Cop cars swarmed behind him. Keith was still on the ground.
“He took you away from me.” Ethan’s hold tightened on her. “And I just had to get you back.”
She could feel the strong, fast beat of his heart against her. He held her so tightly, so close but… “It hurts,” Carly had to say.
He immediately let her go, then his gaze swept over her, locking on her blood-covered arm and shoulder, then coming back up to stare at her face—no her temple. Was her face as swollen as it felt? That gun butt to the head had hurt like hell.
Ethan scooped her into his arms and started running for the cops. Funny. Ethan, making that move. Going to the cops. If she didn’t watch it, he’d be a regular boy in blue soon.
“I’m okay,” she said, but she let her eyes close. She could do that now. Let the pain take over and just drift away. Ethan was there. Keith had been stopped.
He found me.
“No more, Carly. No more enemies coming out of the wood work. This shit has to stop.”
She heard another blast of a siren. Her eyes cracked open and she spied an ambulance rushing toward her, hurtling around the curve in that parking garage. “Easier said…than done.” Because soon, her story would be leaked even more. The FBI knew all about her past and with that Quincy death video being uncovered…anyone who wanted vengeance for Quincy’s kill would be looking her way. Would a line form? And what was she supposed to do then?
“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he said. His lips pressed to hers. “I’m done, baby. Done.”
He wasn’t. They weren’t. Ethan had plenty of enemies on his own. His enemies. Her enemies. How were they ever supposed to find a safe place? How were they supposed to have a future?
The one thing she wanted so badly. A chance. Hope.
It was being taken away.
A tear slid down her cheek as Ethan lowered her onto the gurney. They had to find a way out of this mess.
What way was there?
Ethan’s hand slid over her cheek. “Baby, I mean it. I’m done.”
Her lashes lifted. She saw the forms of two EMTs as they rushed around her, checking her wounds. Someone shone a really bright-ass light into her eyes.
Then she was being lifted again. Put into the back of the ambulance. Ethan started to follow, but an EMT put a hand on his chest and shoved him back.
Bad move.
Ethan looked at the guy. Just looked.
The EMT hurriedly moved away. “My bad. Family, right?”
No. Yes.
Ethan climbed in the ambulance. He caught her hand in his. “Right. Family. You always have been mine, baby. Always will be.”
The back doors shut. The ambulance lurched away.
***
The perp was laughing. That high-pitched, grating laughter was getting on Faith Chestang’s last nerve. She glared at the guy and thought—oh, but another shot would have been good.
She’d already fired two bullets at the guy. When she’d arrived on scene, he’d been aiming at Carly’s fleeing back. Ethan—acting in a seriously un-Ethan-like way—had jumped into the line of fire. Carly hadn’t glanced back, so she hadn’t seen him leap in front of Dr. Keith Nelson’s gun.
Faith had seen the move, though. And before Keith could take out Ethan, she’d fired.
I saved Ethan Barclay’s ass. Now he owes me. Plenty.
She’d call in her debt, too.
FBI agents and NYPD officers were everywhere. They all sure seemed pumped. Probably because they’d stopped a killer and arrested one of the FBI’s most wanted—drug lord named Henry Hastings, a fool who’d been outside, heading into that garage with a trunk full of money.
He came to kill Carly.
Seemed plenty of people were offering a price on Carly’s head.
That price would only vanish, once Carly was dead.
Luckily, Ethan had a plan to protect Carly. On their fast and frantic drive over, Ethan had told Faith all about that plan.
Some men would really do anything for love.
The stories she’d heard about Ethan were wrong. The guy did have a heart. It had just been buried deep, for a long time.
“So what the fuck is going to happen now?” Keith demanded. “You think you saved Carly Shay? The hits will just keep coming. They won’t stop—”
“Don’t worry about her. Worry about yourself.” She smiled at him. The EMTs were loading him into a second ambulance. “What do you think is going to happen to you? Do you really think Ethan is going to let you get away with what you’ve done?”
Keith paled. “I’ve got…powerful friends…”
“So does Ethan. If I were you, I’d be praying right about now. Because you’re under arrest, doctor. You’re going to jail—or maybe hell. Guess they could be one and the same to you. And when you get there…I wonder how long you’ll stay alive? The last enemy that Ethan had…Daniel Duvato…he didn’t make it more than a few months…”