Falling for the Billionaire's Daughter - Lori Ryan Page 0,51

the woman from it. He held her roughly and when he spotted them, he turned pulling the woman up against him, his large hand around her neck as he held her in front of him like a shield.

Another man lay slumped by the wheelchair, not moving. They weren’t close enough to see if there was blood or how the man might be injured, but it didn’t look good.

“Mom!” Jane cried out, but Kaeden caught her around the waist.

Turner Carson looked like a man who hadn’t realized yet that he wasn’t going to be able to walk away from this unscathed. He looked at them like he fully expected them to walk away without helping the woman he so casually tossed around like a ragdoll.

Kaeden didn’t think he’d ever seen such hate in anyone’s eyes. Not in his years in the military when they were in firefights overseas. Not when he was facing down his platoon leader when he stopped him from raping Alyssa. Not when he’d faced the men who were angry at him for daring to speak out against their platoon leader.

And that hate was directed at Jane.

“You thought you could hide my wife from me, bitch,” Turner spat. “No one leaves me. No one hides from me.”

“Let her go, Turner!” Jane yelled, pleading as she tried to pull against Kaeden.

Kaeden put his mouth close to her ear. “Take it easy. We need to get your mom out of there without her getting hurt. And we don’t want him getting his hands on you, too.”

He had a feeling, whether the man realized it yet or not, that Turner now had very little to lose. There would be no denying this time, no covering up exactly what kind of man he was.

Kaeden could see the man’s hand closing on his wife’s neck and her eyes closing as she seemed to sway in his arms.

He heard a car come to a stop and glanced to the side to see the police officer Sam had sent for pulling up to the side of the bulding.

He actually heard the officer say, “holy shit,” before calling in the situation and asking for backup. Wonderful, they got a cop whose response was “holy shit.”

“Turner, you can’t walk out of here with her,” Kaeden said, trying to get the man to realize his best course of action was to let his wife go and surrender while they were all still alive.

The officer walked up then, his hand already reaching for his sidearm. Kaeden didn’t want it to come to that. Not with Jane’s mother in the way.

The officer tried to negotiate next. “Sir, let’s talk about this calmly. Whatever’s happening here, I’m sure we can work it out.”

“My wife is going home with me,” Turner called out. He seemed to look around then, as if finally taking in the reality of the situation. Fuck, this was going to get bad if Turner panicked. “She’s coming home with me,” he said again, this time more firmly as though simply saying it could make this all go away.

Kaeden saw Chad and Jack come around the other side of the building, moving slowly so they didn’t draw attention to themselves. He pushed Jane behind him and shifted closer.

“Sir, we want everyone to walk out of here. I’m sure that’s what you want, too, isn’t it?” the officer called out. Then he did the worst thing possible. He called attention to Jack and Chad by gesturing for them to move back. “I’m going to need you folks to stand back.”

Jane’s stepfather spun, wrenching her mother along with him to face them, before spinning back to face the officer again. Kaeden heard sirens in the distance.

He felt the burning need to get Jane’s mom out of there before this escalated.

“Let her go, Turner,” Jane said. “I’ll go with you if you let her go. You can hold onto me until you get out of here. No one will stop you.”

Kaeden’s gut churned at her words. No way could he let her walk away with Turner. He couldn’t stand back and let that happen.

The officer glanced her way. “Stand down, miss. No one is going anywhere with this man.”

Kaeden couldn’t blame her for trying. If his mom was the one in danger, he’d want to do the same thing.

Time seemed to stretch as they faced what was looking to be an insurmountable problem. They couldn’t get to her mom and Turner was showing no signs of giving up. The only good thing