Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gunfire cracked again—closer this 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 her ear, 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.
Rone’s mouth quirked. “You make it hard not to.”
Her lips curved faintly, despite the fire in her shoulder.
He smiled this time; she almost forgot how much it hurt to breathe.
“And I do know you, but I plan on getting to know you even better.”
Isobel tried to speak, but the air scraped too dry in her throat. The room smelled of gunpowder, blood, and the acrid bite of burned electronics. Every breath sent knives through her chest.
“Help’s here,” Rone murmured, his voice low beside her ear.
Shapes moved around them—dark uniforms, helmets, the flash of medical patches. Hands reached for her, but Rone didn’t move aside until the medic’s voice broke through the fog.
“Let us in. She’s going into shock.”
Rone hesitated, then shifted, still keeping one hand on her arm as they cut her shirt open. Cold air hit her skin, followed by the sting of antiseptic.
“Through and through,” someone said. “Clean entry, shoulder only. Lucky.”
Lucky. The name scraped her raw. She turned her head, searching the room for him, but the space where he’d stood was empty—just the faint shimmer of glass dust where a window used to be.
The medic pressed gauze down hard, and she bit back a cry. Rone caught her hand, anchoring her through the pain. His thumb traced small, steady circles over her knuckles until the shaking eased.
“You still with me?” he asked.
“Barely.” Her lips trembled with a weak smile. “Told you I don’t disappoint easy.”
He huffed something like a laugh. “You’re the toughest woman I’ve ever met. As much as I admire that, I also wish you weren’t.”
“You wouldn’t respect me if I weren’t tough,” she teased.
Blake came up and took her other hand. “You did amazing.”
Lucky shouted from the corner. “They’ll find you. WITSEC can’t keep you safe.”
“Pocket,” she rasped to Rone.
She leaned so he could reach the back inner pocket of her leggings.
The pain stole her breath, so she had to take a few shallow ones before she could get enough air to say anything.
She wanted to shout it at Lucky, but all she managed was a rasp to Rone and Blake.
“Grabbed it when I reached the laptop. That should help.”
Blake took the USB. “Thank you.”
“This doesn’t change anything. You’ll do the same thing next time you did this time, and the two times before that, and you’ll be dead.” Lucky glowered at Blake. “You can’t help yourself, you’ll sacrifice anything and everything to get your man, even if it’s the daughter of your best informant.”
A woman with slicked-back blonde hair in an FBI vest reached Blake and clapped him on the shoulder. “Not wrong, and we’re not done with Laurel Tide. We head for deep cover. No informants; we’re going in ourselves.”
If Isobel didn’t know better, there was a spark between them. But she couldn’t tell if it was for the mission’s approval or each other.
“Where we headed?” A man came in who wasn’t short or tall, ball cap pulled down, but when he lifted it, she saw that little mischievous gleam in his eyes.
“Al?” Isobel rasped.
“Looks like you folks been holding a fireworks show without me. Next time, I’ll bring the hot dogs.”
“You’re FBI?”
“Nah, I just play one on TV. They let me wear the jacket, though.”
No time to figure that out since they lifted her onto a stretcher, but she wanted to be clear with Rone, so she didn’t let his hand go until the last possible second. The lights overhead blurred as they carried her out, voices fading into static.
Through the haze, she caught a glimpse of him walking beside her gurney, shirt ripped, face streaked with soot, eyes locked on hers as if letting go meant losing her.
She didn’t want to want him, but she did, and she was tired of hiding from it. “Don’t—don’t let them leave without you,” she whispered.
“I’m right here,” he promised.
Her vision tunneled, darkness sweeping in soft and slow. The last thing she felt was his hand tightening around hers, the steady weight of a man who’d already tried to take a bullet for her and would again if it came to it.
The world came back in pieces—first the steady beep of a monitor, then the antiseptic sting of hospital air. Her arm felt heavy, wrapped in layers of gauze and tape. Pain pulsed low and constant, a living thing under her skin.
Isobel blinked, trying to focus. The ceiling light glowed dim, its reflection rippling over a metal IV pole. Someone sat slouched in a chair beside her bed, elbows on knees, head bowed.
Rone.
His thick stubble, dark hair mussed, shirt half untucked, a faint streak of blood dried along his forearm made him look like he hadn’t slept in a week. But his hand was still there, wrapped around hers like he’d never let go.
She swallowed, throat raw. “You guarding me, or too tired to move?”
His head snapped up. Relief washed through his expression so fast it stole her breath more than the pain did. “You’re awake.”
“Disappointed?” she rasped.
He leaned forward, a tired half smile tugging at his mouth. “You have no idea.”
Her laugh caught and turned into a wince. “Don’t make me laugh. Hurts.”
“Noted.” He stood and adjusted the blanket over her good arm with careful fingers. “You lost a lot of blood. The bullet missed anything vital by about half an inch.”
“Half an inch.” She let out a slow, shaky exhale. “Guess that’s my new lucky number.”
His gaze softened. “Don’t say that name.”
It took her a beat to realize what he meant. “Right,” she whispered. “Lucky.” The memory hit hard—his grin, the dot of red on his cheek, the flash of gunfire. “Was he right? Are we still a target?”
Rone nodded. “For now. But Blake’s team believes they’re going to put the biggest hole in their organization in decades. They have new intel thanks to Lucky, who likes to brag about how great Laurel has been to him and who worked with him inside the FBI.”
Silence settled between them, filled only by the rhythmic hum of machines.
“You stayed,” she said finally.
His brow furrowed. “Of course I did.”
She studied him, the set of his shoulders, the quiet exhaustion behind his eyes. “People don’t usually stick around after I bleed all over them.”
He gave a low chuckle. “You’re not most people.”
Her chest ached for a different reason this time. “You okay now that I lived?”
He shrugged, looking almost embarrassed. “Better than okay.”
“Rone…” She hesitated, searching for the words that didn’t come easy. “You ready to move past what happened to you before?”
“I already have.” His voice dropped, rough, honest. “I spoke to Torres’s husband and her kids. There’s a college fund, but I won’t be able to send any more money since I’m not going to put them in danger.”
“What about you? Are you ready to trust someone? A man like me?” He wiggled his brows and smiled.
“I already have.” Something in her eased at that. The fear. The doubt. The wall she’d been holding up for too long. “Wait. Why will you put Tores’s family in danger?”
“Because we are both going into WITSEC. Lake house until Laurel Tide is taken down for good.”
She shifted her hand, fingers curling weakly around his. “But I’m the one they’ll target. You don’t have to—”
He smiled, slow and real. “Already done. Besides, who’s going to protect me if I don’t?”
“You’re not going to leave me?”
“Nah, thought I’d stick around awhile.” He stood up and brushed her hair from her forehead. “Get used to it.”
The rhythm of her heartbeat synced with the steady pulse of the monitor, a fragile, perfect balance of sound. For the first time in a long time, Isobel didn’t feel like she was fighting alone.