Defiance (The Protectors 9)

And that was exactly what I told him.

Chapter 2

Vincent

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on!”

Figured the guy would be an ungrateful asshole. I shoved him back against the wall and said, “In case you missed it, you stupid fuck, you almost got your ass blown off. When that happens, you typically don’t want to stick around to give them a SECOND FUCKING CHANCE!”

I forced myself to calm down, though by most people’s standards, I probably appeared completely calm and in complete control. Yeah, I was in control, but I wasn’t calm. I hadn’t been from the second I’d seen the assailant standing behind Nathan, knife poised to strike. I’d still been in my car, so I hadn’t bothered to shout a warning to him. By the time I’d grabbed my guns and darted across the yard, the man and Nathan had disappeared from view, and it hadn’t been until I’d gotten closer to the house that I’d seen them in a death match on the floor. Nathan had managed to break free from his attacker, but he’d been seconds away from death when I’d grabbed my Sig short-barreled rifle and started firing through the window, knowing full well the rounds wouldn’t reach the attacker, but the breaking window would sure as hell distract him long enough for me to get inside.

The whole thing had been too damn close. And while I didn’t particularly give a shit what happened to the man myself, I did care about the impact it would have on Dom’s nephew. I’d been curious about Beck Barretti after the way Dom had talked about him, so I’d done a little research just to appease that curiosity.

I hadn’t been appeased.

At all.

The mental issues Dom had alluded to had included a suicide attempt. I’d hacked the computers of the psychiatric hospital the young man had been admitted to and learned that Cade had been the one to find Beck and had managed to cut him down just in time. I hadn’t gone digging beyond that, because even the little bit of research I’d done had felt like a violation, not to mention it had brought back some pretty shitty memories for me. I’d had what I’d needed, anyway. Beck Barretti needed a shot at a better life and he was going to get it, even if I had to keep this ungrateful ass in one piece to do it.

But as soon as I grabbed Nathan by the arm again, he jerked away from me.

And immediately stumbled.

I managed to catch him around the waist before he fell, and I really did not like the feeling of awareness that went through me at the sensation of his body pressed up against mine. I quickly reached out with my foot to grab the leg of one of the kitchen chairs and jerked it over. Nathan wasn’t much shorter than me and I figured when he was at his normal weight, he’d give me a run for my money in the overall size department. The fact that he’d managed to survive the brief, albeit intense, attack from his assailant was proof that he had some decent muscle built up, along with the instincts to fight back against someone with better training than him.

“Sit,” I murmured as he continued to resist me.

“We have to call the police,” he said, even as he sat down and put his uninjured hand up against his head.

“So you know who attacked you?” I asked as I went around to the kitchen and snagged a clean-looking hand towel that was draped over the oven door handle.

“No,” Nathan murmured as he lowered his arm so it was resting against his leg. The move allowed him to keep holding his head without having to keep his arm in the air. It was testament to how quickly he was crashing after the adrenaline rush.

I tore a wide strip off the hand towel and knelt down in front of him. He winced as I wrapped the strip around his hand and used enough force to stop the bleeding. The wounds on his palm and possibly the ones on some of his fingers would need stitches, but I didn’t have time to deal with it now. “Hold pressure on that,” I said as I motioned to the binding. I climbed to my feet and went to the window. The frame was still intact, so I pulled the large retractable blind down in the hopes passersby wouldn’t notice the window was actually missing. Although both the assailant and I had used suppressors on our weapons, the sound of shattering glass would have been hard to miss. I could only hope like hell this was one of those neighborhoods where everyone assumed someone else was calling for help.

“Then you have an idea of who attacked you?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer was.