HE LIFTED HER into his arms. She was bleeding, trembling. He wanted to crush her to him, but he forced his hold to stay gentle. She needed care from him right then. Not raw desperation. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
“They...knew...”
He carried her back to the patrol car. His breath hissed from between his teeth when he saw the blood on her shirt. Too much blood. “Cassidy...”
“He cut...tracker...”
He grabbed for his phone. “I’ve got her.” What street was he on? “Debouy and Hutchins. She needs an ambulance!” And if that ambulance didn’t get there in the next few moments, he’d just rush her to the hospital himself.
Cassidy...bleeding out in his arms. Nightmare.
That wouldn’t happen. He’d said that he would protect her.
“C-Cale?”
His body had curled over hers. He’d put his hand over her main wound, applying pressure to stop the blood flow as best he could.
When he’d been back at that park behind Dunlay, dark fear had controlled his thoughts.
Cassidy had left him. He hadn’t gotten to tell her goodbye. Just like with his parents.
His lips brushed her cheek. “Don’t leave me.”
Her hand rose. Her fingers—her skin had been scraped from her palms. What the hell had happened to her? But her fingers lightly touched his cheek. “I’m...not.” She even tried to smile then. Smiling? After what she’d been through?
His heart stopped for a moment.
Then beat even faster, harder, than it ever had before.
“It takes more than...this,” Cassidy whispered, “to stop me.”
And he knew that he was staring at one of the strongest women he’d ever met, and he’d sure come across more than his share of fierce protectors during his time in the military—and as a civilian.
Cassidy wasn’t weak. She was—
Everything.
He held her even tighter. “Tell me who did this to you.” He could hear the scream of the ambulance’s siren, coming closer and closer. “Tell me, sweetheart. I’ll find them.” Hunt them. Stop them.
Kill them.
No one hurts her and walks away.
Yeah, that violent side of his, that predatory side that others whispered about? That Mercer had flat out taunted him with? It was out.
He’d been trained to hunt and kill his enemies. The one who’d done this to her would pay.
Cale would make absolutely certain of that.
“I shot him,” she confessed in a whisper.
His eyes widened.
Good.
“I had...a gun...at my ankle. Got it before I—I left...the EOD.”
The ambulance rushed around the corner and came to a screeching halt. Two other vehicles were right behind it—a black SUV and a long, gray sedan.