Page 113 of Lost in the Moonlight

I was almost ready to push off the stool, stalk over to him, and shove one of his pictures down his throat when Axel put a hand on my arm and gave me a barely perceptible head shake.

“How about leaving stupid-ass notes on people’s doors?” Axel demanded.

The beady-eyed creep looked legitimately surprised by that question, but it was Paul who grunted out a protest this time. “I’m not sure Poco would know how to write a note, would you?”

Anger flitted over Poco’s face before it disappeared.

Paul moved out from behind the bar. “When I asked you, you told me you hadn’t been by the cemetery in months.”

The beady-eyed man glanced behind him at the couple of behemoths now blocking the door before he replied, “Haven’t.”

“Interesting that these two insist you attacked Hector’s baker there just a few days ago.”

“That’s a bunch of bullshit,” Poco grunted.

Paul lifted a chin in the direction of two behemoths, and they closed the distance, blocking Poco’s retreat.

“We’ll just have to see about that.” Paul stopped near Axel and me. “He won’t be bothering you or the blonde again. You have my word. Now, I think it’s in everyone’s best interest if you see your way out.”

Axel rose and dropped two more twenties in the pile on the bar. “We appreciate your time and consideration.”

I followed Axel, and as I did, I whistled the same sick tune Poco had been whistling when he’d been following Willow. Near the door, I turned back and saw Paul towering over the slimy little man while shoving him toward the back. When my eyes met Poco’s for the briefest of seconds, they were full of hate but also fear.

A wave of satisfaction roared through me as Axel and I stepped into the bright sunlight. I knew what was going to happen to Poco. Or I had an idea that it was going to be brutally painful. He might even die, and I wasn’t sure what it said about me that I didn’t care. He’d terrified Willow. Had his hands on her. Been paid money for photographs that could have blown upher carefully guarded world. In my book, he deserved everything he had coming.

Chapter Thirty-four

Lincoln

YOUR GUARDIAN ANGELS

Performed by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

As we drove toward town andThe Tea Spot, it settled in that Poco wasn’t the one leaving the notes. That left Felicity, the Viceroys, or some unknown we hadn’t identified.

“One down,” Axel said, and the satisfaction in his voice had a chuckle escaping me.

“Thought you said you weren’t a hit squad.”

“Wearen’t.” He looked over his glasses at me and winked.

The tension in my chest eased ever so slightly. Special Agent Hardy wouldn’t have walked out and left Poco to his just rewards. As much as I admired and respected the former head of my detail, I knew he was too honorable of a man to let someone die, and he would have been too enticed at the thought of bringing down a bigger fish by catching the small one to let Poco go. He would have hauled the man in for questioning, and then tried to cut him a deal in order to get him to turn on Paul so the Secret Service could take the whole organization down. ButAxel had shown me he only cared about what I’d hired him to do, which was to protect Willow and end whatever was happening. It proved to me I’d hired the right team.

As we entered the alley behind the café, Axel’s com beeped, and one of his men said Willow was on her way out to us. I got out of the car and strode toward the door.

She was beaming when she emerged, and it stole my breath. Baking had put that smile there. Creating food for others brought her the same joy creating my art brought me. It was who she was down deep. If she had to relocate, and could never bake again professionally for fear it would tie her to this version of herself, it would rip a different piece of her soul away than having her father taken away had.

I refused to let that happen.

I’d just pulled her hand into mine when tires screeched to a halt behind us and a loud pop sounded through the alley. The air by me sizzled and cracked. And all chaos let loose. The Marshal behind Willow screamed, “Shots fired! Shots fired!”

I heard but didn’t register Axel and the other bodyguards yelling out commands as I reacted on pure instinct, pushing Willow to the ground and shielding her with my body.

Return gunfire burst around us, the bodyguards and the Marshals aiming in the direction of the street. One thought mixed in with the rage that consumed me—I wanted him dead. If he fucking hurt Willow, I’d find him and end him with my own hands. I desperately needed to scan her body and make sure she wasn’t hurt, but I didn’t dare move. Not until the gunfire stopped.

In those awful seconds, the truth hammered me as hard as my heart beat against my rib cage: our world had crumbled a bit further.

Men swarmed over us as wheels squealed against asphalt.

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