RULES OF LOVE (A Navy SEALs Romance) (23 page)

Eddie was weak in hand-to-hand because of her leg. He would take out who he could, and she would cover him. The weight of what he was trusting her with hit her hard now that they’d arrived at the house. If she missed tonight, it could be Beau’s life. And then they’d come for her.

Beau led the way inside. A path was cleared by the team earlier when they’d removed the bodies of the dead attackers. Eddie clicked her flashlight on, as did Beau, as they checked the first floor together. They only turned on their cells when the gate appeared. No chance for anyone to beat them inside.

“Your com on?” she asked Beau, tucking her own into her ear.

“Read you loud and clear,” he replied. “I’ll clear the back.”

“Meet you upstairs in five.” She drew her Sig and took a step when Beau pulled her back. His lips found hers in a fiery kiss that melted her from the inside out.

“Stay safe,” he whispered, drew his own gun, and took off out the front door.

Eddie straightened and realized that, at the beginning of this, she’d had nothing to live for. Now, she couldn’t let herself or Beau die. Neither one would survive the loss.

She moved to the stairs, both rifles over her shoulder, and braced herself for the two-story climb up. Only the storerooms faced the front, and that was where she’d be. The flashlight beam was low, and she pushed open the door of the first room. She reached the window after checking the room to find it empty as well. She moved on to the rest of the second floor and finally the third. Her gaze lingered on the bed she and Beau had first made love in, and a pang of heat mingled with regret at what they’d started hit her. Depending on how tonight went, they might never be able to go farther with what they’d created together.

With the whole upstairs cleared, Eddie limped back to the storeroom and opened the windows in the first and second one. She readied the rifles near her and checked them again to be sure they were loaded.

Beau’s voice came over the com. “Outside perimeter is clear. Where are you?”

“Second floor. Inside’s clear too.”

“Heading up now.”

Barely a minute later, she heard Beau coming up the steps. “How’s your leg holding up?”

“I could ask you the same thing about your wounds,” she muttered quietly.

“Eddie, don’t start that shit.”

She lifted her gaze to his. “It’s killing me, but I’ll live. Had worse, remember? I don’t have a choice anyway. It’s either end this now or watch Hugh get lucky and kill one of us, and I’m not ready to watch you die, Beau Savage.”

Beau was in front of her before she could blink and pulled her into his arms. His lips pressed against hers in a desperate need to be close, and she knew why. If their plan worked and they lured Hugh and her brother in, there was a chance they might not live. They wouldn’t know if help would arrive or not. No way to know if Jackie had received her message. For the moment, they were on their own.

Beau broke the kiss, reluctance in his eyes and spreading from his hands as he forced himself away. He glanced past Eddie’s head, and his lips thinned. “Headlights.”

“I think our guests have arrived.”

“Damn. You sure this is what you want to do?”

“Little late to back out now,” she said. She wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t come, and the longer she stared into his eyes, the more she knew he felt exactly the same way. His arms were around her once more, his lips hard against hers, fighting for what might be their last moment together.

Then he broke the kiss, set her back on her feet, and left the room without another word.

Eddie blew out a breath. It was time to work. She picked up the first rifle, fully loaded with five rounds and more tucked in her vest. She put the scope to her eye, adjusting it as need be until the faces in the vehicle outside the gate came into focus. They were barely a hundred yards away. She could hit them easily, but she needed to draw them in. She needed to see Hugh’s and Shane’s faces before she pulled the trigger.

“How many?” Beau’s voice whispered over the com. He was hidden downstairs somewhere, ready to take out whomever ventured in first.

“Hang on.” She watched as the gate opened. “Two SUVs. Three men with Sigs in the first and…” She moved the rifle until the scope focused on the second vehicle. “Targets one and two are here.” She tried to distance herself from Shane as much as possible, but the anger came through anyway.

“Hold steady, Sage,” Beau whispered. “Don’t shoot him yet.”

“No promises,” she muttered, but her finger was off the trigger as she watched. “Eight men total. Gate is now closed behind them, and they’re walking towards the house.”

“Ready when you are, Sage.”

She resisted the urge to say she was born ready, placed her finger on the trigger, and waited patiently for her first shot.

***

Hugh glared at the house rising up out of the dark before them. The Hummer was parked out front, and Eddie’s cell pointed to the same location. The question was where they were hiding.

“This is a trap,” Shane muttered beside him.

“Yes, I know,” Hugh said coldly. “You think I’m a fool? They wanted us here, and we’re here.”

The minute Shane called to say they were found, he’d grinned. If Eddie wanted to play with him again, he’d play, and she’d regret every decision she’d ever made. Shane told him about her new relationship with Beau, how close they’d become. It was easy to bug the house while he was in it. Hugh knew he was her lover, and he was going to delight in torturing and killing her in front of Savage before he finished him off.

“Surround the house,” he snapped.

His six men moved up the drive towards the house. They didn’t get far before a shot rang out and one man fell dead with a headshot. They scattered as Hugh and Shane ducked behind the cover of the SUV. He watched his men slink forward again. A second shot rang out, hitting the gravel by their feet, but the third hit home, and the man gurgled on his blood as he died from the chest wound.

“I think we found your sister,” Hugh snapped as Shane glared at the open second story windows. “I thought you were the best shot in the family.”

Shane muttered under his breath as he hurried back around the SUV, staying low. A minute later, he came back with two rifles, handing one to Hugh. “Remember how to shoot?”

Hugh checked the rifle and set himself up on the hood of the SUV. A shot rang out and hit close to him, missing by inches. He held his breath and adjusted his scope as he moved the barrel. Both windows were open. He aimed for the farthest one and fired into the opening. When a fourth shot rang out, pummeling the hood of the SUV, he turned to the second window, lined up his shot, and fired. Something shifted in the shadows, and he grinned.

“First window,” he muttered to Shane. “Move! We’ll cover you!”

Shane took up a position right beside him, and they fired off shots into that window as the remaining four men stayed low and hurried to the front of the house. Another shot rang out at their feet, but Hugh and Shane returned fire, giving the men a chance to take cover under the overhang. Two moved around to the back as the other two hurried through the destroyed entranceway.

“We’ll give them time to get inside and flush them out,” Hugh said, staying where he was.

Shane fired another shot into the window, and Hugh glared at him. “What?”

“Save your ammo. You might need it later.”

A few minutes later, a gunshot rang out from inside the house. Savage. Hugh frowned. Of course they would split up. No matter. He’d kill them both in the end. He pressed his eye back to the scope and leered when he caught movement in the shadows of the room. “And the game begins.”

***

“Beau, they’re coming in,” Eddie whispered. “Probably going to split.”

“Understood.”

Eddie grabbed the second rifle, the first empty, and put it back up to the window when a shot broke through the glass above her. She ducked as glass covered her head. “Bastards.”

Time to move. Beau was on the first floor, and she’d be able to spot the men from the second floor landing. She glanced out the window again as a gunshot echoed through the house. A minute later, another shot exploded inside the room, and she fell flat again.

“Savage?”

“Still here, Sage,” Beau muttered. “One more down.”

“I’m moving to spot.”

“No. Keep your eyes on the targets. I don’t want to lose them.”

Eddie wanted to argue, but that would be a distraction. “Roger that,” she muttered and pushed herself back up to her knees and hurried for the hall. She checked to be sure it was clear then quickly moved into the second room. A shot into the first room, and she tallied up when they would have to reload. Soon, but so would she.

***

Beau peered out from the basement stairs. The two men who’d come through the front split up the second they were through the door. He tucked his gun back in his holster and drew his knife. He crept out from the shadows. He reached around and slit the guy’s throat, covering his mouth with his hand to muffle his yell. Beau was lowering his body to the floor when the second turned and fired a shot. Beau rolled out of the way and circled around towards the kitchen.

There were two other men accounted for, but he did not want Eddie coming down here. She was safest upstairs, and he was going to keep it that way.

He held his knife in one hand as he drew his Sig again. There was a hall that ran from the front around to the kitchen and the side entrance. Beau arrived at the end of the hall and poked his head out. Shots exploded in the wall around him, and he pulled back, pressing his back into the hall, and waited.

When the shooting stopped, he held his breath and stepped out from around the wall, firing, and ducked on the other side of the counter. He took the time to reload his Sig, throwing the spent magazine aside.

Gunfire erupted over his head, but he couldn’t sit there all night. Beau pulled the Hummer keys out of his pocket and threw them across the room. The shots followed them, and he jumped up, firing into the man fully exposed across the kitchen. His body slumped over the kitchen table, his eyes wide in the moonlight from outside.

“Two down,” he whispered.

“Roger,” Eddie replied. “The other two are probably out back.”

The doors were shattered from the attack days before, and Beau stayed in the shadows as he peered out into the darkened garden. It would be suicide to walk out there, but it would be better than drawing them into the house.

“Eddie, moving to the back.”

“Wait, let me get upstairs. I’ll spot them.”

“No,” he snapped. “Stay where you are. If the targets move, I want to know.”

He waited for the argument, but she stayed silent. “Eddie?”

“Do it,” she said. “But if your ass gets shot, don’t blame me.”

“Noted,” he said, lips lifting in a grin. He stayed as low and as much in the shadows as he could. He ventured out to the back to find the other two men. They were nothing more than a distraction, and Beau knew it. Hugh would use them to enact his plan to get him and Eddie. The faster they took care of the distraction, the faster they could move on to killing the man they really wanted.

***

Shane’s eye stayed on the window opening as gunfire erupted from inside the house. Hugh kept checking with the men, and from the sound of it, two were down. This was not going as he’d hoped, and he was tired of hiding from his sister like a coward.

He shifted his barrel to the front door, hoping to catch a glimpse of Savage. He thought of telling Hugh he was going in, no matter what, when pain exploded at his right ear and he staggered backwards, hitting the ground hard. Something warm trickled down the side of his neck, and when he reached up, blood wet his fingers. Hugh returned fire—one shot followed by a quick second—but then there was silence.

“She nearly took your head off,” Hugh muttered.

Shane winced, cursing at the throbbing pain. The bullet had hit his earlobe, barely missing his head. He glared at the window then at Hugh. “Can I move in now?”

“Fine,” Hugh said, “but you do not kill her. That’s my job.”

“Whatever,” Shane muttered and left his rifle on the ground. He wiped the blood from his hand on his pants, and as Hugh covered him, he sprinted towards the house. A shot hit near his feet before Hugh let loose. Shane ducked inside the house. He drew his Sig as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

Now let’s see who the better sibling is
, he thought and crouched down in the shadows.
Come and get me, Eddie
.

***

“Charges are set, sir,” one of Hugh’s men said through his com.

“Good. Any sign of Savage?”

“No, nor the other one.”

Hugh watched Shane duck into the house. He’d let the siblings deal with each other. Shane knew not to kill her. Hugh would go after Savage. He waited to see if Eddie would fire on him, but there was silence, and he ran for the cover of the porch. The charges were set around the base of the house as a precaution. If he couldn’t get them where he wanted them, he’d blow them all to hell and get his ass out of there. The time was set for twenty minutes. If they weren’t finished by then, the house would blow.