Page 31 of Fergus

Fergus gave a rueful smile. “Like me, Declan is ex-Special Forces. He knows that those details count.”

“Who do you both think was responsible?”

Fergus’s expression became closed. “We’re still looking into it.”

“We?” The two of them walked side by side down the hallway and out the doors to the outside.

Thea felt momentarily disoriented by the obviously late afternoon sunshine. The hours they had spent in the hospital had felt surreal, a time out of time, and it was a shock to realize the sun was still shining.

“Magnus and Rufus, but mainly Linus, are checking into it.” Fergus unlocked and opened the passenger door of the SUV for her.

As she climbed inside, Thea realized it was a different SUV than the one they had arrived in. That one had blood all over the back seat. Declan’s blood. One of the men in the Wynter family must have taken it away sometime during the past six hours and left this one in its place.

Thea hadn’t met Linus yet, but she knew he was the tech guy for the company, so he would probably be the one checking any security cameras in the area. “Do you think it could have been Lev or my stalker?” she pressed.

“I believe it’s one of them, yes,” Fergus bit out as he started the engine before driving the vehicle out of the parking area. “Your stalker, because he’s already shown he can be violent when he knocked you unconscious in Paris. But Lev Yegorov is more likely to have armed men working for him. Also, the tattoos Declan described seeing on the guy’s neck were very distinctive. I believe we’ll find that he’s one of Yegorov’s men.”

Her eyes widened. “Lev tried to have me killed?”

“It’s a possibility,” Fergus grated.

“But why?” She frowned her puzzlement.

He shrugged. “We’ll need him to tell us that.”

“But you think the shooter’s tattoos will confirm whether he worked for Lev?”

He nodded. “If they’re gang or organized crime related, yes, and we think they are. I need to make a few phone calls referencing the information Declan gave me, but I believe we should have an answer to that question within a few hours.”

“Then what?”

His jaw tightened. “Then we have to decide what we’re going to do about it.”

“Do about it?”

“Yes.” The challenging expression on Fergus’s face told her he wasn’t going to add anything more to that.

Thea wasn’t sure she was up to hearing any more. It had been a stressful few weeks before the unprovoked shooting this morning. She simply didn’t have anything left in reserve to deal with any more shocks.

* * *

“Have I been asleep for long?”

Fergus looked at the beautiful woman lying beneath the covers in the bed in one of the spare bedrooms in his apartment.

Thea had been exhausted by the time they arrived here a couple of hours ago. Thankfully, too much so to bother arguing with him about where they went after leaving the hospital. Or protest when he suggested she take a nap before dinner.

If shehadquestioned coming here, Fergus would have explained that he believed it was far safer for her to be twenty floors up, in his penthouse home, than it was for her to go back to her own apartment. The break-in a few days ago told him that her apartment building had insufficient security to keep her safe.

Fergus had made a couple of calls to members of his family once Thea was asleep, plus another one to Nikolai Volkov. The latter might be an arrogant bastard, but he was also more likely to be able to identify the distinctive tattoos Declan had described on the shooter’s neck.

After that, Fergus hadn’t been able to stop himself from coming back to the spare bedroom to sit in the chair he had pulled up beside the bed. He’d needed to sit and watch Thea breathe. To reassure himself that she was still alive.

Which she wouldn’t be if Declan hadn’t moved as quickly as he had.

Fergus’s blood ran cold every time he thought of those two bullets piercing Thea’s head, knowing she would have died instantly.

Fergus knew, in that stark moment, that any hopes and dreams he might have envisaged for his future would have died with her.

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