Chase
glanced around the dilapidated warehouse. He heard the men searching for him,
and there was no escape. He was boxed in as Dominic Eli's thugs yelled at each
other to find Chase. Chase knew taking on Morgan Hackery as a client had been
a mistake. He'd felt it in his gut when Clint had agreed to take the job.
Morgan Hackery had said that he needed protection because he dealt with a lot
of money and lately he'd felt as though he was being watched, but after
digging deeper, Chase had discovered that Morgan had dealt with a large flow
of cash.
Cartel cash.
Morgan up and disappeared two days ago, and had left false clues behind
indicating that the Might brothers had something to do with the missing money.
They didn’t, and now Chase had been shot, and Dominic Eli's men were searching
for him to finish the job. They wanted to make an example of him and his
brothers to others who might consider stealing from the cartel.
"I don’t think I'm getting out of this," Chase said as he swallowed
roughly. He peered around the haphazardly stack of crates and then quickly
ducked back when he saw one of the men heading in his direction. The guy was
armed to the freaking teeth.
"Just keep a level head," Clint said. "I know you. You'll figure a way
out."
Normally Chase would agree with his brother, but there were too many men in
the warehouse and all exits were covered. Sooner or later someone was going to
search his little hiding spot and it would be all over for him. He had to
move. Moving was the only way to survive.
Glancing around the crates again, Chase saw that the thug had moved on. With
his hand pressed over his wound, he pushed to his feet and skirted around the
crates, slid around a corner, and then ducked into an old office. The room
smelled musty and rancid as if there was a dead animal somewhere close by. A
layer of dust covered everything, but at least it wasn't out in the open.
"Okay," Chase told his brothers, "I'm in one of the abandoned offices
on the east side of the building, second floor corner."
"That's it," Ryan encouraged. "Keep moving. Do you see an escape route
yet?"
Sweat covered Chase's scalp and slid down his back as he clenched his teeth.
Fuck, the bullet wound was killing him. His entire arm felt as if it was on
fire. He could feel it starting to heal, but the whole process was moving way
too slow for comfort.
He
checked through the single window that overlooked the ground first and second
floor of the warehouse. The glass was dusty and smeared, but even without his
enhanced sight he could make out moving bodies on the other side.
"No." There wasn't anything that wouldn't put him in the line of fire.
Chase was still trying to figure out how he ended up in the line of fire in
the first place. This mission was supposed to be a no brainer. Go in, get the
intel to get the cartel off their asses, and get the hell out.
Except, Dominic Eli and his goons had been waiting for them. Someone,
somewhere, had squealed. Chase trusted his brothers with his life. He trusted
the people he employed at the Might Protection Agency he owned with his
brothers to have his back.
So,
either Dominic Eli was really good—and he wasn't—or the drug lord had just
been lucky. Chase was going with lucky, because he couldn't think of any other
way Eli would have known they were coming.
Chase ducked down when one of the thugs moved too close to the office window.
He prayed the man didn’t come inside. The clip in his gun was empty and hand
to hand combat would make too much noise. He was kind of running out of
options.
"How's the bleeding?" Clint asked.
"Still fucking oozing from my arm," Chase bit out, "but it's not as bad
as it was." He panted heavily as he gripped his upper arm tighter. His arm
was going numb and soon he would lose use of it while it healed. That
seriously wouldn't help his hand to hand combat skills. Sure, he could still
kick someone's ass without the use of his arm, but it would make things
harder.
"No need to get your panties in a bunch," Clint said. "Just getting a
sit-rep."
Chase wasn’t in the mood to give his brothers a situation report. He needed to
get out of there, but Clint was right. Chase had to keep them abreast of what
was going on. They'd need to know where to collect the body if he didn’t make
it out of there.
He
ducked when a shadow fell across the window. Chase pressed his back into the
wall and held his breath as the door swung open and then quickly closed.
Squinting into the darkness of the office, he tried to make out the outline of
a man.
A
very small man.
"Sssh,"
the man said in a hushed tone as he patted a bundle strapped to his chest.
"Don’t worry, sweety. Daddy's going to make things all better."
What
the hell?
Chase cocked his head to the side to see what the man was holding. No. No way.
This couldn’t be real. Was the guy actually holding a baby? A freaking baby?
Maybe Chase had hit his head or he'd actually died and was hallucinating.
There was no way a guy had slipped into the office of a deserted warehouse
with a baby in his arms.
"Who
are you?"
The
man spun, squeaked, and then slapped a hand over his mouth. His green eyes
were wide as he stared at Chase. The bag in the stranger's hand dropped to the
floor as he began to back away and Chase saw pure terror all over his face.
Holding his hands up, Chase shushed the guy. "It's okay. I'm not the bad guy."
The
stranger's eyes dropped to the wound on Chase's arm. His grip on the baby
tightened. "Please, don’t hurt us."
God. The look in the man's eyes made Chase's chest tighten. "I swear to
you that I am not going to hurt you or your baby." This was unreal. Chase was
bleeding from a gunshot wound, bad guys were looking to kill him, and there
was a man and a baby in the middle of all this.
He needed a fucking drink.
"Patrick!" someone yelled.
The shouted name from outside of the office
made the stranger's eyes grow even rounder as his chest rose and fell rapidly.
"He knows I escaped."
"Who?"
"Dominic."
Well shit. If Chase had even half a chance of
getting out of there alive, the stranger had just blown it.
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