“Tess, get in the car,” Damian ordered. “It’s urgent.”

I didn’t answer. Vance told me not to engage him and I wasn’t going to. I was going to phone 911. I tried to push through big brawny guy but big brawny guy just put a firm hand on my arm to stop this.

I tried to twist away at the same time activating my phone.


“Tess, there isn’t a lot of time.” I heard Damian say. “Please, for your own good, get in the car.”

Surprisingly, big brawny guy wasn’t taking my phone away. I dialed 911 (which, at this rate, could be added to my favorites) and put it to my ear.

“Tess, please, ” Damian entreated, sounding like it was, indeed, urgent (the jerk) but I kept my eyes on the pavement, the big brawny guy weirdly gently started to pull me to the car and the 911 operator said in my ear, “Nine-one-one, what’s your emer –”

Then it happened.

Gunshots.

Right there.

Gunshots right there.

So loud. Unbelievably loud. Making my ears ring.

I stood frozen as the big brawny man’s hand left my arm and it left my arm because he’d fallen to the ground, blood oozing from his chest.

In a fog of horror, I tipped my head down and stared at big, brawny man who was wheezing with blood oozing from his chest.

Oh my God!

Stupidly, in shock, I turned to look left and saw an older man I’d never seen in my life advancing, smoking gun drawn.

“Tess! ” Damian shouted, jumping out of the car before I could do anything, say, like flee.

“Get in my fucking car! ”

Then he had a hand on me and he yanked me to the car as more gunshots were fired.

Damian grunted in pain as I felt his body jerk but he still shoved me into his car, coming in after me, slamming the door.

“Drive! ” he yelled, the older man was still firing at the car, bullets thudding into the metal even as Damian’s driver put his foot down and it shot forward, straight at the old, crazy, shooting man then a bullet penetrated the windshield and the car veered crazily right and slammed into some parked cars, tossing both Damian and I to the side, skidding along them for awhile and then coming to a stop when the driver slumped to the right.

And it came to a stop in a way that my door was wedged against cars. No escape except over Damian.

But I didn’t even get that chance and I didn’t because it all happened quickly. In the beat of a heart, the flash of an eye.

Damian pulled a gun out of his jacket just as the door was pulled open and old, crazy, shooting man leaned in, aimed at Damian and shot him right in the face.

Right.

In.

The.

Face!

I screamed in sheer terror as Damian collapsed on me then rolled to the floor.

Then I stopped screaming and looked at the old, crazy shooting man who had the gun aimed at me and my heart and lungs stopped. My heart and lungs stopped but my blood was coursing through my veins, I felt hot everywhere, my scalp was tingling, my palms went instantly wet, my knees were quaking and I stared right at him and his gun.

“Tessa O’Hara,” he said and I didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t even fucking blink.

Nothing entered my mind, not his knowing my name, not blood, murder and mayhem in the parking lot at Park Meadows Mall, nothing except him and his gun. “Brock Lucas’s Tessa O’Hara,” he whispered and that was when I knew him. I knew him. He was the man that called forever ago, the night someone had shot at Brock.

I still didn’t speak, I just kept staring.


“You wanna keep breathing, you’ll come quiet like.”

I wanted to keep breathing.

So in the car with two dead men, I left my phone, my purse, my Mrs. Field’s cookies and the Dillard’s bag with my boys’ swim trunks and I went quiet like.

* * * * *

Brock

“Need a second in Cap’s office,” Brock Lucas heard, his eyes went from the computer he was shutting down before going to get his boys to the man standing beside his desk.

Or, that was to say, the men standing by his desk.

Hank Nightingale, Eddie Chavez and Jimmy Marker, the first two men he’d known awhile since they worked vice. Their relationship had been strained due to Brock’s second to last job going bad and both of them having a strong negative opinion about the plays Brock had made during that job. Now, considering Hank was Lee Nightingale’s brother and Lee was Chavez’s best friend and Brock was working with Hector and Vance, two of Lee’s boys, not to mention he’d moved from the DEA to the DPD and paths were crossing, they’d come to an uneasy détente. As the days turned to weeks then months, this détente improved as they got to know each other’s histories, personalities and work ethics. He couldn’t say they were best buds but he respected them.

Jimmy Marker was a veteran cop, highly decorated, intensely dedicated to the job and close to retirement. There wasn’t a cop in the Department who didn’t respect him, including Brock.

It was Jimmy who had spoken.

“What’s up?” Brock asked.

“In Cap’s office,” Jimmy returned.

That was when he knew it. He felt it. He saw it in their guarded eyes, their alert stances.

Something was wrong. Something big was wrong. And that something big was very big and it was also very wrong.

Fuck.

He said not another word, folded out of his chair and moved to the Captain’s office, Jimmy, Eddie and Hank following him.

The minute it came into view Brock saw the Captain had eyes to the window of his office.

Waiting.

Fuck.

He walked in, the men walked in with him and the door closed instantly.

“Have a seat, Lucas,” the Captain ordered, his eyes not having left him.

Brock didn’t move nor take his eyes off Cap.

“Tell me,” he ordered.

Cap held his eyes.

Then he stated, “You know Josiah Burkett was released on parole four months ago.”

Bile crawled up Brock’s throat.

Josiah Burkett was Bree’s cousin who raped her. Brock had paid attention to Josiah Burkett and he knew exactly when that motherfucking monster was released. Brock also knew Burkett had kept steady with his meetings with his parole officer, the halfway house that asshole was in and hadn’t moved out of yet and that he managed to land himself a job working the line of an automotive parts factory off 6th Avenue.

What he did not know was why Cap was leading with Burkett.

This was not starting good.

“Yeah,” he replied.

The Captain held his eyes.

“Jesus, Cap, just –” Brock growled and Cap interrupted him.


Speaking quickly, he said, “A call came into 911 twenty minutes ago. The caller didn’t get the chance to explain what was happening. Shots were heard over the phone. Not a minute later, multiple calls came from Park Meadows Mall…”

Hearing the location, a location Tess was at twenty minutes ago and he knew this because he was on the fucking phone with her twenty fucking minutes ago, every cell in Brock Lucas’s body stopped moving.

The Captain kept speaking, “… reporting an elderly man had opened fire on a black sedan.

When units hit the scene, the shooter was gone, there was a man down, still alive outside the car and two men dead in the car. Damian Heller was one of those men.”

Brock didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t even fucking blink.

“I’m sorry, son, but Tessa O’Hara’s phone and purse were found in the back of that sedan.”

Brock closed his eyes.

The Captain kept going. “Witnesses report she went with the elderly man who was holding her at gunpoint.”

Brock opened his eyes.

The Captain finished, saying quietly, “The descriptions of the shooter match Josiah Burkett.”

Instantly, he turned on his boot heading for the door.

Nightingale and Chavez were already there, prepared, and if he had any room for anything else in his brain, anything other than his sweet Tess in the hands of a whacked, sick lunatic that he had set on this path to revenge making it him who made his Tess unsafe, he would have cottoned onto why those two were chosen. Not a lot of men could lock Brock down but those two could.

“Lucas, you need to stay calm and listen to me,” Cap ordered urgently.

Brock stopped in front of Nightingale and Chavez.

“Outta my fuckin’ way,” he growled, his eyes moving direct to both of theirs.

They didn’t move a muscle. If anything was on his mind other than the putrid garbage that was filling it, he would have seen understanding in their eyes, concern.

But nothing was on his mind but his Tess in the sick, twisted hands of Josiah fucking Burkett.

“Lucas,” Cap called. “Son, calm down and listen to me. You don’t, we’ll lock you down.

And you don’t need that, you don’t want that, I know you don’t. Not now, be smart, turn around and listen to me.”

Brock looked over his shoulder. “Get them outta my way.”

“We’ll find her,” Cap promised.

“When?” Brock asked, turning, “After he beats the shit outta her? After he plays his sick fuckin’ games with her? Jesus fuckin’ Christ! ” he said the last on a roar. “She’s been through this before.”

“I know, son, listen to –”

Brock turned his back on the Cap and lifted a finger in Nightingale’s face, “I want your brother on this, fuckin’ now. ”

“He is, Slim, I already called him,” Hank said quietly. “All his boys are on the hunt.”

“Delgado,” Brock snarled, his eyes moving to Chavez, “he needs to mobilize.”