Page 65 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
Echo wheeled midair on a snarl, launched at the man who’d fired. Teeth closed on his gun hand. The rifle clattered away. Another man grabbed for Echo’s hindquarters and got the heel of Rone’s boot in his knee as Rone kicked wild, anything to make space, to make a break in the tide of bodies between him and Isobel.
Somewhere to his left, Blake bellowed and took a headbutt that bought him nothing but blood and an extra zip tie around his throat. Lucky had flattened against a post, one hand pressed to his bleeding cheek, eyes sharp now, no humor left.
“Hold your fire!” Lucky roared, and for a heartbeat, everything froze.
Rone rushed the last steps and collapsed to his knees,pressing his palm to her wound. Isobel sucked in a breath that sounded like it had razors in it. Blood slicked hot and dark down the front of her shirt, bright against skin gone suddenly too pale. Her eyes found his.
They were clear. Furious. Alive.
He dragged in air like a drowning man who’d found a shallow, and every plan he’d ever thought about made a hard, immediate pivot. The file could burn, the island could sink, Blake could rot in whatever hell he’d made, Lucky could walk out with half his face and zero penance—none of it mattered if she didn’t breathe through the next sixty seconds.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gunfire cracked again—closerthis time. The air sizzled with powder and static, each sound sharp enough to cut through the haze. Rone shifted, his arm braced over Isobel’s head as chips of concrete sprayed from the wall inches above them.
She clenched her jaw. Every breath came jagged, every movement a knife through her shoulder. She felt the warmth spreading beneath her—sticky, hot, relentless—but she refused to go still. Not yet.
“Stay down,” Rone hissed. “You’re bleeding bad.” His tone was all grit and panic.
“If I die, it’s not on you. I ran into that bullet,” she whispered, because humor was the only weapon she had left.
Then came the sound—the thudding rhythm of boots, the low bark of voices cutting through the chaos. Reinforcements. The good kind this time. There was a cadence, the clean precision of trained response, unlike the chaos of Lucky’s men.
“Move!” Blake shouted from somewhere near the overturned cart, firing off another round.
Rone pulled her closer, keeping low as he half-dragged, half-carried her toward the far wall. His breath was harsh against herear, his heart hammering against her ribs. She could feel the heat of him, the tremor of muscle as he took her weight.
Bullets sang past, metal whining off steel.
“Just hold on,” he muttered.
She blinked against the blur of pain and saw figures flooding in—dark uniforms, rifles raised, sweeping the room in controlled bursts.
“Cover!” someone barked.
Rone dropped hard to one knee, dragging her behind the toppled table. The world tilted. Pain roared through her shoulder, sharp and blinding, stealing every ounce of air in her lungs.
Then his hand hit the wound—heavy, unyielding. Fire burst under his palm. She gasped, a broken sound that scraped her throat raw.
Pressure. Too much. She couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think—only the burn, the weight, the heat flooding down her arm. Her body trembled against it, instinct screaming to pull away, but his grip stayed firm, anchoring her when everything else spun.
Her vision tunneled, sound splintering into fragments—the slap of boots, the metallic ring of shells hitting the floor, the thundering pulse in her ears. Her stomach twisted. Black spots crowded the edges of her sight.
Rone’s voice cut through it, low and rough, the only thing keeping her from slipping under. “Stay with me.”
She tried. God, she tried. But the pain clawed at her chest, a live wire beneath her skin. Her arm felt distant, foreign, her shoulder slick with blood and sweat. Every heartbeat pulsed fire through her veins.
She bit down on a groan, jaw trembling. His face hovered inches from hers—smudged, grim, eyes wild with focus. He pressed harder, and she hissed through her teeth.
“Easy,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
The words didn’t stop the pain, but they rooted her to something real, something solid in the chaos.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he said, and for the first time, she believed him.
The fight dimmed to muffled echoes as the newcomers secured the room. Rone’s hand stayed where it was, his other cradling her head to keep her still.
She met his gaze, the chaos fading to a hum in her ears. “You took a lot of risks for someone you barely know,” she murmured.
