Guardian Ranger (Shadow Agents 2)

It took a moment for the words to register. Then she heard Wyatt’s smug laugh. “You could’ve gotten away.”

She wasn’t looking at him. Barely felt the shotgun as it was yanked away and dropped in the dirt. Her gaze was on the driveway before her. A blue car was fishtailing as it swerved down that jagged road. And to the right, a motorcycle was coming right out of the overgrown brush.

Wyatt bent and pulled a small pistol from the holster on his ankle. “This is the moment,” he said in her ear, “the life-or-death moment that everyone talks about but so damn few get to experience. I’ll give this moment to you.”

Jasper had just jumped out of the blue car. He was closing in on her. He had a gun gripped in his hands. “Let her go!”

Cale was shoving away from the motorcycle. He was armed, too, with a small gun that he had pointed right at Wyatt. “There’s no way out for you, Wyatt! Get away from my sister!”

“Neither one of them will shoot,” Wyatt whispered in her ear. “Because they’re scared they’ll hit you.” He’d positioned the gun under her chin, holding it in exactly the same spot he’d put the shotgun. Only this time, she was betting this gun was loaded and ready to kill. “Or maybe they’re just afraid I’ll pull the trigger.”

Her head was tilted back against him as she tried to get away from that weapon. But there was no place to go. She couldn’t get free.

The two men she loved most were closing in. Just about ten feet away from her now. Why was Wyatt letting them come so close?

Because he’s going to kill them both. Her breath stilled. That was Wyatt’s plan. He was using her to lure Jasper and Cale closer. And when they were close enough, he’d shoot one man, and the other still wouldn’t fire back because he’d be afraid of shooting her.

Neither one of them will shoot.

Wyatt had that part right. But he was still wrong about one thing. “I can save myself,” she whispered again. But it wasn’t just about surviving this mess. She was ready to risk her life for the men that she loved.

You don’t risk your life for nothing. Cale’s number three rule. But this risk wasn’t for nothing. It was for everything. For their lives.

She looked into Cale’s eyes. Her brother was only about seven feet away now. She’d never seen such fear in his eyes.

“It’s going to be okay, Ronnie,” Cale told her. “You’ll make it out of this.”

Would he?

Her gaze darted to Jasper. No fear there. Just desperate determination. An intensity that would have scared her if she didn’t know him so well. He was looking at Wyatt, and promising death. “Get your hands off her!” Jasper snarled.

“You messed this up for me,” Wyatt yelled right back at him. “You weren’t supposed to be EOD. You were just supposed to be a mercenary. Expendable...dead.”

And she knew that Wyatt was going to shoot at Jasper first. Because Wyatt would rely on Cale’s bond with Veronica. A brother wouldn’t shoot at his sister, right? Jasper was the variable threat that Wyatt would want to eliminate first.

I won’t let you kill him. She’d just found Jasper. He wasn’t dying.

“He’s not...expendable,” she said, her voice flat and cold. “You are.” Then she drove her elbow into his ribs as hard as she could. He jerked behind her, startled, and the gun slipped away from her chin, moving about two inches.

That two inches was all that she needed.

She leaped toward Jasper even as she screamed, “Shoot him, Cale!”

Jasper’s arms were reaching for her. She tried to push him back because she was afraid Wyatt would take the shot. But Jasper was too strong. Always so strong. He twisted, protecting her, using his body as a shield.

Gunfire exploded behind her. Once. Twice.

Then she felt the hard jerk that knocked Jasper—as a bullet hit him?

“Jasper!”

They were both on the ground. Jasper was on top of her, covering her with his body. But no, she’d wanted to protect him.

“Jasper?” she whispered.

His head lifted. He stared down at her with so much emotion blazing in his eyes that she couldn’t speak again. “Stay here,” he whispered, and he rose.

He turned his back on her, and she saw the blood. The bullet had hit him. A bullet that she’d tried so hard to stop.