Their Virgin Secretary

Chapter Nineteen

A hand clapped over her mouth, stopping Belle in mid-scream. Something hard pressed between her shoulder blades.

“Shut up or he’ll hit your boyfriend again,” the so-called medium hissed into her ear. “And I’ll have to put a bullet in your spine, too. I don’t want to do that, so you’d better stay calm.”

The world seemed to have stopped as she turned to stare at Tate’s unmoving form. Was he dead? How could he be gone? He’d held her not an hour ago. He’d promised her a life together, that he’d never leave her. How could it be over? Would she end up like her mother, mourning and bitterly shutting out the other survivors?

Tears made the world blurry as Belle stared at Tate, willing him to live. Then Gates stepped over his prone body and into the light.

Her grandmother’s lawyer was dressed in all black, looking totally unkempt. All traces of the polished professional he’d been before were gone. He’d always put off a weird vibe, but now, with his fierce frown, he was downright nasty.

What was he doing here with a gun?

“Move him out of the way,” Gates sneered with a glance at Tate. “We’ll need to stage this properly, damn it. He’s a complication we didn’t need.” His cold eyes raked the woman behind Belle. “You said she would be alone.”

Sir scampered over to Tate, sniffing and whimpering as he tried to rouse his master. The puppy whined and looked to Belle, as though she could fix the problem. She wished with everything in her heart that she could because Tate still wasn’t moving. Fear spiked through her veins. She needed to get to him, but the supposed psychic gripped her too tightly. Belle’s brain whirled. What the hell was going on here?

Helena huffed. “She was supposed to be. I told the man who called to make the appointment with me that the house had to be cleared. It’s how I usually work. It’s way easier to con a single person than a whole group. There’s almost always a skeptical friend the mark will bring along, if you let her.”

So Helena wasn’t a real psychic? Why had Mike recommended her? And why was she here with Gates? Had her grandmother’s lawyer been behind the attempts to scare her off all along?

“You?” she asked him in horror.

“Me,” he said simply.

“W-why?”

Gates stopped in the middle of the hallway and checked his gun. “Your grandmother had information I need. I’ve had this place bugged for years, hoping I’d figure out where she kept it hidden. Eventually, I figured out that she passed it on with the business she sold. But Karen brought it to her in the end. She considered the bitch her mentor or some shit. In fact, she came here at least once a week, but they talked mostly about the old days and their families, even the fucking weather. I think they knew someone was listening in.”

Belle bit her lip to hold in a gasp. Grandma’s own attorney had been spying on her?

“Are you going to do your job?” Gates asked Helena in a sour tone. “If not, I could have you tossed in jail. My client can make that happen, you know. He’s a very important judge. He has favors he can call in everywhere. If you turn on me, you won’t see the light of day for a long time, you con artist.”

Belle really didn’t know what they were talking about, but it all sounded ominous. Two against one, and they had weapons. The odds weren’t looking good.

“Like I said, I’ll do the job,” Helena shot back, and Belle didn’t think she meant cleansing the house of spirits. “I have zero interest in going to jail. I don’t look good in orange. Where’s your friend? I told you how we should set this up. I studied up on the suicides and the haunting. We can set this up to play straight into the legends about this place.”

Meaning that someone would have to die by hanging, like those two Peterman girls? Belle’s blood ran cold.

Gates nodded. “Everything we need is on its way. I told him to park far from the house so no one remembers his truck being here this evening. We’ll set everything up right. But first I need to get that list. You know what could happen if that fucking thing gets out. It would ruin my client and many of his very powerful friends.”

“I’m sure,” the medium murmured. “Tell me something, Gates, are you on that list, too?”

What list did they keep referring to? Was that the all-fired important information Gates had been spying on her grandmother to obtain?

Sir suddenly barked, and Belle felt a chill pass through her.

The woman behind her shivered. “Fuck, I hate this place. If I didn’t know better, I would say it’s actually haunted.”

Gates barked. “You bought the act, too? Christ, I’d have thought you were too jaded to believe in things that go bump in the night. This place is no more haunted than my ass.”

So his refusal to step foot in the house earlier had all been an act? Belle felt foolish for having fallen for it.

Helena looked skeptical. “Just walking in here makes me sick. We need to get this done as quickly as possible. What are you going to do with that guy? Is he dead?”

The door opened again, and all of Belle’s questions about who had left her the frightening messages since her arrival were answered. Mike, the electrician, stepped in, carrying a heavy bag. No wonder he’d recommended Helena. They were all in this together.

Mike blanched and clenched his fists when he saw Tate lying in the hallway. “You said no one would get hurt.”

“Oh, boohoo. So I lied.” Gates rolled his eyes. “He’s alive. I just hit him with a tranquilizer. I brought it along in case Miss Wright proved difficult, but now we’ve got to figure out how to include him in the scenario. I think I have a way to make this work. Hand me the gun.”

Mike set down the bag and Gates exchanged his tranquilizer pistol for what looked like a real semiautomatic.

Belle glanced Tate’s way and her heart soared. Finally, she saw what she’d been looking for: Tate’s chest rising and falling slightly. He was alive—at least for the moment. Hope flared inside her. There was still a chance to save him. She’d have to get out of this mess first.

Gates moved into her space. “Yes, Miss Wright. Your lover is still among the living, but if I hit him again, I assure you his status will change. This one fires bullets. If I hit him in the chest now, he won’t get up again. You don’t want that, do you?”

Belle shook her head. Tate’s death would devastate her.

“Excellent.” A reptilian smile passed over the lawyer’s face. “Then you’re going to cooperate with me. If you tell me where the list is, I’ll make sure this goes easy and quick. We’ll finish our business and be out of your hair.”

The only thing quick and easy would be her murder. There was no way he could leave her alive after all she’d heard. He’d just committed assault and threatened murder. Now he meant to burglarize her home. He’d admitted to planting listening devices around the house and spying on her grandmother for years for his client, a powerful and obviously corrupt judge. There was no chance he’d let her live. But he needed her cooperation before he offed her.

She just needed to buy some time to hatch a plan or give Eric a chance to get home. “Of course I’ll help you. Just please don’t hurt him again.”

She had no idea what drug they’d given him. He could have a bad reaction to it. As still as Tate was now, if they even gave him another dose, he might overdose. It could kill him. He looked so vulnerable, and Belle knew that only she stood between Tate and death.

“Stop yakking and hurry up.” Helena loosened her hold. “I want this over with. The other two men are out, but I don’t know for how long. We need to be gone before they return. Why are there so many men living here anyway?”

Gates sneered Belle’s way. “Because she’s a whore, just like her dear old grandma. You do know your grandmother ran a house of prostitution, don’t you? But when she retired, she sold it to her protégé.”

“Karen Ehlers?” The infamous madam. Several things fell into place, and Belle got an inkling of what they were looking for, but it was probably in her best interest to play dumb.

“Yes, Karen Ehlers.” Gates nodded toward Mike. “Get set up while I talk to our friend here. You know what to do.”

Mike looked a little green in the dim light of the hallway. His hands shook as he held his bag and walked toward her. “I just want to go home, man.”

Gates wouldn’t back down. “If you don’t do what I tell you to, you’ll go to jail. Did you forget that I have your parole officer in the palm of my hand? One word to him, and you go back to prison. I know how life was for you there. You spent a lot of time being passed around, didn’t you? Maybe you liked it. Is that what you want? Do you want to be someone’s bitch again?”

Mike came to stand in front of her, his face hardening as he obviously made his decision. “I’m sorry, Annabelle. I don’t want to do this, but I’m on parole. He works for people who can send me back to jail. I can’t go back. Give him what he wants. Please.”

Mike walked away, his footsteps heavy on the stairs.

Gates got in her face. “I want the list, bitch.”

Belle’s brain went straight back to her first night in the house. She’d found a weird list written by two different hands in the desk, along with her grandmother’s journal, in some sort of hiding place. She’d taken the journal, but put the list back because it had seemed like nonsense at the time. It was very likely some sort of code written by Grandma and Karen Ehlers. Their client list? She wasn’t sure, but that seemed likely, given how badly Gates wanted it.

Her grandmother and Karen Ehlers would need some way to keep track of their transactions. Maybe they’d even dealt in information as well as pleasure. According to the news, Ehlers had decided to write a tell-all book. To ensure her retirement? Had someone learned of her plans and silenced her for good?

“What list?” She couldn’t let on that she knew where to find it. Play dumb. Buy yourself time.

Gates slapped her face. A hard crack rent the air before the pain bloomed in her cheek. Belle bit back a groan because her skin was on fire—and not in a nice way. The difference between violence and what her men shared with her was massive. They were careful to bring her up to the edge of pain. Gates just wanted to torture her.

“Give me what I want or it gets worse from here.” Gates smacked her again, and she couldn’t stop her startled gasp. “Your grandmother started a list of clients, then sold it to Karen Ehlers with the business. I have every reason to believe it’s in this house. I want it now.”

She cupped her hot cheek. “Why would it be here?”

“Because Ehlers told me she gave it to Marie before she died. Your grandmother was her momma whore. When Karen got worried about her safety, she hid it here, a sort of insurance policy. You might have heard that Karen had decided to write an exposé. She thought that list would ensure that no one came after her, a sort of mutually assured destruction. She promised not to use real names, but everyone would have figured out her clients’ identities.”

Belle shrank back. “I don’t know anything about it. I only met my grandmother once, when I was a child. We didn’t keep in touch. I was surprised she wrote me into her will at all.”

Gates frowned. “But you’ve been living here. You must have seen something. I found a draft of that Ehlers bitch’s actual manuscript. She’d written the part that identified her clients and their sexual preferences in code, based on that list. I destroyed the manuscript and all the electronic copies of it I could find. I need to do the same with that fucking list. The elite of New Orleans are on it, and being exposed would ruin them.”

Belle wasn’t so sure about that. New Orleans wasn’t exactly known for being uptight and prudish, but Gates clearly wasn’t willing to take any chances.

And that was when she remembered the camera.

If she could trip the motion detector, at least she could capture her attackers on video and they would be identified. They wouldn’t get away with murder. And leading them upstairs would take them further away from Tate. She had no idea how long it would take him to metabolize the drug, but she didn’t like that gun being so close to his helpless form.

“I haven’t found anything like a list.” The minute she gave it up, they were both dead. She couldn’t imagine how Eric and Kellan would cope if they had to walk into this house and find her body, along with Tate’s. They would be devastated. She had to fight for every second.

“Well, that is very bad for you,” Gates snarled, raising another hand to her.

She raised her hands to ward him off. “But I haven’t searched her bedroom.”

Gates’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been sleeping there.”

She shook her head. “No. Not since the first couple of nights. I moved into one of the smaller rooms because I couldn’t sleep in the master. I heard voices.”

Gates chuckled, a nasty sound. “Yes, I had Mike set an audio device in the ceiling above the bed. It was tripped after the light was off and the room went still. The device would whisper when you were asleep and turn off the minute you moved. It was supposed to make you want to move.”

Clever, but she would try to use it to her advantage. “It scared me. I didn’t like to go into that room, but I know my grandmother kept a lot of very personal things in there.”

She’d found pictures and a box of little keepsakes. The closest was big, and Belle hadn’t even started to clean it out yet. There were storage boxes under the bed, as well. With any luck, she could keep them upstairs and searching for a very long time.

Gates nodded toward Helena. “You look through the office and the library. I’ll take her upstairs. Don’t make a mess. Our scenario is not a burglary. The last thing I need is for the cops to go over this place with a fine-tooth comb.”

Helena let her go, obviously secure in the fact that Belle had another gun pointed straight at her chest. “I thought you had your interns looking through there last week.”

So that’s why he’d insisted on “taking inventory” of everything in the house. They might have looked through drawers and rifled through closets, but they had obviously missed her grandmother’s hidey-hole.

“I couldn’t actually tell them what I wanted them to find. I told them to bring me anything that looked like personal notes because Marie Wright might have jotted additional instructions about the division of her estate. Of course, the idiots didn’t find anything. Start looking for hidden compartments,” he instructed Helena. “Wright was a whore for a long time. She ran a brothel herself. She knows how to keep a secret.”

“What about him?” Helena frowned as she looked toward Tate’s body.

Gates waved off the worry. “He’ll be out for hours. Don’t worry about him.”

As her grandmother’s lawyer marched her up the stairs, Belle prayed Tate had the chance to wake up again.

* * * *

Kellan shuffled along the sidewalk, wondering if he was doing the right thing. It might be best if he just walked away. Belle needed a man who had a whole heart to give her, and he wasn’t sure he’d even been born with one.

Fucking coward. Eric’s right. You like things easy. You like not having to open yourself up. You’re so fucking scared, you’re going to let the best thing that ever happened to you slip through your fingers.

He might not have been born with a whole heart, but his inner voice seemed to be totally intact and brutally honest.

Eric stopped at the small gate that separated the courtyard from the street. The moon had come out, washing the brick in a silvery glow. He never noticed the moon in Chicago. Somehow it seemed bigger in New Orleans. The air felt heavier, almost mysterious, but there was a sweetness to it. And the heat seemed to seep into his bones, drugging him until all he wanted was to toss off his clothes and be naked with Belle. If he stripped down, past his clothes, past his skin, if he offered her every piece of himself, would it be enough? Could Belle heal that essential piece of him that had been damaged for so long? He’d long thought that a part of him was missing, but now he wondered if maybe what he’d always been missing was Belle herself. What if that crap about soul mates was true and he wouldn’t ever feel whole without her?

The thought of her holding a baby conceived from their love did weird things to him. His gut tightened and turned, then did a little dip that didn’t feel at all like anxiety. It felt more like anticipation. Hope.

He would be a terrible dad. Wouldn’t he? But was he really willing to leave a child alone with Tate, who would have that kid geekified and speaking nerd before he even had a chance. Tate would dress his kid in snarky T-shirts and sweatpants that may or may not be clean.

And Eric? Eric would try to teach the kid to get along with everyone. Eric’s willingness to compromise was a necessity to making this relationship work, but who would help the kid learn to stand up for himself, to protect his mom and siblings? Who would teach him how to throw a decent punch?

Eric would teach him to toss a football, while Tate would instruct him on the finer points of wielding a lightsaber.

Maybe he wasn’t so unnecessary after all.

“You’re thinking about something serious, man. Want to talk about it before we go inside?” Eric asked.

Yep. Eric would teach the kid how to express his feelings. That was nice and all, but there were times to man up and just do something.

Except he wasn’t sure he was ready.

“Nope.” He hated the way Eric’s eyes tightened in disappointment. “Just give me a little time, okay? I need a day or two. I don’t process shit like this the way you do.”

“Shit like emotions?” The dry tone of Eric’s voice made him smile tightly.

“Yeah. Shit like emotions. Just give me a day or two.”

Eric sighed. “Fine. Take some brooding time. Just know that I’m willing to talk to you whenever you want. I know it probably sounds dumb, but you really will feel better if you talk it out. If it makes you more comfortable, I’ll find us a gym and we can spar while we talk.”

Punching and talking. That might actually work for him. “Okay.” It would do him good to get out a little aggression. “Only if I can work Tate over, too.”

Eric chuckled. “Oh, I think Tate would love to beat the fuck out of you for a while.”

It was what men did, what brothers did. It was what he’d never done. In the past, a fight meant an ending. It had never been simply a way to work through conflict. Any fight had been nasty, low down, and permanent.

His family could be different. He could be different, better.

“I think I might love her,” he admitted quietly.

Eric’s smile nearly lit up the night as he slapped him on the shoulder. “Of course you do. She’s incredibly lovable, man. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to any of us. She’s the one. And the best part is that she wants all of us, too. We can have everything we’ve ever dreamed of. All we have to do is reach out and take it.”

A buzzing sound emanated from Eric’s phone. Frowning, he pulled it out of his belt clip and studied it.

“What is it? Belle calling?” Kellan asked, more than a bit hopeful.

He liked the idea that she wanted to know where he was or wanted to know what he was thinking, feeling. He wasn’t used to having anyone give a shit when he came home. He would have to change if he stayed. He would have to check in and let his family know where he was all the time. It wasn’t enough that Tate would likely hack into a satellite and direct it at all of them twenty-four seven. Kell needed to show them that he cared by checking in.

“No. It’s not Belle. It’s a nanny cam alarm Tate set up. We placed it in the master bedroom, and it’s alerting me that something just triggered.” Eric flicked a finger across his phone. “Weird. I thought we agreed not to go in there. All the contractors should be gone by now.”

“You set up a camera? In the master bedroom? Did Tate find more bugs in other rooms?”

A massive wave of guilt crashed against him. He’d walked out when Belle was still in some sort of danger. They couldn’t be sure of when those bugs had been placed there. Tate suspected they’d been planted in the house a while back, but who knew for certain? Someone was trying to scare Belle, and no matter what she’d seen in the library, he couldn’t accept that a ghost had left a message on her bedroom wall from beyond.

His departure at such a critical time proved how selfish he could be.

Kell had a sudden and deep need to see her. He might have no real right to do it, but he wanted to hold her in his arms. To apologize.

He glanced up at the house as they walked through the gate and into the courtyard. The glow of a light illuminated the living room, and a lithe figure moved across the shade, a shadow that was an illusion. His Belle wasn’t that twiggy. She was solid and sexy as fuck. But then again, shadows could be distorted.

“I think Belle’s in the living room. Do you think Tate’s upstairs?” Kellan asked.

“Maybe.” A concerned frown crossed Eric’s face. “They were supposed to be with the medium, who was cleansing the house. Why would they split up? Belle was a little scared about the whole thing. That’s why I left Tate with her. I didn’t want her to be alone with anyone we don’t know.”

Kellan walked faster toward the house. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t like it. The sooner he saw Belle, the better he would feel. He was going to talk to her, try to get her to go back to Chicago. Not forever, just until they caught whoever sought to scare her. Wouldn’t Belle have a few things to clear up at her old apartment or something? He would bring her back to New Orleans, to her new home, when they were all certain it was safe. They could call in the guys from Anthony Anders. Surely, Dominic, Law, and Riley could figure out what was going on.

He strode toward the door, Eric right behind him. As he clasped the knob, something stopped him. The air around him became icy cold, his breath visible, despite the fact that the humid autumn evening was well above freezing.

Something moved through him that made him shiver. He felt his spine ping with fear. He could only focus on one thing: Belle. He wasn’t sure why being cold made him so very aware of her. Then he heard a whisper in his head.

Save Annabelle.

“Belle’s in trouble,” he murmured just above a whisper.

The more he thought about it, that hadn’t been Belle in the window. The medium might be in the house, but why wasn’t his love with her? He suddenly felt certain that whoever he’d seen in the living room was dangerous. That woman threatened Belle.

“Open the door quietly.” Eric’s voice was low, tense. “Stay next to the wall. The floor creaks in the middle. God, I hope you’re wrong, but I feel like she’s in danger, too. I can’t explain it.”

Because some things defied logic. This was one of them. So was love. Reason told him to deny it, but his instincts were too pure, too strong. He might end up looking like a fool for bursting in on the house cleansing, but he’d look like an idiot a hundred times over to keep Belle safe because nothing was more important than Belle.

That truth hit him like a sledgehammer.

Kell turned the doorknob, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest. Unlocked. He prayed the creak of the old metal and wood wasn’t as loud as it sounded in his head.

His warning instincts went off again when he remembered that Belle always locked the door behind her. She’d lived for far too many years in big cities to ever get into the habit of leaving any door to the outside unlocked.

He pushed the door open, anxiety churning. He had to be quiet, had to get into the house without anyone knowing it. Surprise was his only weapon.

The first thing he saw made his blood go cold.

A big body on the floor, crumpled and still.

Tate.

Kell barely managed to restrain himself from running over to his friend. Dread torqued up his gut. Not knowing if Tate was alive ate at him like he’d swallowed battery acid.

“Fuck.” Eric cursed quietly behind him before he stepped back outside.

There was no question he had to call the cops, an ambulance—anyone who could help them. He couldn’t wait. They all knew the drill. Call for help, then intercede until reinforcements arrived. Kellan would do just that, fight until his dying breath.

He tiptoed over to Tate and dropped to one knee, his whole body tense. God, what was he going to do if his friend was dead? The thought was surreal, unimaginable.

He put a hand on Tate’s body. He was still warm. Kellan couldn’t see any blood visible, but there was something sticking out of his chest. A dart of some sort.

Tate’s chest moved slightly in a shallow attempt to breathe.

He was alive, but he’d been hit with some sort of tranquilizer. Who the hell was here? What the fuck did they want? Where was Belle?

“Is he alive?” Eric whispered, his voice shaking. He was pale as he stared down at his best friend.

Kellan nodded. “Yes. Cops?”

“On their way,” Eric breathed.

“Go around the back of the house and see if you can figure out where Belle is.” Kellan reached into the antique umbrella stand by the door. He pulled out a sturdy-looking umbrella and wished he knew exactly what to do in this situation. His friend Dominic Anthony would. He’d bet Dominic never got caught without a weapon. He would never have to defend his woman with a freaking umbrella.

“Will do. If you can, search the third floor. Something tripped that camera,” Eric suggested, then slipped out the door again.

The master bedroom. Of course. The alarm had gone off on Eric’s phone. He had explained the whole nanny cam plan to catch whoever was stealing into the room and leaving Belle frightening messages during their walk home.

Someone had taken Belle upstairs.

A million horrifying thoughts ran through his head. Why? What were they doing to her? Was she silently crying out for him? Was she hurting, and he wasn’t there to save her? Had she watched Tate go down and known she would be next?

He hugged the dark wall, keeping his step light, but the person in the next room had no such qualms. He heard a squeaking from the living room as the woman he’d seen from the shadows exited the formal space, turning her back to him to call up the stairs.

“If it’s down here, it’s hidden, Gates. Damn it. We’re running out of time,” she hollered up the stairs. “We have to get out of here.”

Malcolm Gates, the lawyer. What the hell?

“Keep looking, damn it.” The lawyer’s voice floated back down. “If we don’t get our hands on that fucking client list, my career is over. If I could kill that whore again I would.”

The woman mere feet away from him gave a frustrated huff. “Why the hell did you kill Ehlers before you had her notes?”

Fuck. Gates had killed the madam because she’d planned to go public. And they thought Belle had the woman’s client list? Kell wasn’t sure why they’d believe that, but no way he could leave Belle alone.

Or had the lawyer already killed her?

“Well, when I had my hands wrapped around her throat, she swore she’d brought it here,” Gates growled. “Shut up and keep looking.”

“The bitch granddaughter hasn’t even found it,” the woman argued. “So maybe it’s not here. We need to kill her and her boyfriend, then get the hell out of here. You can set this place on fire in a few days after the cops declare the whole incident to be a murder-suicide. Call it faulty wiring or something. We can make that happen. Then if the list is here, it won’t ever be found.”

There was a long sigh. “My client won’t accept that. The judge wants the list in his hands.”

“Then we make one up, and we’re all off the hook. You don’t think very creatively for a lawyer. All I know is if we get caught in here, we’re all going to prison. We need to cut our losses. She doesn’t know where it is.”

“One more chance,” Gates said. “I’ll give it one more shot—literally. Maybe if I put a gun to your boyfriend’s head, it will spark some memory, Miss Wright? Turn that idiot over, Helena. I want her to see his face when I blow it off. We’ll be down in a bit.”

Kellan’s blood froze. He heard Gates moving upstairs. Belle must be with him and searching for the client list in her grandmother’s old bedroom. At least she was conscious.

Kellan stuck to the darkest part of the gloomy foyer. The cover of shadow would buy him some time.

Helena’s shoes clacked along the hardwoods, and Kellan made himself go very still. Silent. He had to be so quiet, not alert them that they were no longer alone. He had to save Belle and Tate. They were his family.

God, what would have happened if he hadn’t come to New Orleans with them? If he’d listened to his fear and gone back to Chicago? Eric would have been here. Would he have been on the ground with Tate, leaving Belle alone to fend for herself. They would all likely die.

He’d spent all his time wondering how a relationship between the four of them could work, but now he saw plainly that it would work however they worked it. The universe didn’t give everyone the same life. Love wasn’t some cookie cutter that he had to mold himself into. He’d spent his whole time on earth plotting and planning his life, ruthlessly controlling it to reach some grand destination, all the while not understanding that the ending he’d chosen wouldn’t make him happy. Belle was the destination he’d been unconsciously seeking. Her love and the family he’d share with his buddies were the end-all, be-all of his existence.

He couldn’t control them, but hopefully, he could damn well save them.

“God, how did I get into this shit?” The woman turned the corner.

Kellan struck, cracking the umbrella over her head. It made a dull thud. Nothing that would register upstairs. Her eyes widened and her mouth fluttered open, but she didn’t emit a single sound. He caught her before she hit the floor, then he eased her down.

She would live. More than likely, she’d have a massive headache, but the medic in the NOLA jail could deal with that. He pushed her body against the wall. In the shadows where he was hidden, it would be hard to see.

Kellan heard a yip, and he whirled around only to realize Sir was trapped in the kitchen and barking behind the door.

“Damn it!” Gates screamed from the top of the stairs. It was obvious to Kellan that he was losing patience. It would cause him to get sloppy, make mistakes. Unfortunately, it also likely made him more violent. “Shut that fucking dog up, Mike!”

Mike was here? Mike had been the man on the ground, the one doing all the grunt work? It fit. No wonder neither he, Tate, nor Eric had liked the asshole. Sure enough, Mike came rushing down the stairs, jogging toward the kitchen.

Sir growled.

Kellan crouched into a dark corner behind a grandfather clock just as the kitchen door began to open.

He was going to owe that damn dog a treat. Sir kept barking, making himself a target as a big shadow moved through the open door. Kellan got the glimpse of something metallic in the moonlight.

Mike wasn’t packing an umbrella. It looked like the asshole was way better armed than him.

“Shut the fuck up, dog.” The big guy took aim.

Oh, that was so not happening. Belle would murder him if he allowed that fucker to kill her ridiculously ugly, seriously brave little mutt. Like it or not, Sir was the family dog and he wasn’t going down tonight either.

With as much force as he could muster, Kellan brought the umbrella down on Mike’s head. It met with a crack just like the last time.

Unfortunately, Mike was harder a target to fell.

With a growl, he whirled, his eyes narrowing as he raised the gun.

Sir rushed forward and suddenly snarled at the guy’s ankle. He shouted out as Sir’s teeth sank into his flesh. The gun fell from his hand, thudding to the floor.

Kellan attacked, punching the man with a quiet grunt. He tried to get to the gun, but Mike threw him back with a fist to his face. Pure pain flared, making his head spin. He heard Sir yipping, but as he opened his eyes, all he could see was that big fist coming toward his face again.

“Mother fucker,” Mike cursed before making contact again. “I’m going to kill you.”

Then he heard the shocking sound of a gun discharging. It cracked through the small space. The punch that might have knocked him out never came.

Mike’s whole face went blank as he listed to one side and fell.

“Are you okay?” Eric asked quietly, reaching out to help Kell up.

“You idiot!” Gates yelled down. “Someone’s going to call the cops if you don’t keep the goddamn volume down. I told you to shut the dog up, not shoot him.”

Fuck. If “Mike” didn’t answer, Belle would be in trouble. He lowered his voice and tried to sound like an idiot douchebag. “Sorry. Dog’s no trouble now.”

Eric had picked Sir up, who was enthusiastically licking his face, but at least he was quiet.

There was a long sigh. “Get your ass up here. I have one more place I want to look before we finish up. Tell Helena to get everything ready.”

The door shut upstairs.

He looked at Eric. “Give me the gun. You’ve done your part. I’m going to go get our girl. You make sure no one else comes after me.”

Eric nodded, and Kellan started up the stairs.

To save his woman. To make sure his family was safe again.