Hungry Like the Wolf(41)

But Gage didn’t give him the chance. He grabbed Patterson by the front of his suit jacket and shoved him against the wall. The rest of Hardy’s thugs scrambled for their guns only to freeze when every cop at the table drew their weapons and aimed in their direction.

Mac did a double take. How had the SWAT guys moved so fast?

She couldn’t see Gage’s face because his back was to her now, but the look he gave Patterson must have scared the hell out of him because the man went white.

“That’s the problem with guns these days,” Gage said softly. “Everybody’s got one.”

Holding Patterson still with one hand, he reached under the man’s jacket with the other and came out with a flashy automatic. It looked a little like the 9mm she’d fired that morning, only bigger.

“You should probably leave now.” Gage released Patterson. “If you feel like getting this back, you can come by the compound for it. I’m sure you know where it is.”

Patterson swallowed hard. His eyes darted around the room, a frown creasing his brow as if he couldn’t understand how the tables had turned so quickly on him and his men. He gave them a nod and jerked his head toward the door. They hesitated, but then slowly filed out.

Patterson made a show of straightening his jacket, then headed for the door. Once there, though, he stopped to fix Gage with a glare.

“Yeah, I know,” Gage said before the other man could speak. “I’ll regret this. I’ll be sorry. This isn’t over. Whatever. Get out.”

He didn’t wait to see if Patterson followed orders, but instead walked back to the table and sat down beside Mac. She watched over her shoulder as Hardy’s enforcer stormed out of the room. When she turned around, it was to find Gage reaching for the bottle of steak sauce.

He gave Xander an accusing look as he took off the cap. “Did you drink this or something? It was full just a second ago.”

“Wasn’t me.” Xander grabbed the bottle in front of Delaney and reached across her to hand it to Gage. “It was empty before I got it.”

And just like that, everyone started arguing, one side talking about who’d hogged all the steak sauce while the other debated why anyone would ruin a perfectly good steak with the stuff to begin with.

Mac stared at them. How could they sit there and debate the merits of steak sauce as if nothing had happened? Didn’t they realize that any one of them could have been shot a minute ago?

“Aren’t you going to do something?” she asked Gage.

He stopped cutting his steak to look at her. “What do you think I should do—arrest them?”

“Well… Yeah.” She would have thought that was obvious. “They had guns and they threatened you.”

He went back to cutting his steak. “This is Texas. Everyone has guns. But they never actually pulled their weapons or even said they were going to hurt me. They simply said their boss wanted to talk to me. That’s all. Nothing there to warrant an arrest.”

Nothing there? “Those men work for Hardy.”

His hand stilled on the knife, the muscle in his jaw flexing. At least he wasn’t taking this as lightly as it seemed. “It doesn’t change anything.”

How the heck could he be so calm about this? There was a rich, powerful, violent man out there who blamed SWAT for the death of his son—and Gage was the face of SWAT.

“They’ll come after you again,” she said quietly. “You know that, right?”

“Then I’ll be ready for them.”

He sounded so casual about the whole thing it made her want to scream. Mac pushed her plate away. She’d lost her appetite.

Gage might have dealt with Patterson, but that wouldn’t be the end of it. Hardy was coming for him, and now he’d be even more determined than before.

And for some reason, that scared her more than if the man had been after her.





Chapter 6


Gage drove Mackenzie home that night. She’d told him she was fine catching a ride with Zak, but after that episode at the restaurant, he felt better doing it himself. He didn’t have to try too hard to convince her. Just another indication of how upset she still was after the run-in with Hardy’s men.

It wasn’t just her, either. Regardless of how relaxed the team had seemed after Hardy’s thugs left the restaurant, they’d been anything but. Even after Mackenzie had allowed them to cajole her into taking Zak’s place as the hostage in the afternoon training session, his guys were on edge. They knew Hardy wasn’t someone to take lightly. If he wanted to come after any of them, he could do some damage.

“You don’t have to walk me all the way to my door, you know,” Mackenzie said as they stepped off the elevator on her floor. “Hardy’s not after me.”