In Plain Sight by Hope Anika

Chapter Twenty-Five

Twenty goddamn feet away.

And he’d been completely distracted. Unaware that anything was amiss until a split second before the first shot was fired.

Jesus Christ.

He hadn’t been that dumb since he was a kid.

He’d had one job to do and he’d—

“I know that look,” Max said. “Knock it the hell off.”

Rye only shook his head. He glanced into the back of the ambulance, where Ares was getting patched up. Selena sat beside the boy, tense and pale.

“You should kick my ass,” he said flatly.

“I’m the one who led them straight to her,” Max retorted.

“I shouldn’t have left them alone.”

“Then you’d be dead, too, and likely Fi along with you.”

Those words sent stone-cold fear through Rye, and he looked over to where Fiona stood with Thea, talking to one of the FBI agents who’d shown up en masse in the wake of Leland Dolan’s death. There were several local cops, too, and an ornery U.S. Deputy Marshal who kept giving Max the evil eye.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Rye said, lead in his gut.

“None of this should have happened,” Max said. “But here we are. So just stop. Shit happens. Everyone’s still breathing. That’s all I care about.”

Rye said nothing. There was no sugar-coating it.

He’d screwed up, and it was only through sheer luck that none of them had ended up dead. If he’d done his job, he wouldn’t have the headache from hell and a concussion, Ares wouldn’t have a gunshot wound, and Fi wouldn’t have to live with the fact that she’d killed a man.

“I’m counting this as a win,” Max muttered grimly. “I’d suggest you do the same.”

Still, Rye was silent. He was human; he made mistakes. But he didn’t let himself forget them.

“Hell, man, what more do you want? Selena’s safe, there’s no more need for her to testify. I got my man. And you…” Max paused and glanced at Fi. “Do I want to know?”

“You can be my best man,” Rye told him shortly.

Max stared at him, his gaze hard. “You hurt her, and Hatchet won’t be the only one breaking bones.”

“Worry about yourself. Your girl’s ready to gut you where you stand.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Max looked over at Thea. “I can’t wait.”

Rye only shook his head. “Any word on your partner?”

“She’s in ICU, stable, but not out of the woods.” Guilt flashed across Max’s face, and Rye knew he wasn’t the only one who felt like he’d made irretrievable mistakes. “I should have tied her to a chair and locked her in a closet.”

“She was doing her job.”

“Doesn’t matter. I should have protected her.”

“Because it’s your job to protect everyone. Now, who needs to grin and take the win?”

“Screw you.” Max rubbed his neck and sighed. “Leland is done, but big daddy’s going to be pissed I put junior down. And my in-this-to-his-eyeballs boss is suddenly AWOL.”

“Running or dead?”

Max shrugged. “DHS was already watching him before this cluster. He’s got bigger problems than the Bureau, or me. Dolan will blame him for this.”

“But you still want him,” Rye said.

“Blood for blood,” Max said simply, and Rye nodded.

“Why aren’t you in cuffs?” he asked.

“Valentine.” Max gave the Marshal eyeing them a cocky salute. “She went above everyone’s head and spilled the beans. Full disclosure, which breaks every rule in the book, but it worked. Got my ass off the hook and provided enough corroborating evidence between Dolan and his Bureau rats to open a larger investigation.”

Which meant this wasn’t done. That Max had killed Leland Dolan wouldn’t be the end of anything, which Max knew, because there was an underlying grimness to him that Rye had only seen in the sands of Afghanistan.

Adrenaline kicked through him. Sick bastard. Excited by the idea of more trouble. But he was built for trouble.

And now he had something worth protecting.

“And Lena?” he wanted to know. “What happens to her?”

Max said nothing. Then, “I think we should keep her.”

Rye had no problem with that. “She needs us.”

“But this shit isn’t done. I’m not a safe bet.”

“No one’s a safe bet. We just do our best. Trust me, no matter how badly we might screw it up, we’re better than the system.”

Max nodded, but his grimness didn’t ease. “You’re in?”

Rye looked over at Fiona. “You’re never going to get rid of me.” He paused. “You okay with that?”

“You break her heart, I’ll break your face.” Max shrugged. “Other than that, I’m great with it.”

Rye nodded.

Finally, it was their time.

Dolan was dead. The question of Selena’s future had been satisfactorily answered. And Max wasn’t going to freak out when Rye put his ring on Fiona’s finger.

He could give her all of the attention he’d had to divert to keeping Selena safe; he could woo her, and pursue her, and seduce her every chance he got.

Because the job might be done, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

He liked this life. It felt good. Like home.

He was staying.

“Thank you,” he said.

“She’s stubborn and mouthy as hell,” Max said gruffly, apparently unaware of the irony. “But she’ll always have your back.”

He walked away, and something stirred deep inside of Rye.

Warm and hopeful and bright.

Joy, he thought. And smiled.

*****

“I’m sorry,”Selena said for the hundredth time.

Shame coursed through her as she watched the paramedic—a cheeky African American woman who kept calling Ares “Bluebell”—clean and bandage his bullet wound, which was, thank God, just a deep graze on his side.

“Stop apologizing,” he muttered. “You didn’t shoot me.” He flinched beneath the paramedic’s no-nonsense treatment. “Jesus, woman. What is that? Acid?”

“Boy, you have more tats than a biker in the barrio.” The medic chortled. “No reason you should cry over a little saline. Nut up.”

Ares scowled. “Some bedside manner.”

“You aren’t in bed.”

An unexpected laugh tickled Selena’s throat, but it seemed wrong to laugh. He’d been shot. Because of her.

And he wasn’t the only one—Rye had been shot, too, although he’d ripped off the bandage the medic put on his head, which Selena thought was worse because now she could see the raw, ugly gouge that traced his temple. Fiona was covered in blood, and the box truck was full of bullet holes, just like the trailer, and everything was destroyed. Just the sight of it squeezed Selena’s chest so tight she wanted to throw up.

This was her fault.If she’d never come here, none of this would have happened to them—

“You didn’t do this,” Ares growled. “Stop blaming yourself.”

Which seemed impossible, because she had done this, just by coming here.

She hadn’t understood what it meant, that her being here would put all of them in danger. Even when Rye had followed her around, and invaded her privacy, and lectured her about staying within sight, she hadn’t understood the danger she represented to them.

That in protecting her, Rye had been trying to protect everyone else, too.

I knew the score, Fi had told her when Selena tried to apologize. I accepted the danger. This isn’t on you, honey. Not any of it.

But it was. Selena knew it was. And it was not something for which she could ever make reparations.

Worst of all, part of her wasn’t at all sorry. She was glad Leland Dolan was dead. Relieved and terribly satisfied; Max had shot him right between the eyes.

Gone.Just like that.

To borrow from Ares: hell, yeah.

And if it had seemed too quick—because Leland deserved to suffer—she would just remember the terrified look on his face after Thea touched him; the ear-splitting sound of his scream; the heavy darkness that filled the tent and swallowed him.

Selena didn’t care to speculate as to what that darkness had been, but she knew it hadn’t been anything good, and she thought that maybe it was a sign hell did exist.

She hoped so.

Part of her wanted to dance and sing and celebrate. And then she looked at the blood on her skirt and remembered that people she cared for had been hurt because of her, and all of her joy turned to stone.

At least it was over.

But what did that mean?

A question that brought even more despair. She had no one.

Would social services come for her now? She hadn’t had time to formulate a plan; all of her money was gone. She had no way to avoid or escape her fate. They would come, and she would have to go.

It’s over, Max had said. You’re safe.

But it wasn’t over. Her family was dead. For her, it was just the beginning.

And now, even after everything she’d experienced in the whirlwind that was the last week, even after she’d found herself, she was going to have to start over.

Again.

Which made her want to rage, and weep, and beg Fiona to let her stay.

But why would she? Fi’s trailer was ruined; her stock truck was a pile of rubble. She probably wanted to get as far away from Selena as possible.

And Max was an FBI agent. It wasn’t like he had room in his life for her. Even if he had hugged her hard after he’d shot Leland, even if he did keep checking on her. Making sure she wasn’t freaking out was one thing; taking responsibility for the rest of her life was another.

It was too much to ask. From any of them.

“Lena,” Ares snapped. “Ow!”

The medic rolled her eyes.

“No one’s mad at you,” he said, clearly exasperated. “So you can’t be mad at yourself.”

Yes, she could. But she was angrier at what she couldn’t control. The future; the past. What happened to her. She should have—

“I need you.” Max suddenly stood at the back of the ambulance. “Won’t take long.”

Selena didn’t move. He still looked startlingly different. Harder. Less the sleek FBI agent, and more the kind of man who could put a bullet between someone’s eyes without flinching.

A trait Selena admired. In hindsight, she was glad Thea had stopped her from shooting Leland Dolan, but she was deeply grateful Max hadn’t hesitated. He took the shot and accepted responsibility, refusing to be sorry.

He did it so she wouldn’t have to.

“Why?” she asked.

His brows rose. “Does it matter?”

She glanced at Ares, who, to her surprise, wasn’t glaring at Max. Instead, he wore a thoughtful expression, and when her gaze met his, he nodded shortly.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised, her heart a painful flutter in her chest.

The silent, suffocating anxiety that had stalked her since the night on the roof had turned into a sharper, more helpless kind of quiet terror. Losing her life, she thought, was one thing. But the thought of losing Ares…or any of these people who were suddenly incredibly important to her brought a whole different kind of fear to life.

“Stop worrying,” Ares told her softly.

“Thank you,” Max said, looking at him. “For shielding her.”

“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her.”

“That doesn’t make me any less grateful,” Max told him.

Selena stood and stepped out of the ambulance. The rain had finally stopped, but the wind was damp and cold, and outside the bright, noisy ring of FBI agents and police, a handful of people from the show lingered in the darkness, including Mick and his brother Josh, who nodded at her as she and Max walked past.

They all knew now.Who she was; what had happened.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Max said.

Great.

She halted. “What?”

He shook his head, took her arm, and tugged her along. “Not here.”

They passed Fi and Thea, both of whom frowned at Max, but he ignored them, not stopping until they were inside the shelter of Thea’s tent. Leland’s body was gone, leaving only a small slick of blood against the flattened grass. The rose quartz still glowed gently, and it was warmer in the tent, the faint scent of sage stronger than it had been earlier.

Max sat at the table in the middle of the tent; Selena reluctantly followed suit, sinking into the chair across from him.

“What?” she asked again, her stomach churning.

“You don’t have any family left,” Max said, staring at her.

Dread bloomed inside of her. “No.”

“The state will want to put you in foster care.”

She said nothing, hating the sudden, uncontrollable emotion that massed in her chest and sat there like a lead weight. The sting of tears; the thrush that filled her throat.

But there was no stopping it. Not after everything else that had happened in the last few hours.

“Do you want to go into foster care?” he asked.

“Who wants to go into foster care?” she ground out.

“I need to know.”

“Of course not,” she said in disbelief. “But it’s not like I have a choice.”

Max folded his tattoo-covered arms and leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes glinting in the pale rose light. “You have a choice. Might not be one you want, but you have a choice.”

Everything within her froze. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you want, you can stay with me.”

Selena could only stare stupidly at him. “What?”

“I’m no prize, and it can’t be right away, because this isn’t over—”

“It isn’t?” Fear gripped her. “Why not?”

“You’re safe, Selena,” he said gently. “No one else will come for you.”

“Then how is it not over?”

“It’s not over for me.”

Because he’d killed Leland Dolan. And there would be consequences.

He’d endangered himself yet again—for her.

“I’m sorry,” she said tightly, and a tear trickled past her control to slide down her cheek.

“I’m not,” Max told her simply, and more tears slipped from her eyes.

You can stay with me.It didn’t seem real. “Will I…will I have to go into foster care until I can be with you?”

“Not if I can help it. I have some pull, friends in high places. I’m confident we can get it done. Meanwhile, you can stay with Fi and Rye until I get things taken care of. Then we can figure it out.”

“And Fiona…she’s okay with this?”

“Yes.”

He was watching her, and in his brilliant gaze Selena saw a flicker of uncertainty, and the painful pressure inside of her threatened to burst. That Max—hard, sarcastic, sometimes scary Max—was unsure of himself with her—like he thought she was going say no—was somehow the final straw.

A sob broke from her, harsh and explosive.

“Don’t cry,” he said, alarmed.

“They’re good tears,” she wept.

“Does that mean you’re down with me being your guardian?”

He would be a constant pain in the neck. Dominating, and stubborn, and unreasonable. He would order her around and check up on her, and generally make life incredibly difficult.

But he was a good man. And compared to foster care…there was no contest.

Selena was very aware that he didn’t have to help her. He could easily walk away; job done. But here he was, offering her an entirely new life, despite the danger she’d brought to him. Despite everything.

She could stay.With Fi and Rye. With Ares.

She could belong.

Another sob escaped her.

“It doesn’t have to be me,” he said stiffly. “I’m sure Fi would step up if you’d prefer—”

“No!” she said quickly. “I just didn’t expect… I thought they would come and take me away.” The thought squeezed her, and another wave of tears slid down her cheeks. “And then I would never see any of you again.”

I would be alone. Again.

“Not unless that’s how you want it,” Max told her seriously.

“I don’t,” she said.

He grinned, and she blinked. All of his hardness fell away, and his teeth flashed in the dim tent, and for one, brief moment, he was beautiful.

“Good,” he said. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”