Chapter 1

Kate Reagan balanced the tray of drinks and carried them to the table in the shadowed corner of the empty bar. Her nearly black hair fell into her eyes and she blew it back. She set the drinks down in front of the three men.

Hux grabbed her wrist as she turned to go. She didn't resist, didn't pull back. She saw the newcomer to Hux's crew, Joe, tense and she silently willed him to stay out of it. It was that subtle tension whenever Hux got rough with her that had made her watch him more closely. Him and the other man, Carlos, who Joe had introduced to Hux. They were young, close to her own age, and they both were too watchful. Too careful. Too protective of her.

They were cops.

And if they didn't back off, Hux was going to figure that out, too.

She tried to pretend Hux's grip on her didn't bother her. She avoided looking at Joe. He already unnerved her with how similar he looked to her brotherJoe. Losing Joe had been what had made her vulnerable to Hux. It was what got her into this mess. She wanted to forget the memories, forget the pain, and that was hard to do while this cop who shared a name with her uncle had showed up.

"The deliveries ready?" Hux asked her, his fingers tightening on her wrist.

She wanted to get behind the bar and serve drinks. She had worked in Hux's bar for four years now and she hated it. She hated him. She hated herself for what she had fallen into when she was 18 and couldn't get out of.

"No," she said, bracing herself. The containers of guns hadn't been delivered. She had no idea why, but Hux wouldn't care.

Hux turned those hollow gray eyes on her and smiled. The smile moved only his mouth, his eyes didn't change.

She clenched her jaw. There wouldn't be any warning.

The fist that connected with her jaw sent her backwards.

Joe and Carlos were on their feet.

"What was that about?" Joe demanded.

Kate pressed a hand to her jaw and took a step back. "It's fine," she said, hardly able to move her jaw to form the words. She tried to send the cop a message with her eyes. Drop it.

"You suddenly got a problem with how I do business?" Hux asked, turning his attention to the two men who were supposed to be picking up the delivery of illegal weapons.

Joe's posture relaxed and he shook his head. "Just don't like beating on women," he said.

Carlos' dark eyes assessed Kate even as he matched Joe's casual stance.

Hux stared at the two of them, and without warning lashed out at Kate again. This time she lost her footing and stumbled backwards before falling.

"Hey!" Joe took a step towards Hux. Big mistake.

The arms dealer's paranoia was never far from the surface and Joe's outrage brought it bubbling over. His gun was out and pointed at Joe. "Why do you care?" he asked, biting off each word deliberately.

"Hux," Kate tried to draw his attention back to her. She pushed herself off the floor. "Leave them alone."

Another mistake. Hux waved the gun between her and the two men. "You're protecting them?" he asked. His voice started to rise and Kate's heart rate responded. She couldn't let him lose it.

"I'm just trying to get back to business," Kate said.

"What do you know?" he asked. "What's between you and them?"

"Come on, man," Carlos interjected. "This is nothing. Let's do the deal."

Hux looked between all of them. Then he grabbed Kate and tossed her toward the wall, standing over her. He pulled his knife out of its ankle sheath.

Kate looked up at him. She had tried once to get away from him. And she had learned not to try again. She knew what was coming.

But this time Joe and Carlos were there. Joe reached out and grabbed Hux by the shoulder. The larger man whirled around and jabbed the knife out at Joe. He managed to slice across his abdomen. Joe faltered at the cut, pressing a hand to it. Carlos jumped forward, but Hux brought the gun up.

"No!" Kate yelled. She scrambled up and wrenched his arm around. The knife glinted in the dim light and she felt the burning pain. Then the gun went off and everything went dark.

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He had to stop the bleeding. He needed to call for an ambulance. Carlos Renzulli took off his jacket and shoved it into Joe Hill's hands. He put Joe's hands over the bleeding knife wound. His own hands were shaking as he put pressure on the injury.

"Hold it there," he ordered his partner. "You good?" He was already backing away to go to the girl lying on the floor.

Joe gripped the jacket and ignored the question. He slumped against the wall behind him, but his eyes were clear. "Check the girl," he ground out past the pain.

Carlos dropped to his knees next to the girl. Hux had shot her at close enough range, she had powder burns blackening her t-shirt. He couldn't see anything through the blood.

He held his hands over the bleeding, but it didn't slow. "Come on, Kate," he muttered. He and Joe didn't know the girl, even after four months of being undercover in Hux's crew, but he had seen how she was treated. And how she had tried to subtly look out for him and his partner. He wasn't convinced she hadn't made them as cops, and she never told anyone, never blew their cover. He wasn't going to let her bleed out on the floor of some hole in the wall bar.

Behind him, he heard movement. He quickly turned to make sure Hux wasn't stirring. Joe had managed to get a shot off with the gun he had holstered to his ankle and dropped the criminal, but not before Hux had shot Kate.

It was Joe, pushing himself to his feet. A groan escaped his lips at the movement.

"Sit down!" Carlos snapped. "You're going to make it worse." He wasn't losing his partner. Not like this.

Joe ignored him and managed the few steps it took to get to Carlos and Kate. Sweat beaded his forehead as he dropped down next to them. He pushed aside Carlo's hands and pressed his own hands over Kate's side. "Call it in," he hissed out through gritted teeth.

Carlos didn't hesitate. He left Joe on the floor with Kate and ran behind the bar, looking for a phone. Their cellphones were outside in the car. Hux wouldn't risk a wire tap in his bar and they always left phones outside. He grabbed the landline phone and punched in the number to call dispatch directly.

He rattled off his badge number and information. He could barely understand what the dispatcher was asking him. "Just send and ambulance!" he shouted into the phone, adrenaline raising his voice, shortening his temper. "There's an officer down here! Two civilians with gunshot wounds."

He made it back over to Joe and Kate. Joe was starting to slump over. Kate still hadn't moved. He had never felt more helpless in his life.

He shoved the jacket back into Joe's hands and told him again to hold it there, taking over Kate again. "Stay with me, Joe," he said sharply. "Stay here!"

#

"Stay with me!"

Joe could hear Carlos telling him to stay awake. He slid an eye open to make sure Carlos didn't do something stupid, like turn away from the girl to help him. He made a movement to reach for Kate, try to help Carlos, but Carlos firmly grabbed Joe's hands and put them back over his jacket.

Joe wanted the girl to be ok. He needed her to be. She knew he and Carlos were cops. He was sure of it. But she had never done anything to put them in danger. She had even helped them in small ways that Hux could never see. He wondered how she knew. And why she was so sympathetic to cops over the people she lived and worked alongside.

Lights flashed across the bar.

"Medics are here," he could hear Carlos telling him. "Just hang on. They're here."

Joe slitted his eyes open long enough to see the first uniforms come through the door.

"Let me see your colors," the officer said. Joe couldn't see her face past the strobing blue and red lights that came through the door, but her voice was calm, she was in control.

He couldn't move. His arms were too heavy to pull back the sleeve of his long sleeve shirt and reveal an orange watchband.

"Right here," Carlos said. He imagined his partner was flipping his backwards baseball hat around to show the officer the orange logo on the front. "He's my partner. Get the medics in here."

The cop relayed the message out the door behind her and then she was at Joe's side, kneeling next to him. She pressed down on the jacket where his own hands had grown too weak to apply pressure any longer.

"Hey there," she said. Joe couldn't open his eyes any longer, but her voice sounded nice. "I'm Officer Janko. You're going to be alright."

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