Page 41 of A Shot in the Dark
“I… I don’t know,” I confess. “It would help if he still had a face…”
“I can’t fix that now. Gun kicked up and…” He sighs, embarrassment warming me through the bond. “Not my best grouping. Stopped the fucker, though. That’s what matters most.”
I peer down at the bloody and mangled mess at my feet, but my eyes pause, fixed, on Boots’ boots, and the blood speckling them. “I…” I can’t help myself, I pull out of his grip to swipe them clean with my hand.
“No, princess,” he whispers, the words pained as he tows me back up. “I don’t ever want you to dirty your hands. That’smyjob…” His volume drops, going guttural. “Like it’s my job to protect you…” He pulls me back into a fierce embrace and blows out a breath. “You don’t know if it’s him.”
I shake my head in agreement.
He lets me go and starts filling the hole. Dirt covers the man, shovelful by shovelful until he disappears into the gritty dark. “It’s okay,” Boots assures. “It’s okay.”
He wraps his arm around my waist and guides me back to the car, tossing the shovel in the trunk.
For a moment my gaze strays, pinning itself to the contents of the trunk. Yes, his duffel bag is there, my luggage, and his suits carefully lay in a garment bag, but there is more… A second duffel bag is open and brimming with weapons and tools. “What is all that…?”
“Eyes straight ahead, sweetheart. Best not to dwell on my line of work. It’s definitely an ‘ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies’ scenario,” he mutters as he tucks me into the front passenger seat. “I’ll be right back—need to move his car out of sight, remove the company tracker—buy us some time.”
He disappears and I hear the sound of a car starting. Then pulling away.
When he returns, he sits behind the wheel a moment, staring straight ahead. “Are you all right?”
Breath wheezes out of me. “Suuure…”
His phone rings. “Fuck. Gotta take this… Petey.”
“Boots, don’t be a fool. Leadership has sent down orders and they demand that I be clear: Enact the Huntsman Protocolnow.No more dick-dipping, no more dallying. No Potters’ necessary. But do it now, Boots, or there will be more than seven days extracted from your hide—there will be hell to pay.”
Boots winces.
“Chatter is suggesting re-education is in your future,” Petey says swiftly. “Fuck the omega, Boots. You’ve been compromised. Leadership will be coming foryou.”
“Got it.” Boots throws the phone out onto the road, backs over it, and we’re off.
We drive a while, Boots commenting, “I didn’t recognize the man I buried. Though, if he outranks me I might not have ever met him. And most of them outrank me…”
“Because of your knight-of-the-realm values?”
He snorts. “You were eavesdropping.”
“From the sounds of things, the realm needs a lot more knights like you.”
“The realm needs a lot more than more knights, princess, it needs a top-down makeover.”
“That sounds like something I would’ve said.”
“Would’ve? Past tense?” he asks. “Maybe you’re wearing off on me.” He shakes his head. “That dirty little mouth of yours is definitely me rubbing off on you…” he muses a moment before his brow lowers and his mood darkens once more. “Rebellion. That’s what’s needed…” he hisses angrily. “How does that even fucking start? I’m just a fucking grunt… This is all so far above my paygrade…”
I shrug. “Definitely above mine…” I turn towards the window, glancing out at the grass, the trees, the gently rolling landscape. “Would you have put me in a shallow grave like you did him?”
Boots swallows so hard I feel it quiver through the bond.
“If you had followed through on your Huntsman Protocol?”
“Princess…”
“Would you?”
“Yeah.”
