Fuck, shit, f**k.

Too soon. They wouldn’t breach now. Not until I was clear. No way. No f**king way.

Something was wrong.

I braced on an aching foot in order to whirl and run but was hooked by the seller with an arm around my waist. I heard the door to the crate swing shut, pinning in the girls even as I saw Nick turn on the man who had a gun on him and grab the gun.

They started grappling as the seller tugged me back and another henchman turned on Nick and the man he was struggling with and opened fire.

Shit, f**k, shit, f**king f**k, f**k, f**k!

I whirled in my captor’s arm, hand up, and clawed his neck. He let out a howl of pain, his arm loosened, I lifted a knee high, suddenly thankful for my short skirt that gave me range of motion, and caught him sharp in the gonads. He yowled, I tore free and f**king ran.

In these bare seconds, all hell had broken loose in the warehouse. Clearly, there were more bad guys lurking and it was equally clear an operation had been launched to seize the warehouse. There was gunfire coming from everywhere, shouts, boots hitting the concrete floors, pandemonium.

The man Nick had been grappling with was down and bleeding from a wound in his chest.

Nick had disappeared.

Not surprising he didn’t take my back. He might for some reason be acting as a CI to the Feds but he’d always been all about himself.

But I was f**ked. I had no weapon. There were operatives in play who may or may not know I was a plant. And I had to find my way out of this warehouse so I could have the future I’d waited sixteen years for.

So I ran, using crates for cover and checking that the coast was clear before making my way to the next one, doing this making a mental note actually to add the line in my contract doubling my hourly rate if I had to wear heels.

This and escape were my thoughts when I was caught around the chest and hauled back into a man’s body.

Fuck.

Before I could begin to execute maneuvers to get free, my heart stopped beating, my stomach plummeted and my world rocked when Creed appeared in front of me, gun raised just as I felt the muzzle of a gun against my temple.

Fuck!

One second after that, Creed’s gun discharged, the arm around my chest loosened and the gun at my head went away as the man behind me shouted in pain when the bullet ripped through his thigh.

One second after that, I cleared him and started running to Creed.

And one second after that, my world exploded.

This was because two shots were fired not from the man Creed brought down but from another one who hit our scene from behind. They whizzed by me and hit Creed. Blood sprayed in a hideous cloud from his neck and his chest jerked back before he fell back, landing heavy without even attempting to break his fall.

“No!” I shrieked, still running toward him.

More bullets flew and I dropped to the side of my hip, sliding toward Creed like I was stealing a base. I yanked the gun out of his motionless hand, twisted, lifted, aimed and fired two kill shots. One directly in the face of the man who shot Creed, one through the throat of the man who grabbed me and was on the ground, recovering and aiming his weapon at me.

Two lives extinguished, two more lives taken by me.

I didn’t give it a thought.

I turned, pulled myself up on my knees, dropped the gun with a clatter and bent over Creed.

My Creed. My beautiful, beautiful Creed, on his back, eyes closed, not breathing, blood pooling from the wound in his neck.

I covered the wound, put pressure on and shouted, my voice a piercing screech, “Man down! Man down! Man down!”

I stopped screaming and bent over Creed, my face in his face, my hand not engaged in putting pressure on his neck running over his chest, searching for another wound as my heart pounded in my chest, my pulse beating so hard in my neck, it felt like it would tear through, my throat burning, my world ending.

“Tonight’s not my night to lose you, partner,” I told him. “Tomorrow’s not my day to lose you, either.” I lifted my hand from his chest and brought it down in a fist over his heart, my voice now shouting, “Never, never, never again will there be a time when it’s my time to lose you!”

Creed said nothing and his blood flowed warm against my hand.

Fuck me, f**k me, f**k me.

I knew that feeling. I’d seen it before. That blood, all that blood.

Richard bled out in minutes. I watched. It seemed his life flashed, then gone.

Not Creed.

Not Creed.

That was not going to happen to my Creed.

Fuck, God, please don’t take Creed away from me. Not again. Not again.

Not ever again.

I bent over him, my hand leaving his chest, I held the pressure to his neck with my other as I vaguely heard the gunfire die out, running feet around us and I put my lips to his ear.

“Come back to me,” I whispered. “Come back to me.” Tears hit my eyes, spilling over instantly as Creed didn’t move. “Goddamn it, Creed, come back to me!”

“Jesus, baby, calm down,” he wheezed and I blinked.

Then I jerked up and looked down into his opened, beautiful, stunning, amazing, beloved blue eyes.

He sucked in another breath and knifed up to sitting. Automatically I sat back on my calves to give him room and my hand dropped from his neck as his hands went to his chest. He tore open his awesome shirt, buttons flying everywhere then reached in and yanked. I heard Velcro tear as he unstrapped his stealth-fit bulletproof vest.

When had he put on a vest?

And how had I not felt it?

“Fuckin’ hell, that hurts like a goddamned mother,” he bitched breathlessly.

I stared.

He sucked in another breath then another one before he lifted up his hand, put it to his neck, took it away and stared at the blood.

His eyes came to me. “Flesh wound.”

Before I told my hand to do it, and, mark me, if I had my head together, I still would have told my hand to do it, I lifted it and slammed it, hand flat, into his chest. I ignored Creed’s pained grunt and jumped to my feet.

Pointing down at him, I screeched, “You’re getting a job as an accountant!”

Creed blinked then grinned.

Blood roared in my ears.

“Fuck, thank God Gwen isn’t a badass,” I heard Hawk mutter, referring to his wife. “I would not tolerate shit like that on a job.”

“I hear you, brother,” Jorge muttered.

I looked to cargo pants, boots, skintight Under Armour wearing, dark haired, intense black eyed, hot guy commando Hawk Delgado, got a load of his two phenomenal dimples telling me eloquently he found me amusing and I spat, “Shut your f**king trap, Hawk.”