bullet in his head. So instead of fighting with a weapon, he used his words.
“I’m Brendan O’Hannigan,” he said, “and that’s why you don’t want to shoot me.”
First the man snorted derisively as if the name meant nothing to him. Then he repeated it, “O’Hannigan,” as if trying to place where he’d heard it before. Then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped open as recognition struck him with the same force as if Brendan had swung his fist at him. “Oh, shit.”
That was how people usually reacted when they learned his identity—except for Josie. She had acted as if she’d known nothing of his family or their dubious family business. And she had gotten close to him, with her impromptu visits to the tavern and her persistent flirting, before he’d realized that she had been doing just that: acting.
She had known exactly who he was or she would have never sought him out. She’d been after a scoop for her father’s media outlets. Even after all those other stories she’d brought to him, she’d still been trying to prove herself to Daddy.
Brendan had devoted himself to just the opposite, trying to prove himself as unlike his father as possible. Until the old man had died, drawing Brendan back into a life that he had been unable to run far enough away from when he was a kid.
“Yeah, if you shoot me, you better hope the police find you before any of my family does,” Brendan warned the man. But it was a bluff.
He really had no idea what his “family” would do or if they would even care. He was the only one who cared about his father’s murder—enough to risk everything for justice. Hell, his “family,” given the way they’d resented his return and his inheritance, would probably be relieved if he died, especially if they knew the truth about him.
The man stepped back and lifted his gun so that the barrel pointed toward the ceiling, waving it around as if there were a white flag of surrender tied to the end of it. “I don’t want any trouble—any of your kind of trouble.”
Brendan didn’t want that kind of trouble, either. But it was too late. He was in too deep now—so deep that he hadn’t been able to get out even after he’d thought Josie had been killed. But then her death had made him even more determined to pursue justice.
“If you didn’t want trouble,” Brendan said, “then you shouldn’t have messed with my son and his mother.” Now he swung his fist into the man’s face.
The guy fell back, but before he went down, Brendan snapped the gun from his grasp and turned it on him. There was no greater power play than turning a man’s own gun on him. His father had taught him that, starting his lessons when Brendan was only a few years older than his son was now.
“What the hell do you want with her?” he demanded.
“I just got paid to do a job, man,” the man in scrubs said, cringing away from the barrel pointed in his face.
“What’s the job?”
The man opened his mouth but hesitated before speaking, until Brendan cocked the trigger. Then he blurted out, “To kill Josie Jessup!”
“Damn it!” he cursed at having his suspicions confirmed.
He had only just discovered that she was alive and that she’d given birth to his son. He didn’t want to lose the boy before he’d gotten the chance to claim him. And he didn’t want Josie to die again. He glanced back at the elevator, at the numbers above the doors that indicated it had stopped—on the top floor.
“You’re not going to make it,” the man advised. “You’re not going to be able to save her.”
Brendan cursed again because the guy was probably right. But still he had to try. He turned the gun and swung the handle at the man’s head.
One down. Two to go...
* * *
THE WIND ON the roof was cold, whipping through Josie’s light jacket and jeans. She slipped the side of her unzipped jacket over CJ’s back to shield him from the cold bite of the breeze. He snuggled against her, his face pressed into her neck. Her skin was damp from the quiet tears he surreptitiously shed. He must have felt the fear and panic that clutched at her, and he trembled with it while she tensely held herself together.
She had to do something. She had to make certain these men didn’t hurt her son. But