Page 70 of The Spy Who Ghosted Me

Mama screamed, along with all the bridesmaids.

Shots rang out, and guests and bridesmaids hit the floor. Drew gallantly ran over to Mia to protect her.

I wasn’t sure who shot first, but someone struck Isla’s hip. She didn’t take too kindly to it, and I watched in slow motion as she aimed and fired her gun at my sister. I screamed out as Cash dove in front of Lexi, pushing her and the weasel Izan out of the way. In the commotion, more armed men entered and started shooting the windows. Deafening screams pierced the air, intertwined with the sharp shatter of glass. Fear gripped me as I sprinted toward Cash, desperately shielding my head from potential gunfire and the cascading shards. So much adrenaline was pumping through me, I felt like I could leap over a tall building. I wasn’t even watching where I was going. All I knew was I needed to get to Cash.

Please, please, please, don’t let Cash be dead, I thought before I threw myself on his body.

“Arghh,” he groaned under my weight.

“You’re alive!” I shouted over the war zone. I really hoped the good guys were winning.

Cash protectively grabbed me and rolled me under him to shield me with his body. If we weren’t in such dire circumstances, I would have thought it was totally hot. “Stay down and stay behind me,” he commanded.

Believe me, I wasn’t going anywhere. The only thing I did was look around to grab Lexi and pull her to me, but she was nowhere to be found. She and that coward had probably taken cover under the chairs or something, but I couldn’t see them from my vantage point.

“Are you hurt?” I asked Cash, yelling over the chaos. If I survived this, I was going to be the least boring person on the planet.

“Don’t worry about me.” Cash jumped up and fired several rounds. The loud popping noise had me covering my ears.

More and more screaming ensued.

“Nice shooting!” Pops yelled, and then it got eerily quiet.

I unplugged my ears and dared to stand. Squinting, I peeked around Cash, praying for no one in my family or the wedding party to be injured or dead. That’s when I noticed a hole in Cash’s suit coat and blood seeping out of it. “She shot you.”

“She grazed me,” Cash grumbled like it was no big deal.

“Is everyone okay?” Mama cried out.

Daddy pulled her into his arms, and she bawled like I’d never heard her cry before. Not that I blamed her—we’d just lived through a terrifying ordeal.

In the background, sirens wailed.

I scanned the room, making an account of everyone I loved. Mia and Drew were safe, albeit a little cut up from the glass. Nana and Pops were all right. Aunt Vivian and her family seemed to be shaken up but fine. Isla appeared to be dead, along with the two men who had come in with guns blazing. A few of the bridesmaids were bleeding and crying, but alive. But ...

“Where are Lexi and Izan?”

Cash

DAMN IT. I PUT THE woman I love in danger and let Izan escape with Lexi. I silently berated myself as I looked across the grand hall at a shaking Sabrina trying to comfort her parents while I spoke to Agents Todd and Randall, who had taken out three mercenaries before they entered the lodge. The pair had walked in with law enforcement, so no one was the wiser about who they really were. And Sabrina’s family seemed to buy that I, like everyone else in Tennessee, just legally carried a gun. They all considered me a hero and an excellent shot. They were in too much shock, under the circumstances, to think it through fully. It was a miracle that no one but Isla and her friends were dead. Two bridesmaids with gunshot wounds were being transported to the hospital, but they were in stable condition. Other than that, most guests escaped with cuts and bruises.

“You’re sure you’ve secured the perimeter and no other threats exist? Did anyone else but Lexi and Izan escape?” I growled, still angry that our agency had missed Isla entering the country and at myself for allowing that scumbag Izan to disappear. All I could think of while I was down after getting grazed by that damn bullet was Sabrina.

“We believe we’ve neutralized any threat, but the FBI is canvassing the area now,” Agent Randall answered.

“Good work. Keep me posted. Search the property again for Izan and Lexi. And I want you to stick around and guard the Belles until Izan is apprehended, or in case any of his other associates show up,” I rushed to say, dismissing them. Sabrina was making her way to me, and Agents Todd and Randall were unaware that she knew who I really was.

I met Sabrina near the last row of chairs, most of which had been knocked over. I took off my suit coat and wrapped it around her shivering body. A cool breeze drifted in from the shattered windows. “Sorry for the blood on it.”

She tightened the coat around her, gazing at my wounded and bloodied arm. “You should probably get that checked out.”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” I kept myself from wincing, refusing to let the pain get to me. “How are you?”

She blinked in a daze. “I think okay.”

“How’s your family?”

“They’re worried about Lexi.” She bit her lip and whispered, “I think I know where she is.”

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