“Jesus H Christ!” Tucker Chase snarled from somewhere far away. “You guys think you got him?”
“Had to make sure Tripp didn’t miss,” Jameson countered easily, his voice just as muffled.
“Him miss? At this range?” Tucker scoffed, his voice as distant as Jameson’s. “Alex already wasted the prick. How the fuck do you even own a pistol, Tenney?”
“Easy. I qualify. Why didn’t you fire?”
Tripp was barely able to hear, but he couldn’t hold back a smile, listening to the Neanderthal FBI director argue with the inestimable Jameson Tenney, blind sniper extraordinaire. Jameson had only done what any decent soldier would’ve done. He’d simply covered his buddy’s ass and made damned sure the HVT was down for good.
Peeling out of his jacket, Tripp covered Ashley’s bare body. While she hiked her bra into place and shivered her arms into the too-long sleeves, he zipped the damned thing up all the way to her chin. No one needed to ogle his woman like he knew they were. Men! What a bunch of animals.
Once she was snug inside his jacket, her breasts covered and most of her long legs out of sight, he placed his hand on the knife wound under her chin.
“You need this?” Jameson came to Tripp’s rescue, a palm-sized bandage in his fingers. How the hell did he even know Ashley’d been cut?
“Yeah, man, thanks,” Tripp answered, taking the bandage. “Sure do.”
“Tripp,” Ashley breathed into his neck. She’d burrowed back under his chin, her fingers ice cold, and the rest of her a one hundred percent quivering female. “Don’t let me go. P-p-please, hold on tight to me.”
“Never. I’ve got you, kiddo. Just tip your head up a little, so I can take care of that cut,” he replied, his heart pounding like a mother at how close he’d come to losing her.
While Jameson crouched silently at his side like a bodyguard with his head up, sometimes tilted, sometimes not, Tripp peeled the sterile bandage open. “Battle scars,” he told Ashley. “You should be proud. You’re a bona-fide badass now.”
Despite his shaky fingers, Tripp managed to press the sticky bandage under her chin. The knife cut was small, not deep, thank God. Better yet, most of the blood and gore from the photographer’s head painted the wall behind her, instead of her.
But shit, damn, and son of a bitch. Enough was enough. Three fuckin’ times she’d been a target! What the bloody hell?!
“J-j-just like l-l-last time.” Hiccups racked Ashley’s slender shoulders when he had her snuggled back in his arms. “He just came right in. Only this time, he unlocked my deadbolt, Tripp. Can you believe that? I thought I was safe, but I never really was. I was in my kitchen, but then I heard Peewee squawking, and when I turned around, and I… and he…”
“You fought back,” Tripp said more calmly, needing her to settle down before she launched another panic attack. “That’s all that matters. Focus, babe. Breathe in, breathe out. You just realized you’re stronger than you thought.”
“I am!” The poor woman’s teeth chattered. She had enough adrenaline thrumming through her tiny body to power the entire state of Virginia.
Jameson landed a solid palm on her trembling shoulder, then squeezed. “You got quite a few good licks in this time, girlfriend. Good for you. You hurt him. He was in trouble before we arrived. I could tell by his voice.”
Ashley snorted the most unladylike snort, as she peered around Tripp’s arm up at Jameson. “I-I had to. He was gonna kill me. I used Peewee’s new perch. He didn’t think I’d hit him, but I showed him.”
“Yes, you did,” Tripp purred, so proud of her that tears blurred his vision. “But why’d he drag you out of your place and into mine?”
“He didn’t think you’d look for me here,” she murmured, snuggling back under his chin. “I was so scared. He said he was gonna hurt your mom, too. But the first chance I got, I swung that perch, hard. Once I used it like it was a pool cue, then like it was a baseball bat. I hit him!”
“Homerun!” Jameson crowed. “Your fighting back like is what gave us enough time to get to you.”
“I j-j-just did what Tripp said.” She tipped back far enough to look up at him. “G-g-go in fast, hit h-h-hard. Never let him see me coming. And never give up. But he punched my chest, and he slapped me, and…” That explained her fat lip. Even as pumped as she was, Ashley was falling apart. Her cheeks were puffy and red, and tears spiked her eyelashes. She latched onto his biceps. “He was gonna kill me, Tripp. In your place. He was doing it to hurt you.”
That made no sense. “Why?”
“Because he said Trish had been out there for a reason the night he attacked her. That she led him to you, and you led him to me.”
“He admitted he hurt Tripp’s sister?” Jameson asked.
Ashley’s head bobbed. “Yes, and he said you made him look bad, Tripp.”
“Shit,” Jameson muttered. “That crowd did some hardcore taunting that night.”
Tripp shrugged. “So what? Someone called him a pussy. Told him to fight back.” Which APD’s photographer hadn’t been able to do with Ashley. Brutalizing women was bully work, best done in the dark, by weak men to weak women. It wasn’t fair fighting. The bastard could dish it out, but he couldn’t take it once his victim fought back.
Truthfully, Tripp had lost track of the guy once Jameson had knocked Tripp on his ass at his sister’s crime scene that night. After Alex had relieved him of his pistol. He’d had Trish to think about then, not some employee who should’ve been thoroughly vetted by Alexandria’s finest.
Ashley burrowed deeper into the folds of his jacket, hiding her face. He
