Page 101 of Hero's Heart

Jakob got the key to the cuffs. When he yanked Callum to his feet, the room spun.Shit. He was in worse shape than he’d thought. Jakob released the cuffs, but Callum found he could hardly move his arms at all anyway.

“After this, having proven to everyone that I’m more of a man than you, I’ll scar your face,” Jakob whispered into his ear from behind his back. “Then I’ll start on hers.”

Callum turned and threw a punch. Jakob didn’t even attempt to block it or get out of the way. He was toying with Callum.

Callum didn’t have much time. The room was spinning too rapidly; he’d lost too much blood. He stumbled back toward the couch, causing Jakob to move forward.

This was it—he was in place. All he had to do was take one more punch and stay conscious. He didn’t deceive himself into thinking that would be easy.

“You won’t win,” Callum said, hoping that was enough to get the man to strike. “The bad guys never win.”

Jakob raised his fist. “Only in fairy tales. And this isn’t that.”

Callum didn’t even have to act. The blow to his jaw sent him crashing into the table. He barely hung on to consciousness, using his body to block Jakob’s view, and grabbed the loaded gun from its hiding spot.

He was only going to get one shot and knew he was signing his own death warrant, but he didn’t care. He got to one knee, acting like he was about to get back up to fight some more, then, steadying himself as much as possible, spun the weapon in his hand at Nikola rather than Jakob. He fired.

The man crumpled to the ground in front of Sloane, dead.

“Sloane, run!”

She stared at him for a split second, then stood and dashed for the side door.

Callum heard Jakob cursing behind him and knew the man was going for his own gun. Callum spun with his weapon, but he couldn’t even see anymore. His vision was graying.

But at least Jakob had his gun pointed at him. Sloane was out. Callum had to believe she would make it. That she and their child would live.

A shot rang out. Callum knew it wasn’t from his firearm, so he waited for the pain from Jakob’s bullet.

It didn’t come. Second after second, there was no added pain.

He finally wiped enough blood out of his eyes to see.

Jakob dead on the ground in front of the living room window. The bullet had come from outside.

Callum couldn’t even figure out what was happening. Had Sloane somehow…

“Whoa there, brother.” Someone caught him as he was collapsing back to the ground.

“Zac? How did you…?”

“Joy got out a message that Sloane had been taken. Lincoln traced everything here.”

He looked over and saw people—Dorian and Ray Lindstrom?—securing the rest of the house.

“Pretty sure it was Theo who just took that shot,” Zac continued. “The rest of the cavalry is outside. Hell, the entire damn town is outside. Including a bunch of people who shouldn’t be here but came anyway because they wanted to help.”

“Sloane?”

“Fine. Annie has her.”

“Help me up.”

“Callum, you need medical attention. You’re bleeding all over the fucking place. Let’s…”

“I need to see Sloane.” He started to push himself up.

Zac let out a sigh. “Ghost, help me get dumbass here up. He wants to say hello to his adoring fans.”

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