Wicked and True (Wicked & Devoted 4)

Trees nudged Hector back toward Cash until they bumped into one another. “Stand back to back. Now!”

Zy motioned Tessa over and took the cuffs from her. Then he handed her his gun. “If either one of them moves, aim in their general direction. This sucker is loaded with hollow points, so whoever you hit, we’re talking maximum damage.”

“O-okay.” She nodded, looking so brave and resolute as she took the weapon and aimed it directly at the two men.

“You’re doing great,” he told her in a low murmur. “I’m going to cuff them.”

Then they could start asking questions. And find out if the baby in the next room was Hallie.

“No, you’re not,” said the woman from the kitchen. “Let them go.”

Zy turned and his heart fell to his knees.

Aspen stood in the opening between the kitchen and the living room with Hallie braced on one bony hip—and a Glock pointed against her defenseless little head.

Tessa did her best to hold the gun steady and not fall apart, but the sight of that woman threatening to end her daughter with one squeeze of the trigger nearly had her unraveling. Anxiety sat like a thousand-pound boulder, crushing her chest. “Hallie, baby girl…”

Her daughter caught sight of her and started wriggling and screaming, kicking and bowing her back.

“Stop it!” Aspen hissed, shaking Hallie.

If Tessa had any idea how to fire a gun without hitting her daughter, she would have turned it on Aspen.

But she didn’t.

Zy came to her rescue, holding up his hands and slowly approaching the other woman. “All right. Let’s not be hasty. You don’t need the kid. You need information, right?”

Aspen scowled suspiciously. “Yeah.”

“Okay, let’s make a trade.” Zy turned to Trees, who still had Johnson dead in his sights.

What the heck was Zy up to? Tessa didn’t know, but she needed to do her part.

She jerked the gun back to Cash. She might not be able to fire on Aspen and risk hitting Hallie, but if it would save her baby she had no compunction about blowing her ex away. He’d obviously had a hand in kidnapping their daughter and he deserved whatever he got.

“What do you mean?” Aspen asked.

“Give Tessa her daughter. A baby doesn’t belong in this situation, and I know you don’t want to kill her.”

The woman screwed up her face like he was an idiot. “I don’t give a shit. She’s just a whining, crying kid.”

Tessa seethed. Her daughter was wonderful and precious. Totally innocent and sweet. It took everything inside her not to stomp over there and beat the shit out of the bitch.

“But Hallie can’t give you information. I can. I know everything you want to know. Every. Single. Thing. So let the baby go, and I’ll come with you in her place.”

Tessa gasped. “Zy!”

Did he know that meant certain death? Was he really willing to do that, sacrifice himself to save Hallie?

“It’s okay, baby.” He put a reassuring hand over his heart.

Then she understood. He wasn’t trading his life for Hallie’s simply for her baby’s sake. He was doing this for her.

To atone? To prove his love? She didn’t understand, but she loved him. Still. No matter how difficult things had become between them. No matter how dark and ugly his interrogation in the bunker had turned. She’d said less-than- words to him in anger, too. But he was the kind of man who’d helped her when she’d been overwhelmed with a newborn. He was the kind of father who had calmed Hallie by letting the baby sleep on his chest. He was the kind of lover who had touched her with his heart as much as his hands the very first time he’d taken her to bed.

And now he was willing to risk his very life to keep her daughter alive.

Against her will, tears welled in her eyes. She couldn’t tell him not to trade himself for Hallie, but it was breaking her heart. “Zy…”

“Shh.”

“Why should I take that deal?” Aspen grabbed a squirming Hallie viciously and poked the side of her little head with the barrel again, her finger wrapped dangerously around the trigger.

Tessa’s heart lodged in her throat and she died a thousand deaths, worrying that Aspen’s finger would slip and end her baby girl forever. It was killing her that her daughter was mere feet away, but it might as well have been half a world.

“Because it’s a good deal,” Zy pointed out. “You let Tessa, her daughter, and my associate”—he gestured to Trees—“go. I’ll stay here with you three and tell you all the secrets EM has been keeping.”

“Or your two cohorts could simply put down their weapons and I can take all of you prisoner while I extract the information I need from you. If not, I’ll off the baby. You’ve got ten seconds to decide.”

“Hey!” Cash piped up. “This isn’t what we talked about.”