Kinsley left through the door, all loved up. She peeked into Remy’s window again, and she was busy with two different customers now. Today would obviously be long, and Kinsley was useless when it came to explaining Remy’s magical items. She’d offered to work the cash register today and help Remy out while the bar was closed, but she realized she needed something to do as well or else the day would take forever to end. She figured if she was sitting at the counter, she might as well grab her books and get caught up on all the things that she’d been putting off. Especially because right now she’d rather be in bed with Rhett, not worrying about anything or thinking about life’s realities, just enjoying the hard lines of his amazing body.
She caught Cameron getting out of his car again. Poor guy. “I just want to grab my books from my office. Is that all right?”
“Yeah, of course,” Cameron said.
After she unlocked the door, she headed inside, and Cameron followed her in. Silence surrounded her as she walked through the main room. Which was both depressing and nice too. She missed the bar, but her head had too much in it to really process anything right now, including this mess her bar found itself in.
Cameron entered the back room first, but he’d taken only two steps inside when he yelled, “Run!”
Time slowed. And yet everything happened so fast. Cameron drew his weapon, only to be grabbed around the neck. He was disarmed in mere seconds. Kinsley’s purse fell to the ground as a group of men wearing ski masks all turned to her. Two things occurred to her at the same time.
The first, her alarm was disabled. She hadn’t entered a code when she walked into her bar.
The second, the man who attacked her stood only a few feet away. He turned those cruel, dead eyes to her.
Run…Kinsley…run…
The words came as clear as she’d heard them in her dream. She turned and sprinted for the door. She begged her legs to run faster. The door was right there; all she had to do was get there. Masculine yells erupted behind her, igniting a fear that hit her straight into her soul. She’d only begun to taste happiness. This surely couldn’t be it. Her baby needed her. Rhett needed her.
Faster.
Run…
She screamed and pushed harder, her muscles burning. The door was so close. She reached out to grab the handle, but her fingers slipped away as a hard body slammed into her, taking her down to the ground. She forcibly shifted onto her side, desperate not to land on her stomach. Her hip took the brunt of the fall. But that pain seething through her was nothing compared to the fear she felt staring down the barrel of a gun.
Her attacker growled, “Time’s up.”
* * *
The morning had been long and exhausting, and last night with Kinsley occupied Rhett’s mind. He felt torn between finding the bastards threatening her and keeping her safe and close to him. Rhett never felt torn, and it was beginning to eat away at him. He wanted to see that smile, feel that warmth she offered him, listen to her talk. Instead, he spent most of his time on the phone with the NYPD discussing the Wild Dogs, who they were and what Rhett and the guys were facing. The news was grim, and still, Rhett had no idea how to even find the men who’d attacked Kinsley. He had no leads. Nothing. Josh was still MIA; no hits had come on the APB that Rhett had put out. And he hoped that when Boone and Asher came back from wherever or whatever they were doing, they had a better answer for him.
With a curse, he grabbed his mug to refill his coffee, but when he stepped out into the cubicle area, he was met by a flurry of activity. “What’s wrong?” he asked one of the rookies who rushed by.
“Whiskey Blues is on fire.”
It took Rhett a few seconds to process what that meant. His coffee mug smashed to the floor and he charged for the door. He was vaguely aware that people were yelling at him when he ran out of the station. Get there, his instincts roared at him. He listened. Regardless of the fact that his head told him everything was all right, he sprinted down Main Street, spotting the dark, thick smoke billowing up to the sky, as well as Cameron’s empty cruiser. Peyton and Remy stood at the curb, matching looks of horror on their faces.
Rhett took note of the pedestrians on the street, and one person was missing. “Where’s Kinsley?” he asked the women.
“She was going to Remy’s last time I saw her,” Peyton said.
Remy shook her head. “She never came b
ack after this morning.”
Peyton’s face went ashen. “But she left my shop this morning and said she was going to yours. She never came?”
“No,” Remy said, reaching out for Rhett’s arm, fright shaking her voice. “No, she never came.”
Rhett snapped his head back to the bar as a window burst and flames licked out. He charged forward while the women yelled for him to stop. When he reached the door in the back parking lot, he spotted that it was ajar. Rhett grabbed his gun from his holster, then pulled up the front of his shirt and held it to his face while he got down on all fours and crawled beneath the thick smoke through the back room. Kinsley…
His heart thundered, the worst thoughts filling his mind. He’d been in the most dangerous missions of his life, but this shook his hands now. A cold sweat washed over him, a stark contrast to the heat at his flesh. A rawness rocked him to his very core. The fire roared, a sound that reminded Rhett to move swiftly. He crawled through the back, clearing Kinsley’s office and the kitchen, but then he met a body.
Cameron.
He checked for a pulse and found one. Rhett grabbed Cameron and yanked him out the door before he charged back inside. Desperate to find Kinsley, he touched the door to the main bar and was relieved to find that his skin wasn’t scorched. He lay flat on his stomach and opened the door. The fire had been set at the front of the bar, and currently the only thing not on fire was the floor. Rhett’s training clicked into place. His objective to search for a victim was the only thing on his mind.
He cleared the bathrooms, behind the bar, the stage, and when he knew for certain Kinsley wasn’t lying injured in the bar anywhere, he crawled his way back out. The moment he cleared the outside door, he was greeted by sirens and lights as the fire department arrived. He burst into a coughing fit and was pulled away by a fireman, an oxygen mask shoved on his face. The world spun slightly, and for a moment he couldn’t quite piece together why he was there or what had happened. Until Boone grabbed his shoulders, and with the oxygen returning to his body, he said beneath the mask, “She’s not in there.”