“How do I know you didn’t do this?” Nate fired back. “After all, you’re the one who claims to have brought Ramirez here to the ranch.” Nate mentally cursed when he tried the codes again. And they failed, again.
“It’s not a claim. It’s the truth,” Adam insisted. “I had to bring him here or he would have killed me on the spot. He broke into my hotel room, put a gun to my head and forced me to drive him here. I couldn’t just let him shoot me.”
“He’ll kill you, anyway,” Nate pointed out.
He gave up on reactivating the exterior cameras and checked to make sure the intruder alarms for the doors and windows were still armed.
Thank God. They were.
“I’m not sitting out here in the open any longer,” Adam said. “Ramirez could decide to come after me before he finishes you two off.” At least that’s what Nate thought the man said, but he couldn’t be sure because Adam gunned the engine.
Darcy’s gaze flew to his, and she started to get up from the floor, but Nate caught her shoulder to keep her where she was. Right now, the floor was the best place for her, especially since it meant she was away from the windows. The security system would trigger the alarms if anyone tried to break in, but Ramirez could still shoot through the glass.
“Adam’s getting away,” she reminded him.
“For now. And that’s not a bad thing. I don’t want to have to deal with him right now. Only Ramirez.” Besides, if Ramirez attempted to kill Adam, Nate would have to do something to stop it. He only wanted to concentrate on keeping Darcy and his brothers alive.
“We need another weapon,” he said. He handed her his cell phone. “Stay put and call Mason to let him know what’s going on. Tell him that Ramirez is probably headed straight for the house.”
She gave a shaky nod, but her eyes widened when he handed her his gun. “It’s just a precaution,” he added. And maybe it would stay that way—a precaution—but Nate doubted it. Ramirez was a crazy man on a mission of murder.
He ran back down the hall while Darcy made the call to Mason. Nate tried to listen to the conversation, but thanks to the relentless storm, Darcy’s voice soon faded from hearing range when he hurried into his office.
Where there were windows.
The windows were the reason he’d wanted Darcy to stay put.
Nate tried to make sure Ramirez wasn’t lurking outside one of them, but the rain streaks on the glass and the darkness made it impossible. So, he stayed low and went to his desk. To the bottom drawer. It had a combination safety lock, and once again the darkness wasn’t in his favor, but he finally entered the correct code and jerked open the drawer.
Two guns.
He slid one in his holster, held on to the other one and crammed some extra magazines of ammo into his pockets. It was more than enough to fight off one man, but Nate had no way of knowing if Ramirez had brought backup.
The moment Nate stepped back into the hall, his attention went to Darcy. She wasn’t talking on the phone, but she was staring at the laptop screen.
“Did you get Mason?” he whispered. Also a precaution. Even though it was a long shot, he didn’t want Ramirez to hear them and know where to shoot.
She nodded, still not taking her wide eyes from the screen. “Look,” she insisted.
Nate cursed. He didn’t have to guess that something was wrong. Darcy’s expression said it all. And Nate soon knew what had caused her reaction.
Five of the security screens were still filled with static, but the sixth was working. Working, in a bad way.
Ramirez’s face was on the screen.
He was clearly soaked, but he was giving them that slick grin that made Nate want to come through the computer and rid the man of his last breath.
“Can he see us?” Darcy asked.
“No.” The security cameras didn’t have a two-way feed. But Nate could certainly see Ramirez.
“Where is he? Can you tell?” she wanted to know.
Nate really hated to say this aloud. “I can’t tell from the screen.” Mainly, because Ramirez was blocking the entire camera. “It’s camera five, and it’s on this wing of the house.”
“Oh, mercy,” she mumbled.
And Nate had to agree. Ramirez had gone directly to the spot where they were, and Nate didn’t think that was a coincidence. He studied the screen, looking for any sign that the man had an infrared device with him, but Nate could only see that face. That grin. And the evil in his eyes.
As a cop, Nate had faced cold-blooded killers before, but Ramirez was the worst of the worst.
“What’s he saying?” Darcy asked when Ramirez’s lips began to move.
There was no audio, but it didn’t take Nate long to figure out that Ramirez was repeating the same three words.
Ready to die?
Judging from the gasp Darcy made, she had figured it out, as well.
“Mason said he’d let everyone know that Ramirez is on the grounds,” Darcy relayed. “They’re moving closer to the house so they can try to spot him.”
Good. That meant in ten minutes or so, Darcy and he would have plenty of backup. Of course, Ramirez might have plenty, as well, and he needed to warn his brother that they might be walking into an ambush. Mason would already be prepared for that, but Nate wanted to make it crystal clear.
He took his phone back from Darcy. Just as Ramirez moved. Ramirez stepped to the side, and Nate then saw the other person behind Ramirez.
A man several yards away from the camera.
And this man wasn’t a stranger. Far from it.
“What the heck is he doing here?” Darcy asked.
Nate cursed. He wanted to know the same damn thing.
W
ESLEY
D
ENT’S FACE STARED
back at Darcy.
But not for long. The screen went fuzzy again. A Ramirez mind game, no doubt. The man was trying to keep Nate and her off-kilter.
It was working.
Instead of focusing on the impending attack, Darcy was wondering what her former client was doing outside the ranch house with Ramirez. Was Dent there to try to kill them, too? And if so, why?
She tightened her grip on the gun and hoped she would have answers soon. So much for believing in Dent’s innocence. He looked pretty darn guilty to her.
Crouched next to her, Nate flipped open his phone.
“You’re calling Mason?” Darcy asked.
But Nate didn’t have time to answer. Darcy heard the cracking sound and prayed it was a violent slash of lightning. But no. This was violence of a different kind.
A bullet slammed through a window.
Nate automatically shoved her lower to the floor, even though they weren’t directly in front of the window.
Any
window. But it was certainly nearby because she could hear the broken glass clatter to the floor.
“The guest room,” Nate supplied.
Her pulse kicked up a notch, and the blood rushed to her head. The guest room was where they’d made love less than a half hour earlier.
Nate made the call to Mason and warned him what was happening. The moment he ended the call, he moved her, positioning her behind him so that he was facing the side of house where that shot had been fired.
“Please tell me Mason is nearby,” Darcy whispered.
“He’s on his way.”
On his way
didn’t seem nearly close enough, and yet she didn’t want Mason or anyone else walking into gunfire.
The jolt of lightning lit up the hall, but the crashing noise from the following thunder was minor compared to the next shot that slammed into the house.
More broken glass fell to the floor.
“That was also in the guest room,” Nate explained. He took out an extra clip of ammo and handed it to her. “Just in case,” he added.
That gave her another slam of adrenaline.
So did the next bullet.
No broken glass. Just a loud, deadly-sounding thud.
“It went through the wall,” Nate whispered. She could hear the adrenaline in his voice, too, but his hand seemed steady.
Unlike hers.
Darcy was afraid she was shaking too hard to aim straight. The one good thing in all of this was that the children were safe. As bad as it was having Ramirez shoot at them, it would have been a million times worse if Kimmie and Noah had been anywhere nearby.
“Watch the foyer,” Nate instructed, and he angled his body so that his aim was fastened to the guest-room door.
Darcy turned, as well, and watched, though it was hard to see anything in the pitch-black foyer. However, she was certain if Ramirez managed to come through the front door, then she would hear him. And the alarms would go off.
Another shot slammed through the wall.
Beside her, Nate’s phone buzzed, and he answered it without taking his aim off the doorway. Since Darcy was so close, she could actually hear the person on the other end of the line.
Adam, again.
“You have to let me inside,” Adam demanded. “I tried to leave, but someone fired a shot at me.”
Darcy hadn’t heard such a shot, but it could have happened far enough away that the storm could have drowned it out.
“Not a chance,” Nate informed him. “We’re under attack and going to the door to let you in would be suicide for all of us.”
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do out here?” Adam yelled.
“My advice? Keep your voice down so Ramirez doesn’t hear you. Then, find a place to take cover.” Nate didn’t wait for Adam to respond. He snapped his phone shut and crammed it back into his pocket.
Darcy wanted to ask if Nate thought Adam was in on this. Or Dent. But the next shot stopped her cold. Again, no broken glass. This was a heavy thudding sound, but in the murky darkness, she saw the drywall dust fly through the air.
Oh, no.
The shot hadn’t gone through just the exterior of the wing, it had actually made it through the interior wall.
Just a few yards away from them.
She heard Nate’s suddenly rough breath, and he glanced around as if trying to decide where to move. Any direction could be dangerous.
And the next bullet proved that.
The blast was louder, much louder than the others, and she saw the large hole it made in the hall wall.
Closer this time.
“Ramirez is using heavier artillery,” Nate whispered. “Get all the way down on the floor.”
But he didn’t wait for her to do that. He put his hand on her back and pushed her, hard, until her face was right against the hardwood.
Just as another bullet tore through the wall.
Sweet heaven. This one was even closer.
Maybe Ramirez was using infrared to find them, but if so, why hadn’t he just aimed at them right from the beginning?
“Shhh,” she heard Nate say, and he brushed the back of his hand over her cheek.
It took her a moment to realize he was doing that because her breathing was way too fast and shallow. She was on the verge of hyperventilating, and that couldn’t happen. She couldn’t fall apart because Nate needed her for backup in case Mason didn’t get there in time.
Darcy concentrated on leveling her breath. And her heartbeat. She fixed her mind on Noah’s smiling face. Kimmie’s and Nate’s, too, and just like that, her body started to settle down. She fought to hang on to her newly regained composure even when the next bullet slammed through the wall.
This one was just inches away.
“We have to move,” Nate whispered, and he caught her arm.
Darcy wasn’t even off the floor yet when there was another sound. Not a bullet this time.
Something much worse.
The security alarm blared, the noise seemingly shaking the walls. And she gasped. Because she knew what that sound meant.
Ramirez was inside the house.
Chapter Seventeen
Nate knew the nightmare had just gotten worse.
The clanging of the security alarms was deafening, but that wasn’t his biggest concern. With that noise, he couldn’t hear Ramirez or anyone else. And he needed to hear because in addition to Ramirez, he had both Adam and Dent on the grounds. For that matter, Marlene and Edwin could be at the ranch, as well.
Anything was possible.
Plus, he had to watch out for his brothers and everyone else trying to stop Ramirez.
Nate tried to keep watch all around them, but he had no idea where the intruder had entered. It could be any window or door in the house.
“I have to turn off the alarms,” Nate shouted, though Darcy only shook her head and touched her fingers to her ear.
Nate grabbed her, lifted her from the floor and turned her to the side so she could keep watch at the back of the foyer. He would take the front door and the hall, the most likely point of entry since the shots had come from that direction.
Trying to make sure they weren’t about to be ambushed, Nate led her into the foyer. Darcy kept her gun ready and aimed. Nate did the same. And they made their way across the open space.