Page 76 of Fast Vengeance

Tears flooded her eyes as she looked up at him. Then she shook her head.

His heart eased a few inches down his esophagus and he relaxed his grip. “Okay. Let me see him.”

She shifted out from underneath her father, still cradling his head and shoulders in her lap. Gabe set two fingers beneath the edge of Nieto’s jaw. He waited, detected a faint pulse.

“I need more room,” he told Oceane. She scrambled out of the way, gently laying her father’s head on the sand and hovering next to him.

Gabe leaned over and ripped the halves of Nieto’s blood-saturated dress shirt off him. Two bullets had penetrated the center of his chest. Given the position of the wounds and the amount of blood he’d lost, Nieto’s wasn’t going to live longer than another few minutes, if that long.

“Please. Do something,” Oceane begged. “I know who he is and what he’s done. But I don’t want him to die like this.”

He would have left the bastard to die, but there was no way he could ignore that plea. Gabe placed his hands over Nieto’s chest and pressed down hard in an effort to stem the bleeding, at the same time looking over his shoulder. Men were rushing toward them. Including Khan.

“Need you over here,” Gabe shouted to him.

Khan ran up, tossed his med kit on the sand at Gabe’s feet and knelt down to do a quick assessment. Two seconds later he glanced up and gave Gabe a telling look.

“I know,” Gabe murmured. “Just do what you can.” Maybe Nieto would pull off a miracle and survive long enough to make it into surgery. Then he could live through a trial in the U.S. and die at the end of his life sentence instead of here on this beach.

Khan started working, talking on the radio as he did, calling for emergency medical transport.

Gabe moved back, edged around to hunker down next to Oceane. He wanted to haul her into his arms so badly but she was totally focused on her father so he wrapped an arm tight around her shoulders in a silent show of support and tucked her close into his body.

She stared at Khan’s hands as the medic worked, her face pale, seemed to be holding her breath.

He hated that he couldn’t shield her from this and the coming pain. Christ. Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d watched her mother bleed out in front of her months ago? It was too fucking cruel that she had to watch her father do the same, even with their bad history. She was clearly distraught and desperate for him to make it.

Less than a minute later Khan stopped trying to get an IV into Nieto’s arm, pulled his fingers from the man’s pulse and immediately started chest compressions.

Oceane made a choked sound. She seemed to steel herself, then reached for Nieto’s hand. “I’m here,” she told him in Spanish. “You’re not alone.”

It was heart-wrenching to watch. Gabe slid an arm around her waist and drew her back, making room for the paramedics who had just arrived.

She resisted for a moment then stopped, her body rigid as he eased her to her feet and drew her a short distance away. He coiled one arm around her and reached his free hand up to cradle the back of her head, pulling her cheek to his chest. Her hands clutched at the front of his tactical shirt, fine, rapid tremors wracking her. “Did he hurt you?”

“N-no.”

The medics paddled Nieto three times before calling it.

Oceane made a low, devastated sound and buried her face in Gabe’s chest. He closed his eyes, tightened his hold on her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against her temple. It was such a pathetic thing to say at a time like this, but it was all he had.

She started to shake harder. “I can’t,” she quavered. “I c-can’t take this. Please.”

Fuck. Making a snap decision he bent his knees, scooped her up and started carrying her down the beach as fast as he could.

By the time he reached the staircase that led up the slope, she was crying on his shoulder. Part of him was glad that she was able to release at least a little of her grief. She felt so damn good in his arms, he just wished he was carrying her under totally different circumstances.

Up on the lawn he stopped in a secluded spot of the garden where a screen of shrubs and trees shielded them from view of all the people crowding the yard. He would take her to the Mexican feds who were leading the taskforce in a minute, but not until she was calmer.

Sinking to his knees on the grass, he shifted her onto his lap and tucked her in close, resting his chin on the top of her curls. And just held her. Giving her a safe place to hide while the shock and adrenaline tore through her body. Giving her the only comfort he could.

Finally, she calmed a little, her shoulders hitching with her jagged breaths. He eased his grip but kept her close, rubbed a hand up and down her spine.

With a heartbroken little sigh that twisted his insides, she went limp against him. The scent of blood swirled strong in the air. He wanted to take care of her, clean her up and stay with her.

“Sweetheart, look at me,” he murmured.

Her hands stayed locked in his shirt. She drew an unsteady breath and lifted her head from his shoulder to look up at him with puffy eyes.

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