Page 45 of Back the Blue

“I swear, Lorna, as soon as we get through this, I’m going to make you the happiest fucking woman on the planet,” he vows. “And in turn, I’ll be the luckiest and happiest man on the planet, too. I love you. Now and forever.”

Thirty

After kissing her hard enough to cause a problem behind my zipper, I tear my lips away from her and fill her in on the situation. As it goes, Diamond is on the move back to Cleveland. Apparently with no new crew members in tow. It seems as though he was reaching out to a crew he used to belong to out there and burned all his bridges with them when he left to run his own drug ring in Cleveland.

“He wants to clean up all his loose ends here in the hopes of getting Venom’s boys to run with him once he takes him out.”

“So…is he hoping that I’ll be on the crew responding again?” she asks.

“No.”

“Then how does he plan on…”

She doesn’t finish her thought. She just gasps and shakes her head.

“Yes,” I nod. “He’s going to try and take you out here at the station.”

“We have to let everyone else know,” she breathes.

“They know,” I tell her. “And as soon as we know Diamond’s back, you’ll have back up from local law enforcement, too.”

She closes her eyes and lowers her head. I once again pull her against my chest and just hold her. I truly hate this for her. And I know that she’s now worried about keeping the rest of her co-workers safe, too.

My biggest hope is that Diamond and the few crew members he has left are pissed off enough to make a mistake when they try to take out their targets. Of course, when Venom and his boys show up to defend Lorna, it might be the tipping point that we need. I just hope it goes down while she’s safe and secure and not when she’s possibly out in the open and exposed.

Just when I prepare to detail our plans, a call comes in. She pulls back and presses a hard kiss to my lips before rushing away to do her job. This time, I chase after her for the next seven hours. At my insistence, and her supervisors, she takes to the bunk room again to get some more rest before the start of her normal Thursday night shift at nineteen-hundred.

And I join her.

Surprisingly, we are roused by the sound of another call just before nine. Thankful for the decent reprieve, I walk with her to where Malcolm is already getting into the ambulance. When he sees me with Lorna, his smile brightens. Then he offers me his hand.

“I hope you realize how lucky you are to be part of her life,” he says.

“More than you can imagine,” I tell him. “And I intend on keeping her alive and well for a very, very long time.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he laughs.

I briefly tell him what to expect throughout the night. And he insists, as do I, that he and Lorna wear their vests now. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t argue.

Thank fuck.

Before she climbs inside, I take her face in my hands and place a soft, gentle kiss on her sweet lips. When I pull back, her eyes are glistening with tears.

“See you on the other side,” I tell her.

“Yes,” she nods. “You will.”

“I love you, Lorna.”

“I love you.”

I give her one more kiss and then she’s off once again. As I jog out toward my vehicle, I can’t help but worry about the uneasy feeling that’s coalescing in my gut. Whatever’s going to shake down, I have a feeling it’s going to happen sooner than we expect. When I get outside, I find that my gut was right. A shot rings out and I fall backwards, cracking my head against the concrete of the apron. With a groan, I take in the area and see several people charging this way, but with my vision doubled for the moment, I’m not certain how many there are.

Even so, I stumble to my feet and turn back toward the open bay just in time to see Lorna rushing out. Without her vest on yet. She’s screaming, but I don’t know what she’s saying, my own words loud enough to drown hers out.

“Get the fuck back inside! Now!”

Just as she reaches out to grab my vest, I hear another shot. This one has me dragging Lorna down with me. Somehow, I manage to cushion her head as I all but collapse on top of her. As I adjust my body to shield her from any danger, I pull my weapon from my holster and scan the area for the shooter. It’s Diamond, and he’s bearing down on us, gun drawn, with a nasty smile on his face.

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