Real Men Last All Night (9 page)

The woman hesitated. "How long ago?"

"Now." It sounded like the Italian was also having a hard time not sounding like he was pissed. "Within the last two minutes."

"Definitely not." Willow almost let out a gasp of relief that the woman hadn't spotted her—or at least was covering for her.

The man said nothing in response and she heard his footsteps heading toward the door.

He started speaking in a one-sided conversation and she realized he was talking to someone on a cell phone.

"She got away," the man was saying as his voice grew more distant. "No, I don't know where the hell she went. She wouldn't have escaped if I did." Then the faint words came,

"cop . . . girlfriend."

And then nothing.

Willow slumped against the metal support at the center of the rack. He was gone.

She almost screamed when someone parted the clothing in front of her. Relief flooded through Willow again, when she saw the salesperson.

"Are you all right?" the woman asked as she extended her hand. "I'm sure that man is gone. Should I call the police?"

"Thank you for not telling him that I came in." Willow let the woman help her up. Her head felt a little woozy as she stood. All that adrenaline and being scrunched like she'd been before getting up made for one dizzy blond.

Willow shook her head, more to clear it than to say no. "I'm dating a cop. I'll call him,"

she said when she began to think straight again. She needed to talk to Zane. Somehow she knew only he could help her. "Can I use your phone? I don't carry one."

The woman reminded Willow of Aunt Becky with her motherly

air as she ushered Willow to the back of the store. "You should have a phone for emergencies." The woman glanced over her shoulder. "I don't know what this was all about, but that man looked dangerous. Not to mention all that blood on his face and his shirt."

"You bet I'm going to get a phone now just as soon as I find a store that sells them."

Willow swung her purse onto her shoulder as she tried to think of the closest phone store.

Her thoughts were pinging all over the place. "I could have been calling for help while I was hiding. Or when I first noticed that man following me."

"Why was he following you?" The woman went behind the sales desk and handed Willow a corded phone. "Did you hit him or something? Blood was practically pouring from his nose."

"Honestly, I don't know who he was." Willow's hands shook as she punched in the number for Zane's cell phone. "He just grabbed my arm and I let him have it with my purse." She glanced at the purse and shook even more when she saw the blood on the corner of it.

"Good job," the salesperson said. "You must have nailed him good." Then the woman moved away, obviously to give Willow some privacy as she made her call.

Willow almost cried with relief when Zane answered, "Steele."

"It's Willow," she said, doing everything she could to keep her voice from cracking.

"Something just happened. I'm scared. I have to talk to you. I need to see you."

His voice sounded tight, concerned. "Where are you?"

"I'm—" She tried to focus as the adrenaline rush started to leave her. "Near King's Chapel." It hit her that the man had tried to kidnap her right in front of the centuries-old cemetery next to the chapel.

"Are you someplace safe?"

Willow looked at the salesperson. "What's the address?" she asked the woman, then repeated the address to Zane.

"I'll be right there." He sounded as if he was forcing himself to remain calm. "Don't move."

Willow swallowed. "Okay," she said right before he ended the connection.

"Thank you." She looked at the salesperson as she set the phone on the receiver. "My boyfriend, the cop—he's coming to get me."

The lady nodded. "You'll be safe here."

Willow stayed in the back of the store. The moment Zane walked through the door, she ran to him and threw her arms around his waist and started shaking.

"What happened, honey?" Zane's throat was tight as he put his arm around Willow's shoulders and guided her outside the store and into the sunny morning.

Zane had parked his work SUV illegally in front of the chapel's burial grounds, but had his placard in the window indicating that his vehicle was there for law enforcement purposes.

"Some man." Willow's shoulders were trembling and that scared the shit out of him. It had to be something bad. "He—I think he tried to kidnap me."

"What the hell?" Zane's mind churned as he stopped in front of the gate to the King's Chapel Cemetery. He took Willow by the shoulders and she met his gaze. She didn't look like she'd been crying but the fear was still in her eyes. "Tell me exactly what happened."

A shot pierced the quiet morning.

Willow gave a cry of pain and surprise and he barely caught her as she collapsed and blood began to spread, brilliant red against her white shirt.

Zane's system went on instant overdrive. Heat burned his skin and adrenaline pumped through his body.

He grabbed Willow by the waist and flung them both through the cemetery gates to the ground, causing her to cry out again even as he tried to cushion her with his body. He didn't know how badly Willow was hurt, but he had to get her out of the line of fire.

Zane had his Glock out in a second. With one hand holding his weapon, he kept a tight hold on Willow and scooted behind several ancient headstones.

At the same time he drew his handgun, Zane pressed a button on his holster for emergency extraction.

The moment Zane pressed that button, a RED extraction unit was notified and they had already honed in on Zane's location via a satellite link even more accurate than GPS.

Bullets pinged on the metal fence from the direction of the shots. People screamed. An ancient headstone exploded nearby as another bullet missed them.

Zane's whole body vibrated and he prayed Willow hadn't been seriously shot.

His gut clenched. All of that blood on the left side of her chest made it look like she'd been hit damned close to her heart. He glanced at her and saw blood coating her fingers and staining the shoulder of her blouse as she pressed her hand to a wound.

On her shoulder, not her chest.

She sounded like she was talking through gritted teeth as she laid flat on her back on the ground. "Don't worry about me. Just get him."

More shots rang out.

More people screamed in the street.

Fuck.

Zane stayed low as he held his Glock and looked through a pair of headstones. Anger burned through him as he spotted the shooter, a man with a bloody nose, peering around the side of the chapel.

The man swung around and used his handgun to shoot toward the stones where they were hiding. Another ancient headstone exploded and hard chunks rained down on Willow and Zane.

From his prone position, Zane held his Glock in a two-handed grip and sighted the shooter. The fury boiling inside him made him want to kill the sonofabitch. But he didn't know why the hell they were being shot at and he wanted to take the man in for questioning. PED would be there any second.

With two rapid shots, Zane put a bullet through the man's right shoulder, then his left.

The screams that followed gave Zane only a little satisfaction as the shooter started to drop and his handgun slid into the street, at least ten feet away from him.

For good measure Zane shot the man in both thighs. More screams before the man fell on his bloody face.

He hoped there was only one shooter since the bullets had come from one direction and the shots had stopped the moment the man was down.

He jerked his RED cell phone out of its holster and pushed a speed-dial number. He could already hear tires screeching to a halt on the other side of the fence. "One shooter down," Zane relayed. "He could have another weapon on him. Take him alive for questioning. Not sure if there are any more perps."

He jerked his gaze to Willow and his heart nearly stopped beating. "I've got an injured civilian," he added before he clicked off and shoved the phone into its clip.

Willow's eyes were closed and her bloody hand had fallen away from her shoulder wound, which was bleeding so badly most of the top half of her blouse was soaked with blood. How close was the wound to her heart?

With the sound of RED agents swarming the area of the park they were in, Zane set his Glock close to him.

"Willow!" he shouted as he patted her face with one hand and pressed his other hand against the wound.

Fear spiked through him. All that blood—
shit.
He couldn't let her fall asleep. "Wake up, Willow. Stay with me."

Her eyelids fluttered, and of all things she gave a slight smile. "Guess I'll be calling in sick to work."

Zane's temples ached and the sick sensation in his gut grew even worse as he paced the waiting room. Willow had been taken to

RED's infirmary because he hadn't been sure whether or not the shooting was RED-related and the organization had to take special precautions.

What was taking so long? How badly was Willow hurt? There had been so much goddamned blood. He admired her spunk, the way she challenged him, and her fresh honesty and easy confidence. He loved how she constantly surprised him, like she had with her basketball skills and every dare she made.

Everything about Willow was special and his chest hurt even more, as if he'd been the one shot.

Why would anyone go after Willow?

To get to me.

"Zane!"

He snapped his head up and saw Georgina Rizzo and Lexi practically running into the waiting room.

"How is she?" Lexi asked, her green eyes bright with concern. "Is your girlfriend going to be okay?"

Zane barely registered that Lexi had referred to Willow as his girlfriend. "They haven't told me a goddamned thing."

"It's only been an hour since you arrived, so this isn't a bad sign. Just hold on." Rizzo was still decked out as a mafia girlfriend, wearing tight jeans but holding her high heels in one of her hands. "I heard about it the moment you called for extraction—I was in the department." She swallowed. "I couldn't go to the scene because of what I'd overheard from Albano, so I knew a Petrelli would be there."

Fire raced through Zane's entire body. "This was a mafia hit?"

Rizzo nodded. "All I overheard was that they were after whoever was responsible for the bust. I found an excuse to leave and went straight to HQ. Then everything went to hell."

"It was Henry, your mafia informant." Lexi said. Zane rounded on her and even his ears started to burn. Henry had been the snitch Zane had had a meeting with the same day he'd met Willow on the Common. "The information recovery specialists used RED's truth serum on Filippo Petrelli as soon as they brought him in."

"I was there when Lexi got the report," Rizzo said. "Thanks to the serum, Petrelli spilled everything about how they found out Henry was a snitch. The Petrellis tortured Henry the day following the takedown and broke all of his fingers until he told them 'the cop' who'd been responsible for the bust. Then they blew him away."

"They wanted blood—several of the Petrellis went down that night." Lexi touched Zane's arm. "The Petrellis have been following you and Willow the past two days since Henry gave you up." She glanced at Rizzo before looking at Zane again. "They were waiting for a chance to grab her to hurt you."

"Fuck!" Zane almost slammed his fist into a wall in the waiting room. This was exactly why he didn't get into relationships. Someone he cared about could get hurt because of
him.

And Willow had been the one to pay for his stupidity. "I shouldn't have gotten involved with her." Zane went to a different wall and pulled his arm back, ready to put a hole through it.

"Don't." Lexi caught him by the elbow and he cut his gaze to her and almost growled..

"You didn't do anything wrong," she said.

"Like hell." Zane was about to say more but the door to the infirmary slid open and Dr.

Kelly walked through.

"She'll be fine." Dr. Kelly went straight to Zane and sheer relief made him weak.

"How bad is it?" Zane said in a gravely voice filled with so much he wanted to say along with so much anger he could explode.

"She was shot in the shoulder and the bullet chipped bone and tore ligaments, so it will take the injury some time to heal." Dr.

Kelly continued, "She's going to be wearing an arm brace and then a sling for a while."

"Goddamnit." Zane couldn't think of enough swear words to express himself right then.

"When can I see her?"

"We're moving her to a private room now." Dr. Kelly started to turn to the infirmary doors. "About thirty minutes."

It was the longest ninety minutes of Zane's life—from the time they reached the infirmary to the moment he followed Dr. Kelly to Willow's room.

When they reached the door he almost didn't want to walk in. He sucked in his breath as Lexi said, "Go," and Rizzo added, "We'll wait here for you."

Zane swallowed and entered Willow's private infirmary room and he wanted to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness when he saw her pale face, the dark circles beneath her closed eyes, the IV, and the huge brace on her arm.

Even though his feet didn't want to move, he made himself go to her and sit beside the bed. He took her hand and squeezed it. "Honey? Are you okay?"

Hell no she wasn't okay.

Willow opened her eyes. She smiled but it was weak, like she was too tired. "They gave me Demerol," she said. "I don't know how long I'm going to stay awake."

"I'm so sorry." Zane pressed his forehead against her hand. "I should never have—"

"Shut up." Willow sounded angry and he looked up and met her beautiful sea-blue eyes.

Anger sparked there, too. "I knew
exactly
what I could be getting into. Don't you dare insult me by saying you never should have dated me."

Tingles prickled Zane's skin as a strange feeling rolled over his skin. "Willow—"

"I said
shut up."
She looked angry enough to come out of the bed. "You are
not
going to dump me because of this. Maybe for some other reason, but not because of your feelings of guilt that I got in the way."