Vigilante Mine (45 page)

"Ry, where the fuck are you?" he asked his earpiece, his voice hoarse.

Amanda's feet sidled toward her precinct. "I'm going to try the service shaft he used."

"You can't, Amanda. It's too late." Jay's hands clamped on her biceps. "It's going to explode."

"No!" She surged forward, stumbled away from Ryan's brothers, but Romeo knocked into her legs. Pavement scratched her palms raw.

Sparks ignited the night sky.

Fireworks and shattered glass ripped across the parking lot.

CHAPTER THIRTY

"Ryan!" Amanda screamed.

Too much.

She desperately blocked the sounds of disaster from her immediate attention, pushing the sirens out of her head and wishing she could do the same for the ears of the man she loved.

Loved.

She choked on a sob. He loved her, and she'd never gotten a chance to tell him
—
No!

She reached through their link as if she could pull him to her side. He was always helping everyone else, always putting others first, always jumping in to fix things. She wanted to be the one to do the same for him. If she could just reach him, protect him, save him, hold him, shield him . . . she'd never, ever let him go.

"Interesting,"
Romeo murmured in the back of her mind.
"Yes, Spirit-mate his, keep doing that."

The smoke was clearing. She registered Jay's hand on her shoulder. The building still stood. Jackson had used faulty explosives on McLelas Financial. Maybe this time, his design simply hadn't been as powerful as he'd believed.

Ryan. Oh, Ryan.

Damn it, don't be dead, you flirtatious bastard.
Even her mental voice cracked.
I love you.

I love you too, Amanda.

Ryan? Ryan!

His telepathic embrace wrapped around her with weakened arms, but he was there. Alive. She threw her love, hope, and relief into the fully-formed telepathic connection.

"Ryan!" she shouted, and Jay's grip squeezed.

If you're not busy, I could use a hand with this door.

Amanda almost laughed with relief. Door? What about the walls? The ceiling?

Except the building hadn't collapsed.

We're coming. We're coming.

She heard his heartbeat, his breathing, and held him to her heart even tighter as Jay and Romeo pushed with her through law enforcement ranks and to the front of the building.

Glass littered the sidewalk. The lockdown bars had lifted once more. Amanda led their rescue team to the elevator doors and began to pull.

Romeo stopped her.
"Let the little one open the door. Hold the Spiritwalker."

The alarm was still sounding. Amanda blinked in surprise as she stepped aside to let Jay handle the elevator and she focused on Ryan.

My earpiece is
fried, sweetheart. You're
—
you're helping me filter. I don't know how, but it's working.

The lockdown alarm should have knocked him out cold after the system had overloaded, but instead he only felt beaten to a pulp. He'd made it to the elevator. His eardrums were intact. They were still intact, and the alarm hadn't stopped. Somehow, his Spirit-mate's attempt to reach him buffered the piercing wail, shielding it from his ears like the piece of equipment Zach had designed for his protection. There was no white noise, just . . . less noise, period.

The doors parted and Ryan tumbled out of the elevator. Amanda was there to catch him.

"I love you," she sobbed into his chest, flooded their telepathic connection with the emotion.

"Let's get out of here so you don't have to fight the building, huh?" Jay asked softly.

He nodded against his Spirit-mate's shoulder and accepted his brother's hand up. They walked out the front door. Victory beat in his veins and Ryan rubbed his fingers over Amanda's spine in half-relief, half-incredulity.

Jackson had failed.

The bomb's still active?
Amanda's mind brushed his.

He nodded slowly, trying to grasp the incredible depth of their connection.
The trigger is blocked. Our plan worked.

"Well, something exploded," she said aloud, her detective mode clicking on even as she clung to him. "The windows blew out. Lots of smoke, lots of noise. Fireworks."

Jay moved to take the lead.

The protective bubble around his ears seemed to expand as bomb squad personnel ran past and he, Amanda, Jay, and Romeo waded through a sudden onslaught of reporters. Police officers held the nosy cameras and mics at bay, but didn't stop them from passing.

Amanda snapped the fingers of her free hand. "Maybe lockdown? Our tech guy said it was rebooting. It closed us out again but maybe . . . maybe it overloaded."

"It doesn't matter, sweetheart. We made it." He slid into the empty back seat of Jay's car.

Amanda slipped in next to him. Or maybe he dragged her in after him. It seemed neither one of them was willing to let the other go.

"I love you." Her face turned up and Ryan's lips homed in on hers.

His. She was his, and she'd saved him.

"There are other bombs," Jay was saying when they came up for air. "Comms are still down."

Amanda's grip twisted in his shirt.

He met a deep, blue gaze filled with resolve and caressed her cheeks with his thumbs. "I have to go in after the others."

"I'm hoping they've had time to find the transmitters and can handle those on their own." She flashed a weary smile. "You don't need an entire city's worth of karmic balance."

"You're right. I only need you." He winked and she chuckled as she laid her head against his chest.

"Get a room." The passenger in Jay's front seat groaned like he'd taken the same punch to the guts Ryan had when the alarms had come on. Zach. Ryan gripped his brother's shoulder and Zach's hand squeezed his, then dropped away. "I'll live, bro."

Jay had lifted another signal jammer from a cell tower on the way to the precinct, and Zach set to work en route to their next stop, re-configuring it for close-range interference. It took Amanda acting as buffer and filter for his ears for Ryan to stop the timer on the second bomb, and by then, law enforcement was up to speed. Hazardous Devices teams around the city worked to find transmitters and shut down bombs. Technical crews re-established communications.

Noon came, and Jackson's bombs leveled their first building.

Then the second.

The parking garage of a third.

By midnight, they'd missed a total of seven. Past midnight, no more explosives rocked Relek City. Press releases, building searches, doctor visits, everything passed in a blur.

Until Ryan finally stood on the balcony of his condo two weeks later with his earpiece off and the woman he loved in his arms, watching a luminous red and purple sunset made more stunning by the mere, incredible fact that they were both alive to share its glow.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

"I can't work
for you." Amanda held out a hand for his glasses. "Not private sector. I need this challenge. Besides, it's not just the turf war violence that threatens public safety. The syndicates won't be able to keep silent much longer about the foothold they have on the government, the force, who knows what other key positions in the city. If the rest of us
—
the officers who care about Relek, its people
—
break for private security firms and . . . special projects . . . then we'd be handing over control without resistance."

Ryan sighed and slipped the frames off of his face. "They're in deeper than we knew."

Corruption wasn't a surprise. But they now faced the impending consolidation of power into criminal hands. Shaw Family's flunkies had been more than willing to point out informants and plants in exchange for lighter jail time. Unfortunately, covers were extensive and paper trails were clean. Evidence, witnesses, trials
—
housekeeping could take a decade. At least McLelas luck had made a showing: Klepto's new partner was keen to unseat his competition. Underground resources would help them track blackmailers and discover syndicate players in the ranks sooner.

"You'll fix it." Her palm cooled his cheek. "I'm not sure you know how to do anything else."

He smiled, unbuttoning his shirt with one hand. "Careful, sweetheart. Starting to sound an awful lot like you condone my actions."

She leaned into him. "You protect and serve your way; I'll protect and serve mine."

Ryan pressed a long kiss to the side of her neck. "I won't be out late."

"Another night among shadows and thieves. Don't piss off any snipers, okay? I like you alive." She nipped at his now-bare chest. "And in one piece."

"Ten-four, Lieutenant McLelas." Ryan winked, then hauled a black t-shirt over his head. "It's just Murphy. Romeo will be Listening for trouble."

"All the same. One piece, buster."

On went his cargo pants, trench coat, the winter-warm socks and heavy boots. He blew her a kiss, and with it, the telepathic sensation of want. Need. And love. The kind filled with the same snug, perfect warmth he found whenever his arms circled her waist and her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder.

"Keep the bed warm." Ryan plucked the last piece of his guise from her open palms, the mask that would never again come between them.

"I love you." Amanda signed the words, too, smiling as she curled in the middle two fingers of her right hand and pressed her thumb, index finger, and pinky over his heart. "Vigilante mine."

I have an overwhelming amount of gratitude for the overwhelming amount of support I had in my corner during the birth of this book. And during its revisions. Revisions and rewrites are a true test of a writer’s support system, and every single one of you hung in to The End: Thank you Carl, for making sure I remembered to eat. Thank you Cindy, for being the best critique partner I could have hoped for. Thank you to my TriMu writing group, for being supportive, wonderful ladies who believed I could tell a story, if only I’d stop accidentally killing off the main characters.

I love you all.

Thank you for giving Ryan's story a read. I hope you enjoyed meeting him, Amanda, and Romeo as much as I enjoyed tormenting them!

My Relek City series is set in a city on the edge of a criminal turf war. Three brothers with supernaturally cursed senses and telepathically connected animal guides pose as the same vigilante. Each book follows a brother's journey to walk the gray line against crime and introduces the strong woman destined to end his personal war between curse and gift with the strongest weapon of all: love.

So which brother gets to meet his Spirit-mate next? Jay! Keep an eye out
—
pun intended
—
for him and his owl, late 2015.

If you'd like to know exactly when to expect my next release, you can sign up for my email newsletter at
http://www.ceradaniels.com
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http://www.ceradaniels.com/blog
. New readers on my email list get a free sneak peek of an upcoming tale.

I hang out on Twitter. Follow me at
@CeraDaniels
for my adventures in writing, mommying, and general mayhem. And drop me a line sometime!

Reviews are always appreciated.

Recommending this book to a friend? First: I am so, so grateful for your support; word of mouth referrals are terrific compliments! Second: Please send an email to
[email protected]
or a tweet to
@CeraDaniels
to let me know you've helped someone else find my books. I'll send you a fun little deleted scene with Ryan and Amanda
—
my way of saying thanks.

Up Next: Vigilante's Dare

Relek City's number one crime boss will not be denied: Emily Barton, an animal empath and owner of a successful therapy clinic, will heal his son's terminal cancer, or she will die. But masked vigilante Jay McLelas, a man with supernatural night vision and an owl companion, will relentlessly protect the woman he's inexplicably drawn to. Though Emily's growing empathic abilities threaten to unmask her nighttime guardian, risking the brittle trust between them, she and Jay must battle blackmail, drugs, dirty cops
—
and their own conflicted hearts.

For an excerpt from Vigilante's Dare, please turn the page.

Excerpt from
Vigilante's Dare
:

Jay McLelas tapped
the button on his earbud communicator. "I'm in." Frowning at the broken chain lock dangling from the back of the door, he twisted the deadbolt. Cinnamon and a hint of apple hit his nose as his silent feet padded through the darkness of apartment 504's tiny kitchen.