LITMIR.BIZ

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the boy not really even his son. Maybe it had all been an elaborate trap to lure him here—to his death. Plenty of people wanted him dead. That was why he usually had backup within gunshot range. But he hadn’t wanted anyone to be aware of his visit to the bedside of a man he didn’t really know but with whom he’d thought he’d shared a tragedy: Josie’s death.

      So nobody had known he was coming here. These men weren’t after him, because the suspects he knew wouldn’t have gone to such extremes to take him out; they wouldn’t have had to. Whenever they dared to try to take him out, as they had his father, they knew where to find him—at O’Hannigan’s. Inside the family tavern was where Josie had found him. He’d thought the little rich girl had just wandered into the wrong place with the wrong clientele, and he’d rescued her before any of his rough customers could accost her.

      Just as he had intended to rescue her now. But both times he was the one who wound up needing to be rescued. Maybe he should have had backup even for this uncomfortable visit. With the elevator doors wide open, Brendan was a damn sitting duck, more so even than the woman and the boy. They might be able to escape. Seeing the fear on their faces, pale and stark in the light spilling out of the elevator, it was clear that they were in real danger and they knew it.

      “Run!” he yelled at them.

      She sprinted away, either in reaction to his command or in fear of him as well as the armed men. With her and the kid out of the line of fire, he raised the gun he’d taken off their co-conspirator.

      But the men had divided their attention now. Standing back-to-back, one fired at him while the other turned his gun toward Josie.

      The boy clutched tightly in her arms, she ran, disappearing into the shadows before any bullets struck her. But maybe running wasn’t a good thing, given that the farther away she went, the thicker the shadows grew. The light from the elevator illuminated only a small circle of the rooftop around the open doors. The farther she ran, the harder it would be for her to see where the roof ended and the black abyss twenty stories above the ground began.

      He ducked back into the elevator and flattened himself against the panel beside the doors. He could have closed those doors to protect himself. But then he couldn’t protect Josie and the child. His son …

      These men weren’t just trying to kill the woman who was supposed to already be dead. They were trying to kill a helpless child.

      An O’Hannigan.

      His father would be turning over in his grave.

      Despite his occasional violent behavior toward them, Dennis O’Hannigan had never really wanted his family harmed—at least not by anyone but him. Brendan didn’t want his family harmed at all. He kept one finger on the button to hold open the doors. Then he leaned out and aimed the gun. And squeezed the trigger.

      His shots drew all the attention to him. Bullets pinged off the brass handrail and shattered the smoky glass of the elevator car. The glass splintered and ricocheted like the bullets, biting into his skin like a swarm of bees.

      His finger jerked off the button, and the doors began to close. But he couldn’t leave Josie and the child alone up here with no protection. Despite the other man’s warning, he had to play the hero. But it had been nearly four years since he’d been anything but the villain.

      Had he gotten rusty? Would he be able to protect them? Or had his arrival put them in even more danger?

      “THEY’RE ALL BAD men,” CJ said, his voice high and squeaky with fear and panic. “They’re bad! Bad!”

      He was too young to have learned just how evil some people were. As his mother, Josie was supposed to protect him, but she’d endangered his life and his innocence. She had to do her best to keep her little boy a little boy until he had the time to grow into a man.

      “Shh …” Josie cautioned him. “We need to be very quiet.”

      “So they don’t find us?”

      “First we have to find a hiding place.” Which wouldn’t be easy in a darkness so enveloping she could barely see the child she held tightly against her.

      She had been able to see the shots—those brief flashes of gunpowder. She’d run from those flashes, desperate to keep her son safe. But now those shots were redirected toward Brendan, and running wouldn’t keep CJ safe since she couldn’t see where she was going. She moved quickly but carefully, testing her footing before she stepped forward.

      “Are they shooting real bullets?” he asked.

      To preserve that innocence she was afraid he was losing, she could have lied. But that lie could risk his life.

      “They’re real,” she replied, aware that they’d come all too close to her and CJ. “That’s why we need to find a place to hide until the police come.”

      Someone must have heard the shots and reported them by now. Help had to be on the way. Hopefully it would arrive in time to save her and her son. But what about Brendan? He had stepped into the middle of an attempted murder—a double homicide, actually. And he hadn’t done it accidentally. He had tracked her to the roof, maybe to kill her himself. But perhaps he’d be the one to lose his life, since the men were now entirely focused on him.

      She shuddered, the thought chilling her nearly as much as the cold wind that whipped around the unprotected rooftop.

      “Let’s go back there, Mommy,” CJ said, lifting his hand, which caught her attention only because she felt the movement more than saw it.

      “Where?” she asked.

      “Behind those big metal things.”

      She peered in the direction he was pointing and finally noted the glint of some stray starlight off steel vents, probably exhaust pipes for the hospital’s heating or cooling system. If only they could escape inside them.

      But she could barely move around them, let alone find a way inside them. The openings were too high above the rooftop, towering over her. As she tried to squeeze around them, her hip struck the metal. She winced and swallowed a groan of pain. And hoped the men hadn’t heard the telltale metallic clink.

      “Shh, Mommy,” CJ cautioned her. “We don’t want the bad men to hear us.”

      “No, we don’t,” she agreed.

      “They might find our hiding place.”

      “I’m not sure we can hide here,” she whispered. She couldn’t wedge them both between the massive pipes. The metal caught at her clothes and scraped her arms. “We can’t fit.”

      “Let me try,” he suggested. Before she could agree, he wriggled down from her arms and squeezed through the small space.

      She reached through the blackness, trying to clutch at him, trying to pull him back. What if he’d fallen right off the building?

      She had no idea how much space was on the other side of the pipes. A tiny ledge? None?

      A scream burned in her throat, but she was too scared to utter it—too horrified that in trying to protect her son she may have lost him forever.

      But then chubby fingers caught hers. He tugged on her hand. “Come on, Mommy. There’s room.”

      “You’re not at the edge of the roof?” she asked, worried that he might be in more danger where he was.

      “Nooo,” he murmured, his voice sounding as if he’d turned away from her. “There’s a little wall right behind me.”

      “Don’t go over that wall,” she advised. It was probably the edge of the roof, a small ledge to separate the rooftop from the ground far below. A curious little boy might want to figure out what was on the other side of that wall.

      “Okay, Mommy,” he murmured again, his voice still muffled. Was he trying to peer over the side?

      She needed to get to him, needed to protect him, from the men and from

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