Page 76 of Landry

Valentin had his fingers pressed to Camille’s neck, his brow furrowed.

Landry held his breath; his heart stopped beating.

“She has a pulse,” Valentin finally said. “It’s faint, but there.”

Landry let go of his breath, and his heart started beating again. She was alive. He searched her body for injuries, finding a hole in her shirt, blood oozing through.

“That man, Dion, was going to shoot me.” Billy Ray knelt at Camille’s head. “She dove in between us.” He met Landry’s gaze, his eyes filled with tears. “Please, tell me she isn’t going to die.”

“Not if we can help it,” Landry said and applied pressure to her wound, praying she hadn’t lost too much blood.

Marceau dug in the big metal box beneath his seat and pulled out a first aid kit. “It’s not designed for gunshot wounds, but there are gauze pads you can use to apply pressure to the wound.”

Simon opened the box while Rafael held a flashlight over them.

“Found the gauze.” Simon ripped open the packages and handed the white sheets to Landry.

He draped the pads over the wound and pressed down. “We have to get her to a hospital.”

“On it,” Marceau called out from his seat above the others. The engine rumbled to life, and the fan spun up to a roar.

Holding his hand to the wound, Landry stayed with Camille all the way back to the marina.

An ambulance waited in the parking lot. Paramedics stood on the dock with a rescue basket and a medical kit, ready to take over.

In less than a minute, they’d loaded Camille into the basket. Between the paramedics, Landry and his team, they carried her up to the waiting ambulance.

The paramedics worked over her, hooking her up to an IV and settling an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose.

Landry wanted to go with her, but the paramedics needed room to work on saving her life.

“Come on.” Marceau clapped a hand on Landry’s back. “We’ll follow them to the hospital. Deputy Taylor is on her way back with what’s left of the people who did this to her.”

Landry climbed into Marceau’s truck beyond numb, his heart aching. Camille wasn’t out of the woods yet. She’d lost a lot of blood, and he had no idea if any vital organs had been hit. Ava would be devastated if she lost her mother.

Hell, he would be devastated.

How had this woman come to mean so much to him in such a short amount of time?

Because she wasn’t afraid to love deeply. Her daughter, her friends—even a boy she barely knew. She’d risked her life to save him.

“You have to believe she’ll be all right,” Marceau’s voice cut into the silence of the cab.

“She’s a good person,” he said, realizing how inadequate the words were. “The best.”

Marceau nodded. “You’re lucky to have her.”

“I don’t have her,” Landry admitted. “But I’d give anything if I did.”

“Including your life,” Marceau said. “You could’ve died with her if you hadn’t gotten out from under that hut when you had.”

“Couldn’t have done it without my team.”

“Your team is a great group of men. They all have each other’s backs as they should. Brotherhood forged under a different kind of fire.”

“I’d give my life for them,” Landry said quietly.

“And they’d give their lives for you.” Marceau stared at the ambulance in front of them.

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