Not Just Friends (Hot in the City #3) - T. Gephart Page 0,86

with tears as she hugged me first and then Tibbs, telling us both to be safe.

“I love you, Presley.” I turned to Tibbs and pulled out my keys. “We’ve got to go.”

Jared

EITHER WE’D MANAGED to cash in that miracle or one of the angels was intervening, but we finally got through to Mack. He’d gone to check out Hayden’s apartment in Inwood when he’d heard the 9-1-1 call from the store manager come through dispatch. Tibbs rapid fired his additional information, letting Mack know we were on the way as we hit the FDR.

The phone wasn’t even on speaker, the roar coming down the line as clear as if he was sitting in the car with us. I could only imagine how he felt, the idea that it could’ve been Presley, still very much on my mind.

Which was why I called North.

I knew his wife had just had a baby and the last thing he needed was to be tangled up in this mess. But if shit went down, Mack was going to need his family. And as much as I liked to think Tibbs and I could be there for him, there was only one of us he saw as a son, and that was Riley.

By the time we’d pulled into the Target parking lot, the active shooter situation had turned to shit. SWAT had stormed in and gotten the gunman down, but not before he’d shot a female victim. And I didn’t need to hear the description to know it had been Hayden.

We met Mack in the parking lot, the guy half out of his mind as Rockefeller tried to talk him down. I didn’t like the detective’s chances; the stare Mack was giving him lethal. Not sure if it was an effort to keep Mack calm or he’d finally decided to throw us a bone, but Rockefeller shed some light on Lewis.

It seemed the cocksucker hadn’t only been Presley’s ex-boyfriend but was also related to Hayden. In what had to be slim-to-none chances, Lewis Goodman, AKA DJ Lewis G, was actually Lewis Wright, brother to Cooper Wright, Hayden’s ex-husband.

There’d been some family issues, all of them disowning him—something I completely understood. So, by the time he’d started dating Presley, he was a completely reincarnated fuckface. Between that, the gambling and the debts he owed, he was a man ready to do anything to save his own ass. Even if it was taking someone he once shared a last name with at gunpoint.

By the time the EMTs entered there was no holding Mack back. And he’d either pulled rank or everyone was scared to tell him no, the chief pushing through the crowd to reach Hayden while Tibbs and I followed.

It was intense.

Cops were everywhere, collecting evidence, securing the scene, and a couple had taken the shithead into custody. Why they hadn’t just taken him down with a bullet to the head instead of the leg was beyond me. But I guess that was why I was a great fireman and would have made a lousy cop.

There was blood on the floor, Mack begging Hayden to stay awake as we looked on, unable to contribute any help. It was tough to watch, EMTs working on Hayden while Mack hovered like he was ready to rip out someone’s spine if they didn’t do everything they could to help her.

With so much blood, it was hard to see where exactly Hayden had been shot. It looked like a chest wound, the fact she was still semi-conscious a good sign and probably the only reason Mack hadn’t lost it completely.

“Her pulse is stabilizing. We need to move her,” Maree—one of the EMTs shouted, Taylor—the other—helping roll Hayden onto a stretcher.

As much as I sympathized with Mack, he was getting in the way, making Maree and Taylor’s job ten times harder because they had to contend with him as well.

With a silent nod, Tibbs and I each grabbed a side and held him back, Mack blinking back in genuine surprise. Either he’d forgotten we were there or he didn’t think we’d try and stop him, his death stare just as lethal as his tone.

“I’m going. Move your arms or I’ll rip them from their sockets.”

“You’re no good to her if you’re getting in the way.” North got in between the chief and the stretcher. “I’ll take you to the hospital, but you’re riding with me.”

Never had I been so glad to see Riley, his hand pressed against Mack’s chest with a single