feet and rushed him. He took my ful body impact without even going back on a foot as Juno woofed excitedly over and over again and I felt her body brushing ours as she circled us. Mace’s arm wound around my waist, going tight and his other hand slid the phone out of mine.

I shoved my face in his chest, pressing close, deep, hard, holding him tight and bawling like a baby as I heard him say into the phone, “Current threat neutralized.” For some bizarre, insane reason which likely had a lot to do with the fact that I was temporarily unhinged due to the extreme relief washing through my system, his words made me laugh through my tears, stil burrowing, his arm getting tighter as I did so.

That was when I heard the sirens.

Okay, now I believed we were good.

But only because my man made us that way.

On that thought, I stopped laughing, gulped back a sob and more tears flowed.

* * * * *

I stood outside at the edge of the activity stil wearing my heels. My feet were kil ing me as was the gunshot graze at my hip which I’d landed on when I went down on it in that room. It hadn’t real y hurt for days, just itched. Now it hurt. I had a blanket wrapped around me, a blanket Mace had wrapped around me and this was because, even though it was summer and stil warm, it was late at night and I was trembling and not because it was late at night.

Juno was sitting at my side, her big body leaning into my legs, her eyes riveted to Mace who was standing fifteen feet away where he had walked not thirty seconds ago to talk to Eddie and Hank.

My eyes were riveted anywhere but at the body that was on the ground, under a sheet, next to Preston’s limousine.

His driver had been taken out. One minute, innocently chauffeuring a rich guy (or whatever), the next minute, dead.

I couldn’t deal with that so I was ignoring it.

The place was crawling with cops, squad cars, forensic personnel, paramedics, ambulances, big lights had been set up and trained around the space so they could see what they were doing and, lastly, there were Nightingale men. In fact, the only Nightingale man not there was the Nightingale, Lee, who I was told briefly by Mace was not let in on this fiasco seeing as it was his wedding night. After Mace imparted this information on me, Luke had noted that Lee would likely be displeased about being kept in the dark. I had noted (but silently) that Lee and Indy would likely be more displeased at having their big, happy day and its culminating, arguably happier festivities interrupted by mayhem.

If the guys took shit from Lee, they did. Luckily, they were badasses so, even though Lee was also a badass, I doubted they’d have difficulty dealing.

There were bystanders and media at the edge of the property, cops and police tape holding them back.

I was counting as the stretchers came out of the building.

Two men ful y covered.

Dead.

Four men stil alive but even from a distance seriously not in good shape.

Mace didn’t f**k around.

This would probably fascinate anyone else, how he did it, how he pul ed that off, holed in a room one second, one against six armed men the next and besting the lot.

Not me. I didn’t want to know and I was never, ever going to ask.

Mace was breathing. I was breathing. My dog was breathing.

That was good enough for me.

The good news was, this was the last hurrah. I knew this because Luke told Mace this while Mace was holding me close, his hands running soothingly up and down my back as Luke gave his briefing. The six men Mace neutralized were the final six men in Sidney Carter’s army. Sidney was stil unaccounted for but his operation was ful y dismantled.

He had no more soldiers. They were stil looking but they suspected, once he heard that this last mission was not successful, he would cut and run. They were covering trains, airports, bus depots and the Highway Patrol was on alert.