Chapter Twelve

Glass flew across the kitchen, and Mia gasped when she felt one of the shards slice across her arm. Her mind registered the pain right away. But it took her another second to realize what had just happened.

Someone had fired a shot at them.

“Get down,” Angel ordered, and as he’d done at the shooting at her own house, he dragged her to the ground. Or in this case, the floor.

He glanced at her arm, at the blood, and cursed before he lunged across the table, shoving Melanie and RJ down as well. It was the nick of time.

Because another slot ripped through the gaping hole in the glass and slammed into the table, right where Melanie had just been sitting.

Melanie screamed, and even though it was at the top of her lungs, it still wasn’t loud enough to drown out the next shot. That one blasted in the wall above Mia, tearing through the wood and going heaven knew where.

“Crawl to the side of the fridge,” Angel said, whipping out his gun and positioning himself in front of them.

Mia didn’t want him to be her human shield. She didn’t want Angel to get shot or killed. But arguing with him might be enough of a distraction for that to happen anyway.

So, she moved.

Her arm was stinging, and, yeah, it was bleeding, but she didn’t think it was serious. She couldn’t say the same for the back of RJ’s head. There was blood there, too. Plenty of it, and she didn’t know if he’d been grazed by a bullet or if it, too, was a cut from the flying glass.

Melanie and RJ got to the fridge first, and thank God it wasn’t a built-in. There was a two-foot wide gap between it and the partial wall, and the moment they reached it, RJ pulled Melanie to her feet and shoved her into the opening. He motioned for Mia to go in next, but she pushed him in next to Melanie instead before she got behind the cover of the fridge.

Mia wanted to be able to see Angel, and that wouldn’t have been possible if she was crammed in behind RJ.

And she soon saw him.

Damn it.

Angel was crouched down but was making his way to that blasted shot-out window. The shooter must have seen him, too, because a bullet flew in Angel’s direction. He dropped down to the floor, the shot narrowly missing him. But he didn’t stay down. He got up again and darted across the room to the window.

“Danno, call 911,” Angel said without even taking his phone out of his pocket. “Active shooter at this location. In need of backup.”

Mia had no doubts that Danno would take care of that. No doubts either that SAPD would respond. After all, this was smack dab in the middle of the city. But she figured cops weren’t just going to come in with guns blazing when there was a shooter present.

“The shooter just ducked behind the garden shed,” Angel relayed to them. “Male. About five-ten, wearing a ski mask and carrying a rifle. Any chance there are security cameras out there?”

“No,” Melanie and RJ said in unison. “Is it Dwight?”

“Possibly,” Angel muttered, and then he moved.

Fast.

He brought up his gun and fired. The shot was deafening and seemed to rattle the entire house.

The gunman returned fire, and this shot slammed into the fridge. Mia had no idea if the metal sides would prevent the bullet from making its way through, but she prayed it did.

“Shit,” Angel spat out. “Someone’s breaking down the front door.”

Sweet heaven. Mia seriously doubted it was the cops since they couldn’t have gotten here that fast. So, there were possibly two attackers. One pinning them down with gunfire while the other came in through the front.

And they’d be trapped in the crossfire.

The partial wall on their right wasn’t going to do much to hold back someone hellbent on killing them. But who was the target?

Maybe all of them were.

“I’m going to hold off this guy by the tool shed,” Angel said, his attention volleying between the front and the back. “Move to the backstairs and try to get the hell away from here.”

The back stairway was across the room, tucked up behind another partial wall. Not far but not close either. A good fifteen feet away. But the part of the plan that Mia hated was that she didn’t think Angel would be joining them there.

“And what happens when we get to the stairs?” she asked Angel. “You face down two gunmen?”

He glanced at her, the fierce argument showing in his eyes. She was certain there was one in her eyes, too. But Angel diffused it right away.

“Please,” he muttered. “Get Melanie and RJ to safety.”

Hell. He was playing dirty. He also wasn’t giving her a say in this because Angel added, “Move now.”

That was the only warning she got before he turned to the back window and started shooting. He was sending a stream of gunfire at their attacker that would hopefully prevent him from shooting at them.

Mia didn’t waste any time. Staying low, she darted out from the fridge, grabbing a butcher knife from the block on the counter, and she took hold of RJ’s arm to get him moving. In turn, RJ took hold of Melanie.

And they hurried toward the stairs.

They’d barely made it to the first step when there was another shot. Not from Angel this time. It’d come from the front of the house.

Her heart stopped.

She was sure of it.

And for a terrifying moment Mia thought Angel had been shot. She was almost too afraid of what she would see, but she forced herself to look.

Just as Angel fired one shot into the backyard, pivoted, and sent a shot in the opposite direction. In the same motion he dived to the floor, sliding across it and coming up on the opposite side of the fridge from where they had been.

He took aim again toward the living room.

And fired again.

But so did someone else. Not a single shot either. But a barrage of gunfire.

“Get up the steps,” Mia told RJ and Melanie.

Thankfully, they did. Thankfully, too, Melanie had stopped screaming because Mia didn’t want the shooter to be able to use the sound of her voice to track where they were.

Behind her, RJ and Melanie began scurrying up the stairs. But Mia stayed put. She kept her attention on the back window and door.

Waiting.

If the shooter burst through there to try to trap Angel, she’d hurl the knife at him and then get the hell down. It might not work. She could be shot. But there was no way she would let Angel fight this battle alone.

While she was steeling herself up to join in the fight, the gunshots stopped. Just stopped. And the eerie silence spread through the house.

Mia listened for something. For anything. Footsteps. Movement in the backyard. But the only thing she could hear was her own heartbeat and gusting breath.

In contrast, Angel wasn’t breathing hard. He seemed to be in some kind of hyper-focus mode. And like her, he was waiting.

They didn’t have to wait long.

The shots started again, slamming into the kitchen from both the back window and the front of the house. Angel dropped further down, but he wasn’t safe. Nowhere near it. Either shooter could move in closer and have the kill shot they needed to end his life.

Mia needed to do something to stop that from happening.

She reacted out of instinct. Repeating the ploy she’d done with the flipflop, she hurled the knife toward the partial wall that fronted the foyer.

It worked.

The gunfire from the back window instantly went in that direction. Away from Angel. And Angel quickly took advantage of it.

Moving so fast that he was practically a blur, Angel levered himself up, taking aim at the shooter in the front. He fired twice. And the sounds of these shots were different. Not smacking into glass or walls.

But into the shooter.

She heard a sharp groan of pain, followed by the clatter of someone falling to the floor.

Angel quickly pivoted toward the window, and with that same lightning speed, he fired two more shots.

The seconds crawled by. And that eerie silence returned.

Mia held her breath. Prayed. Waited.

She couldn’t see either shooter, but she could see Angel, and she watched his expression turn from the fierce warrior to the former cop.

Then, he said the words she had hoped she would hear.

“They’re both dead.”

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