A long, painful moment of silence passed before she said, “I’m glad you quit. ’Cause it sounds like your job really sucked.”
The comment took Adrian by such surprise, he threw his head back and laughed. “God, I love you.”
It took two full seconds for him to realize what he’d just said.
His smile fell flat. His jaw dropped, and he stared at her from over the car.
Adrian opened his mouth, but he wasn’t even sure why.
To deny it?
To blow it off as an offhanded remark that meant nothing?
Or had he come close to telling her the truth?
The truth being hedidlove her. Probably had from the moment he first saw her. He just hadn’t realized it fully until that very moment.
Another truth was that the idea of letting someone get that close scared him more than bullets flying from an AK-47 with a Russian terrorist pulling the trigger.
He couldn’t tell her that, though. Right? Couldn’t actually admitout loudthat just the thought of letting her into his fucked-up world terrified him.
No, he couldn’t tell her that part. But hecouldman up and tell her how he really felt.
Here goes nothing.
Drawing in a deep breath and said, “I lo—”
“Look out!” Jenna yelled, her eyes growing as big as saucers. A fraction of a second later, the driver’s window shattered into a million tiny pieces.
She screamed as Adrian yelled,“Get down!”
He was already in the process of ducking when a bullet slammed into the back of his left thigh. The impact threw him off balance, and he fell onto the road’s cool, rough pavement.
“Adrian!”Jenna’s terrified voice called for him from behind the car’s protection.
“Stay…down!”
Tires squealed in the background as Adrian reached for his gun…and came up empty.Fuck!
His pistol was locked in the rental’s glove box. If he’d tried taking it into the station, the metal detectors would’ve gone off, and he probably would’ve been cuffed and hauled off to interrogation.
Adrian hadn’t wanted to risk that happening, because if that had, Jenna would’ve been left alone. So he’d locked it in the glovebox before they went inside.
Have to get to her. Have to keep her safe.
Those words became Adrian’s mantra as he gritted his teeth and rolled to his stomach. He started dragging himself around the car’s back bumper. There was a truck parked behind him, which provided even more cover.
Pushing through the pain, he ignored the tiny rocks digging into his palms and uninjured leg and kept moving. He didn’t wonder how bad he’d been hit, or think that, given the impact he’d felt, the bullet may have hit his femoral artery, and he’d be dead within minutes.
The only thing he thought of—theonlything that mattered—was getting to Jenna and keeping her safe.
With the curb as leverage, he’d just started to push himself onto the sidewalk when he saw her. Bent over at the waist, Jenna was standing on the sidewalk between the two vehicles with an outstretched arm.
“Here.” She reached for him.
The fuck is she…“I said get down!”
“Iamdown, and you’re hurt. Besides, the car already took off. Come on.”