Shattered Vows

The back window was fogged over, obscuring his view of the interior.

Seconds later, Nate stepped beside him, automatic clenched in his hand. “I’ll take the passenger side,” Nate murmured.

Dread pounded in Bran’s brain. Training battered with the urge to rush to the car, but he held himself back. He wouldn’t be any good to Tory if he got himself shot. Staying low, he crept toward the rear door. Over his cell phone, he had heard her scream. Heard a man’s vicious, “Bitch, this is from Vic.”

Bran gritted his teeth. He would hunt Heath down and kill him with his bare hands. If it took the rest of his life, he would find the bastard.

The car’s side windows were less fogged than the back. Bran raised up enough to peer into the shadow-laden back seat. He saw a man’s booted feet and jeans-clad legs stretched across the seat. His upper body was slumped, face-down in the passenger-side floorboard. Heath? Bran wondered. His pal who helped him escape, maybe?

Nate pulled open the rear door, his automatic trained on the man.

Bran edged to the driver’s door, checked through the window. His throat tightened when he saw the front seat was empty. He pulled open the door. Tory’s tote bag lay on the passenger seat, its contents spilling across the upholstery. Her cell phone was still plugged into the converter in the dash. A paper cup lay in a puddle of coffee on the floorboard.

“She’s not here,” Bran said, and saw in Nate’s grim face that their thoughts were on the same wavelength. There was only one man in the back seat, which meant either Heath or his pal was still out there. Maybe he had Tory. Maybe he was close, waiting to ambush both cops when he got a clear shot.

Nate held his gun steady on the still figure while he pressed his fingers against his throat. “DRT,” he said, using cop shorthand for dead right there. He angled to get a look at the man’s face. “I don’t think its Heath,” he added before keying the mike on his handheld radio.

Staying low, Bran dashed toward the nearest grouping of parked cars. Only minutes had passed since Tory first answered her cell phone. Surely if Heath had grabbed her they couldn’t have gotten far.

Bran had just reached the front of a white SUV when he heard the faint clank of metal against metal. A croaking sob followed.

Gun aimed, he peered around the SUV. Relief surged through him when he spotted Tory. One palm pressed to the pavement, she knelt between the SUV and another car. Her Sig lay near her hand. She’d fled the Taurus, he theorized, fearing another attacker might be nearby.

It took a split second for him to register the jerky movement of her shoulders. Another to realize her free hand was clawing at her throat.

“Tory!” He rushed to her, his pulse spiking when he saw the chain looping her neck. He realized immediately the metal links were tangled in her long hair. The more she struggled, the tighter the chain pressed against her windpipe.

“Stop!” He dropped his weapon, grabbed her hands. “Tory, stop.”

“Get it off!” Her voice was a panicked rasp on the cold air. “Get it off, get it off.”

“Hold on.” His fingers squeezed hers. “Just hold on.”

Lungs heaving, she leaned into him.

Kneeling over her, he tried not to think. About the blood that slicked the metal links. Or the precious seconds lost because his fingers trembled so badly. A lifetime later, the chain slithered to the blacktop with a clank.

While sirens wailed in the distance, he eased her into a sitting position. Barely breathing himself, he watched her body shake as she dragged in short, rusty breaths.

“You’re okay,” he said, for her benefit as much as his. “I’ve got you now. You’re okay.”

He took a few drags of icy air while he watched her. She was one of the toughest women he knew, yet she looked fragile, terrifyingly so. Her face was drawn and impossibly pale; her eyes bright with fear. Bloody furrows marred her throat. Already, a necklace of dark bruises bloomed around the furrows.

“Tory….” His chest tightened. Heath had come after her because of him. She had almost died because of him. Bran wanted to pull her into his arms, hold her, yet she was gasping for air, her body trembling. He settled for placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”

As if his touch flipped a switch in her she broke, simply broke. Sobbing, she surged into his arms, her face against his chest, her tears soaking into his sweater.

“Just let it out,” he said, stroking her hair. He had never seen her cry. Never seen her even close to tears. Now, the sound of her raspy sobs, combined with the knowledge of how close she’d come to dying nearly overwhelmed him.

She was down to shuddering breaths when she said, “I thought…I was…going to die.”

“I know.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I know.”

“Did you…get him?”

Bran realized she didn’t know she’d killed her attacker. That news could wait until she was steadier. “Yeah, we got him.”

Still stroking her hair, he glanced across his shoulder when a siren whooped nearby. Four black and whites and a crowd of onlookers now filled the lot. If Heath had been in the vicinity, he was gone.

An ambulance barreled into view. Emergency lights pulsed. Bran settled his hands on her shoulders and inched her gently back. “An ambulance is here. Let’s get you out of the cold.”

She nodded, looking up at him. Her blond lashes were spiky, her eyes swollen from tears.

He settled his hands on either side of her waist, lifted her to her feet. When she swayed against his chest, he tightened his grip.

“Let me carry you.”

She raised a hand, her trembling fingers brushing his cheek. “I…can…walk,” she croaked. “Need to…walk.”

Even now she wouldn’t allow herself to lean on him. For the space of a heartbeat he loosened control on the emotion roiling inside him: the need to protect her, to comfort her, the blind rage against Heath for nearly killing her.

She was alive solely because she was brave and a fighter. She hadn’t needed him to stay alive. Didn’t need him to carry her to the ambulance.

“Okay, you walk.” He pressed his lips against her forehead. “I’m a step away if you need me.”

Keeping one hand locked on her elbow, he swept up his Glock, holstered it. Her Sig went into a pocket on his parka. He was about to retrieve the chain when he felt her shudder.

“Forget walking.” He swept her up gently and headed toward the ambulance. “I’m taking care of you, Tory. No one is going to hurt you again.”

“Thanks…for the lift.” When she trembled convulsively, Bran tightened his arms around her.

Gonna eat your heart out. The threat that Heath’s mother had hissed at the funeral home—and that he’d heard coming over Tory’s cell phone during the attack—replayed with new meaning in Bran’s head. One officer’s husband was dead. Another’s wife was missing. Bran didn’t know yet if Heath had gone after the wife of the fourth cop involved in the credit-union shootout, but he figured he had.

It was clear now that Heath had planned all along to hit the families of the cops who’d killed his brother and cousin, not the cops themselves. What better way to eat someone’s heart out than to target their spouse? It was the ultimate twisting of the blade, a way to deal unending, excruciating, lifelong agony to the cops.

Grim-faced, Nate strode toward them. Bran inclined his head toward the spot where he found Tory. “There’s a chain back there. It needs to go into evidence.”

“A chain?”

“The scum had it wrapped around Tory’s throat.”

Nate nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

A pair of EMTs pulled a gurney into view at the same instant Bran reached the rear of the ambulance. He sat Tory down gently on the stretcher, kept his hands locked on her shoulders. He looked into her eyes, felt the tremors that still shook her. “I’m riding to the hospital with you.”

She rubbed a hand over her mouth, nodded.

He stepped back to give the EMTs room to work.

The pain of seeing her hurt was the equivalent to a razor slashing at his heart. Because that pain threatened to overwhelm, he went with anger.

He hadn’t known what Heath had been planning, but he’d known damn well he would try something. Just as Bran now sensed with cold, hard certainty the bastard would make another attempt on Tory.

“Try it.” The violence bubbling in his blood transformed his voice into a lethal hiss on the cold night air.

He spotted Nate, saw the blood-slicked chain dangling from his brother’s fingers. Bran forced himself to take a long, measured breath. Rage, he knew, clouded the mind. So he would throttle his back. Keep it under control. Do what he had to do.

Bran stepped to the ambulance, swung up into the back.

Tory was still his wife. His to protect. His.

And he had just become her shadow.

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