Page 18 of Fatal Love
Chapter Five
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BEATRICE SQUEEZED THEtrigger.
At the same time, a contraction squeezed her.
Cal yelled, her shot went wide, and the bitch who’d shot her husband ran.
The two goons flanking the woman ran with her.
Beatrice dropped to her knees and moaned, one hand gripping her belly. Maria stepped in front of her, bending to shield her.
Beatrice’s vision morphed into dancing black dots and she felt hands on her back. Maria had hold of her shoulders; Cal was rubbing her kidneys.
“What the hell was that?” he said over the sound of gunfire coming from the living room. He opened her fingers, still on her Sig Sauer, and took it from her. “I told you to get in your closet and lock yourself in!”
With her jaws clamped together, she couldn’t respond. Warm, sticky blood dampened her T-shirt—Cal’s blood. She reached for him, felt him lift her off her knees. Even injured, he was so damn strong.
Somehow he managed to carry her to the bed. Maria followed, and Beatrice noticed her midwife was well armed.
Cal handed her Beatrice’s gun and she stuck hers in the waistband of her pants. “You’re supposed to keep her safe,” Cal growled.
“I didn’t realize there would be a shootout,” Maria retorted smartly, sticking Beatrice’s gun in the nightstand. The anger on her face evaporated when she saw Cal’s blood. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Beatrice grunted. “He’s not.”
Beatrice heard Trace’s voice. He sounded far away. Cal touched his ear—he must have been wearing a comm unit—and headed for the door. “Copy that.” Then to her and Maria he said, “Stay in here and keep this fucking door locked!”
He slammed it shut and Maria did as he’d said, locking it behind him. She turned her dark eyes on Beatrice. “What on earth were you thinking?”
It wasn’t everyday she could outsmart a former Israeli intelligence officer-turned-midwife. “We’re under attack,” Beatrice huffed as the contraction receded. Cal had lied to her and she hated feeling so helpless. “Who was that woman?”
Maria grabbed the dresser and started scooting it across the floor to block the door. “I’m not sure. I only caught a glimpse of her but that hair is hard to forget. I think it was Ebba Nielsson, the Swedish art thief. Interpol has been after her for the last three years, ever since her father and brother were killed in a shootout.”
“Art thief?” Beatrice rubbed sweat off her forehead. Her eyes were blurring and her lower belly burned like she’d been branded with a hot poker. “Why is she after me?”
“I didn’t hear all of the conversation, but it sounds like she’s looking for revenge for her father and brother’s deaths.”
“Cal killed them?”
Maria nodded. “I remember when they were killed. I was working in Iran at the time. Hot black market for religious antiquities there.”
“To fund various terrorist groups.”
“They’re gone now, and in case you didn’t realize it, you’re in labor. Also, your husband and your bodyguard are former SEALs. Cal and Trace can handle the situation. You have to trust them.”
Maria didn’t know it, but the issue wasn’t trusting Cal and Trace to stop the intruders. The issue was control.
Hot tears welled behind Beatrice’s eyes and she blinked rapidly to clear them. “Nobody threatens my family and gets away with it.”
Maria rolled her eyes. “You sound like an actor in a maudlin B movie. Stop trying so hard to be a man and accept that you can be weak!”
The midwife came to the bed and propped Beatrice up on some pillows. “It’s okay to be a woman, Beatrice. You can’t help them, they can handle it just fine on their own, and you’re only going to get Cal killed because you’re distracting him!”
She hadn’t thought about it like that. “We’re a team. We always have each other’s backs. And he’s injured. He needs medical attention.”
