Hurt filled her eyes, and once again, he felt like he was crushing an innocent. Some innocent. Goddamn, she was Alex Mouton’s daughter.
“I don’t deserve to die, Sam. No matter what you think I did, I don’t deserve to die.”
His hands gentled on her shoulders as Donovan closed in with the syringe. Despite his anger and shock, Sam smoothed his fingers over her cheek in a gesture meant to comfort her.
“You’re not going to die, Sophie.”
Donovan slipped the needle into her flesh, and she jerked in surprise, her shocked gaze going to Donovan. Panic flared in her blue eyes, and she went crazy.
“No!” she shouted hoarsely. “God, please, let me go. Please!”
Her begging nearly undid Sam. Even Garrett looked discomfited by the desperation in her cries.
Sam dropped down and pulled her into his arms. He held her against him to still her struggles. When she finally figured out she couldn’t win against him, she sagged in defeat, her noisy sobs echoing sharply across the room.
“Jesus,” Donovan muttered as he recapped the syringe. He threw it angrily into his bag and turned away, his shoulders tense.
Sam held on to her, stroking her hair, offering her comfort even though it was the last thing he wanted to give.
There were several missing pieces of the puzzle. She hadn’t told them everything. A lot didn’t make sense, but now wasn’t the time to try to drag it out of her. She was hysterical, in pain, and soon she’d be out when the drugs hit her system.
Most importantly, he and his brothers had to move fast. If all she said was true—if there was any possibility that she was telling the truth—they had to lock down their entire family.
He needed to contact Sean. He needed to pull in Steele and Rio and their teams. Mom and Dad and Rusty were vulnerable, as were Ethan and Rachel. They could all be targets.
He looked up to find Garrett staring fiercely back at him, and he knew Garrett was thinking the same things he was.
Sophie went completely limp against him, and he carefully pried her away from him to see that her she had finally surrendered to the painkiller Donovan had injected.
Her eyes were swollen and her skin was blotchy and red from crying. She looked delicate and frail, but underneath that deceptive façade was a devious woman who had no compunction about carrying out the orders of her father—a man who’d been responsible for more deaths than a lot of wars.
And the hell of it was she was carrying Sam’s child. Which meant, like it or not, she was going to be forever tied to him through that child. No matter what she’d done in the past or what her motives were now, he had to protect her and keep both her and his son or daughter alive.
He carefully extricated himself from around her and made sure she was arranged comfortably on the pillows. He pulled the covers up over her body and then turned to face his brothers.
“Let’s go,” he said grimly. “We’ve got to move fast.”
CHAPTER 8
“DO you believe her?” Garrett asked when they assembled in the living room. “Do you believe any of that shit?”
Garrett still wore a look of discomfort after the episode with Sophie just moments before, but Sam was sure his brother didn’t realize how much her distress had affected him. It would just piss Garrett off.
“Whether I believe her or not, we have to treat this as a legitimate threat. Her wounds aren’t faked and neither is the fact that I pulled her half-dead out of the lake.”
“I agree,” Donovan said.
Garrett blew out his breath but nodded.
Sam looked to Donovan first. “I want you to get in touch with Ethan. Give him a heads-up on what’s going on. Make damn sure he keeps his ears and eyes open for any threat to him and Rachel. And for God’s sake tell him not to come home. He could be walking into a trap.”
Garrett nodded his agreement.
“Then I want you to get on the phone with Sean. Tell him to head out to Mom and Dad’s until we can get over there.”
He glanced over at Garrett. “We need to have a look and see if anything’s out there. I’m not walking into broad daylight with Sophie when I don’t know what if anything’s out there waiting.”
“I’ll go,” Garrett said. “You keep an eye on Sophie and stick by the radio. If there’s anything out there, I’ll find it.”
While Donovan made his phone calls, Garrett escaped through the basement tunnel leading down to the lake, and Sam did a step-by-step reconnaissance of the house, checking for any possible angles a shooter could use.
The basement was solid, almost as much of a fortress as the war room on the adjacent lot, but there was only one way out of it if the house was breached, and he’d prefer to use it as a last resort.
On the main level, the problem areas were the kitchen, which had a window facing the wooded area across the road in front of the house, and Sam’s bedroom, where Sophie slept. The window there was an open invitation for someone to take out anyone in the room.
He hoped to hell she was still under from the pain medication. The last thing he wanted to do was wake her up and have her wanting to split when he and his brothers hadn’t fully scoped the situation.
Carefully he slid his arms underneath her warm body and lifted, inch by inch, holding his breath when she stirred and snuggled into his chest.
“Sam,” she murmured in her sleepy, sweet voice. One he’d heard so many times when he woke her to make love to her again.
It was a compulsion to slide his lips over her hair. It was still damp and matted by the lake water, but she still smelled uniquely Sophie.