Page 82 of Holiday Hostage
“You motherfucking asshole. Stupid cunt.” He bellowed curses loud enough to blister my ears, raging and firing until he emptied the magazine.
He already had another in hand, and he never even looked away as he changed out the mags and prepared to run down the steps.
I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back.
“Don’t. That’s what he wants. Angry men make mistakes. Don’t play into his game. He wants you down there, on his turf.”
Tarron lay where he’d fallen, and Payton continued to scream.
I hauled her toward the back door with my arm locked around her waist. “Tucker, follow me.”
The steady thud of his steps at my back put a rush of affection for the man I’d just met into play.
I hated to ask him to put himself further at risk, but we had no choice. My fault.
I should have pulled the damned trigger.
The thought of killing anyone in cold blood–even an asshole like Jack Wilson–had put a stop to my trigger finger.
If I’d pushed through, Tarron wouldn’t be dead.
Shit. It hit me all at once.
Grief, ragged and raw, pummeled my chest and stole my breath. How was I going to survive without him?
I’d protected Payton and lost Tarron.
He would say that was a good swap, and while I loved Payton so much that I physically hurt at the thought of her absence, I could not fathom a world where she, Reed, and I survived without Tarron.
Gunfire erupted in a series of sharp barks that hunched my shoulders up near my ears.
I pushed Payton into the house ahead of me, using my body as a shield the best I could.
24
PAYTON
No. No. No.
I struggled in Maverick’s hold when the door slammed shut behind me.
The sight of Tarron lying on the porch, in the cold, his body lifeless, was too much to bear.
I beat a fist against Maverick’s chest. “You can’t leave him out there.”
Someone…someone had to bring him inside where it was warm.
He didn’t deserve to stay out there in the cold where the snow would cover him and obliterate all that I knew and loved about the man who’d given his life to protect me.
My throat clogged with the onslaught of tears.
I worked them back.
Hysteria would not help me, but it crept into my voice and my actions as I raised my fist to hammer it into Maverick again.
“Take me back out there. Let go. I’ll go myself. Turn me over so no one else has to die for me.”
I’d rather die a thousand times than live a single day without any one of them. Tarron’s death was my fault.
