5. Chapter Five
Chapter five
N ick rounded the block one more time, driving in circles as he looked for a spot to park on the busy street. He’d called in an order for lunch to take back to the office for himself and several colleagues. He spotted the black Charger coming around behind him again. He wasn’t the only one looking for someone to give up their parking space.
A silver Toyota pulled out in front of a hair salon and Nick quickly parallel parked, barely glancing at the Charger as it passed.
Sorry, buddy. This one is mine.
Nick climbed out of his car and headed around to the front to walk up the block to the Italian place he ordered from at least once a week. But before he hit the sidewalk, he spotted the florist and stopped short, thinking of Aria and sending her flowers to say he was sorry how they left things and that he wanted a second chance.
The crack of gunfire split the air and the windshield of his car burst into a spiderweb of shattered glass. Nick spun around, crouching low and pulling his gun at the same time, his heart pounding with adrenaline. The Charger had stopped in the street. A man stood next to the open driver’s side door. Their eyes locked for one brief second and recognition dawned in his mind.
Javier Lopez .
The scumbag dove back into the car and sped away before Nick could get off a clean shot, wheels peeling out on the pavement.
The people on the sidewalk had stopped and stared, unsure what really happened in those few split seconds.
That’s all the time Nick needed to know who had taken a shot at him.
That was too damn close for comfort.
Relief joined the rush of adrenaline coursing through his system.
If he hadn’t stopped midstride…
Fear hit him all at once, along with the realization he could have been killed.
He didn’t want to think about just how close he’d come.
He couldn’t believe the past had caught up to him like this.
The last time he had seen Javier, he was standing over an FBI agent he’d just executed during a raid. Nick was undercover and the second he’d rushed forward to help the dying agent, Javier knew Nick had betrayed him and was an undercover agent. Javier had shot at him, betrayal written in his eyes. Nick managed to scramble out of the way of the bullet, giving Javier just enough time to slip through the agents swarming the warehouse and get away.
Nick swore that one day he’d put Javier behind bars for his heinous crimes and for killing his fellow agent.
How did Javier find me? Why now?
Nick didn’t know. But he needed to report the shooting and start looking for Javier Lopez. If he was in Montana, more than likely he was back in business, and Nick needed to stop him before he hurt or killed anyone else.
Nick walked up onto the curb and behind a pillar to give himself cover in case Javier came back to take another shot at him. He called his boss, giving what little information he knew to his superior, including the partial plate number he’d managed to glimpse before the car sped away.
Then he waited, contemplating how close he’d come to dying while on a lunch run for the office. It showed how dangerous his job really was and that someone could come after him at any time, any day. He was getting too old to be chasing bad guys through the streets. That’s why he’d gotten out of undercover work and oversaw the guys out in the field. It still left him traveling a lot and missing out on family time here at home.
He thought about being able to see Aria every day, lying beside her every night. He wanted to see her right now, to hold her in his arms and tell her about his shit day and how fucked up it was to be shot at on the street and how if he’d died he’d have regretted every second he spent away from her.
Fucking near-death experience gave him a whole new perspective.
He needed to make some drastic changes in his life. Now. Before it was too late.
The cavalry showed up and he tried to focus on the job and not his desperate desire to call Aria. As much as he wanted to hear her voice, she probably wouldn’t take his call and that would sting even more.
It took some time to give his statement and for the forensic team to do their thing. They found little evidence, besides the bullet recovered from the passenger side headrest in his car.
Once he was done with everything at the scene, he called his cousin Hawk to come pick him up. The bureau would assign him another car tomorrow. He just wanted to go home to Aria.
If only he could.
While he waited for Hawk, he picked up the food he’d ordered, then pulled out his phone, found a florist in Blackrock Falls, Wyoming, and called in an order to surprise Aria and let her know he was thinking about her.
“And what should the card say, Mr. Gunn?”
“You saved my life today. We’re not over. XO Nick.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll have that delivered in the next two hours. Anything else I can do for you?”
“No, thank you.” Now all he had to do was wait and see if the flowers made her want to talk to him again, because he desperately needed her. But first, maybe he needed to think about exactly what he wanted to say. More importantly, what he wanted to do and how he would make it happen.