Proof (Targes Executive Protection Book 1)

As Chandler Ashby got in Cass’s face and pointed with his free hand to something on the desk, I knew it was bad. Cass wasn’t the best actor in the world, so it wasn’t hard to miss his reaction to whatever was written on the desk.

He managed to mask it as he snapped, “Get him out of my sight!”

Cass began to move toward me, his eyes flicking to the ground every second. I understood the silent warning, but just as he cleared the desk, leaving only half a dozen steps between us, I saw Chandler move to his right. Cass was in the process of subtly warning my brother about needing to hit the floor when Chandler suddenly yelled his son’s name and then stepped further to his right and launched himself at Cass.

My first thought was that Chandler was attacking Cass with some kind of hidden weapon, but then Cass screamed, “Down! Down! Down! Shooter!” My body was on autopilot as I threw myself to the floor, but my brain could only process that Cass’s warning shouts meant he was still alive. My heart was pounding in my chest as I remained on the floor and crawled to Cass, who had pushed his father’s body off him and was in the process of dragging Chandler behind the desk to use as cover.

“JJ!” Cass called.

“Here!” I shouted even as I glanced up at the window that Chandler had been standing in front of. Right in the spot where Cass had been just before his father had stepped in front of him was a large round hole.

By the time I reached Cass, he was rolling his father over. To Sully he shouted, “Shooter across the street. Hostage, four-year-old boy!”

I could barely breathe, but as soon as I heard the word hostage and the age that Cass had called out, I knew who he was talking about—Charles, Cass’s half-brother and Chandler’s youngest son.

“Dad!” Cass called once he had his father rolled over. I reached both men and automatically scanned Cass’s body for any injuries. There wasn’t a spot of blood on him, but my relief was short-lived when I saw that he had rolled his father again, this time so the older man was lying on his chest. Chandler’s back was soaked with blood. “JJ, help me find the wound,” Cass said, his voice shaky. I grabbed the knife that I knew Cass kept tucked in his boot and quickly cut through the back of Chandler’s suit jacket and white shirt. Despite the massive amount of blood that covered most of Chandler’s upper back, Cass and I were able to quickly find the large hole just under his right shoulder blade.

“Put pressure on it,” I ordered as I began tearing Chandler’s shirt into large pieces so Cass could cover the hole.

“Ch—” Chandler choked on the word as blood began to seep from his mouth.

I dropped my head so I could hear Chandler better.

“Charlie,” he sputtered. “Char—” was all he managed to get out before he began gagging on his own blood.

“We’ll find him, Dad,” Cass said as he desperately continued to press pieces from Chandler’s ripped shirt against the wound on his back.

“Go—” Chandler managed to say before his eyes slipped shut.

“He’s still got a pulse,” I said to Cass who was frantically trying to stem the bleeding.

“I’ve got him!” Sully said as he moved toward us, still keeping his body low. He covered Cass’s hands with his own. “Cass!” Sully shouted to get his attention. It took Cass several long seconds to lift his head. His eyes locked on mine, then Sully’s.

“He—he stepped in front—he stepped between⁠—”

“Cass,” I snapped. My tone got his attention. When he looked at me, I could see the despair in his eyes as his mind continued to process that his father had taken the bullet meant for him. “Charlie,” I said with a nod. Cass, the soldier, instantly replaced Cass, the shell-shocked son, as his eyes locked on mine. He moved his hands, letting Sully take his place.

“Our guys have them pinned on the roof across the street! A helicopter is inbound!” Sully called as Cass and I hurried from the room, keeping our bodies low. Boone was by my brother’s side in an instant. Chandler’s prognosis seemed grim, but neither Cass nor I could let our thoughts be anywhere but on getting to Charlie.

Thankfully, the elevator was still on the floor we were on, saving us precious time from having to use the stairwell that led to the first floor. The second we were in the elevator, Cass and I both put the comms in our ears so we could hear the conversation happening between the rest of the team. Cass was silent and detached as the elevator neared the first floor. For once, I didn’t try to snap him out of whatever world he was in. I wanted to comfort him and tell him his father and Charlie would both be fine, but the words would have been horseshit and completely useless. He was compartmentalizing what had just happened and storing the box away so he could focus on the present. I had no idea how he was managing it because I was a fucking mess.

Mentally, I was all over the place, especially because the blinding pain behind my right eye had returned after being absent for more than a week. I used the pain to my benefit. There were no images to deal with, no wishes for even the tiniest sliver of a memory that would return the past to me; I channeled all that pain into giving Cass whatever he needed from me in that moment.

As soon as the elevator opened, we were running through the lobby and out the door. Cass didn’t stop for the cars on the busy street; they stopped for him. Horns blared and people cursed as brakes squealed, but he easily weaved between the vehicles. The pain in my head was what made it possible for me to stay right on Cass’s tail. He needed me at his back, and nothing was going to stop me from being there.

Unlike the Ashby Tower, there was no dedicated elevator to get to the roof in the other building, and with people milling about the lobby and in front of the bank of elevators, there was no way we could take the chance of waiting for one. People screamed and ran as we tore through the lobby. The building had no security desk, so there was no one to stop us as we darted for the stairwell. Cass took the stairs two at a time and while I would have loved to do the same, I just didn’t have the strength or stamina that he did. Thankfully, I was only a handful of seconds behind him when he threw the door to the roof open.

The scene before us had me stopping in my tracks.

The helicopter that had been inbound had already landed. The blades were slowly spinning as if they’d just been shut down, but there was a man sitting in the pilot’s seat, clearly ready to start the machine back up upon command.

Cass’s grandmother was standing just outside of the helicopter, little Charlie in front of her. The child was swaying back and forth like he was trying not to nod off. Renly was standing next to Cass’s grandmother. A rifle was slung over his shoulder, but it was the semiautomatic gun pointed at Charlie’s head that had everyone, including all of the men Sully had assigned as backup for us, standing completely still, their weapons aimed directly at Renly and Patricia Ashby.

The woman before us looked nothing like the frail, confused grandmother I’d met just days earlier. Patricia Ashby looked like she should have been standing in front of a Rolls Royce parked outside of a huge Victorian-style home. Although I knew for a fact that the woman was in her mid-seventies, not only did she hold herself like a woman half her age, but she was also dressed the part. Designer beige stilettos, a sleek skirt that ended just above her knees, a white blouse peeking through a short jacket that matched the skirt. A colorful scarf was wrapped around her neck and there was a sheer piece of fabric covering her hair to prevent the wind from turning her perfectly pinned hair into a frizzy mess. Flawless makeup and minimal but expensive jewelry completed the look.

In short, Patricia Ashby was a stunning woman, but beyond the clothes and accessories, there was nothing. No emotion in her eyes, no warmth in the way she held herself, no weakness or flaw of any kind. She held her drugged grandson against her body as if he was nothing more than an expensive handbag on her arm. The fact that there was a gun pointed at the little boy’s head didn’t faze her in the least.

Patricia had the audacity to smile at Cass as he kept his gun trained on her. “Hello, my little rose,” she said. “Renly tells me your father finally grew a backbone so he could save his little boy, well, both his boys. It sounds like that backbone won’t do him much good now.”

The amusement in her voice as she spoke about her own son was sickening.

“Renly also tells me your father was a naughty boy. Isn’t that right, my love,” Patricia asked Renly, though she kept her eyes on Cass. He had yet to react in any kind of way.

“Seems Chandler finally grew a brain and had that window replaced with something that would slow a bullet from my baby here”—Renly lifted his shoulder enough to point out the long-range sniper rifle—“so it would only go through one body, not two.”

“I think I may have misjudged my little boy,” she said. “Perhaps if I’d gotten to him sooner, his father wouldn’t have had time to fill him with silly notions like marrying for love or following foolish dreams.” Patricia shook her head in disgust.

“Why?” Cass asked, his voice breaking. He put his weapon back in his shoulder holster and took a few steps forward.

“Why what?” Patricia asked as if it was the stupidest question in the world. “Why did I spend my entire life making the Ashby name mean something? Why did I leave you to rot in that prison? Why did I have Renly put a bullet through his”—she shifted her now hatred-filled eyes to me—“pretty little head while you watched?” The woman returned her gaze to Cass. “I’ll admit, the prison thing was a little bit of a mix-up, but it did have a silver lining.”

“And what was that?” Cass asked, his voice now dead, cold.

“Why, to make you a better man, a stronger one. I’ll admit, I wasn’t pleased about that whole Marine thing at first,” she said with a wave of her hand. “But then it occurred to me that voters like candidates with a military record.” Patricia pouted as she continued, “Cassius, I had all these plans for you and then you take up with that. My little rose, you can stick your dick into any mouth, ass, or pussy you want, but I taught you discretion.”

Patricia glanced at Charlie. “My, he is getting heavy. I think I may have given him just a bit too much of this,” she said to Renly as she lifted up a prescription bottle and gave it a little shake.

“Yes, mum,” the man responded. Unlike Patricia, his lovesick expression spoke volumes. The asshole had no idea he’d be the next in line to get a bullet through the head the second he was no longer useful.

“Now,” Patricia said, swinging her eyes back to Cass. “Since you’ve made a mess of my plans… or rather, your incompetent father did, may God rest his soul, of course… I now find myself with a bit of a dilemma. Perhaps you can assist, my little rose.” She smiled.

“I don’t know, Mother Ashby,” Cass said evenly. “How can I trust you to keep your word? JJ’s the one who’s got a head for knowing when someone’s telling the truth.”

I managed to maintain my calm as I digested Cass’s words. He’d mentioned my name and the word “head” and knowing Cass as well as I did, his focus wasn’t on his grandmother at all as he inched closer toward the trio while still making sure not to put himself between Patricia and me. Even if I was wrong about everything, Cass, like me, knew what, or rather, who came first. I didn’t take another second to think about it.

“I’m not interested in speaking to your little fuck toy Cass—” Patricia snapped as she turned her head to focus on me.

The second my eyes met her soulless ones, I pulled the trigger and just like that, Cass’s tormentor was gone. There was a split second as her face twisted into one of true surprise and then the bullet tore through her forehead and exited the back of her head through her perfectly coiffed hair.

Cass was moving before I even pulled the trigger. The second his grandmother released Charlie and fell backward, he caught the little boy and covered him with his body. A flurry of bullets followed from the men standing at our sides. Renly had a single second to scream in disbelief as the woman he’d handed his soul over to hit the ground and then bullets ripped through his body. The pilot went down just as easily.

A couple of seconds of silence followed before Cass was yelling, “Call an ambulance!”

I ran to him and slid on my knees as I fell to the ground next to him and his little brother. I put my ear to his chest. “He’s barely breathing,” I said. I snatched the pill bottle from Patricia’s lifeless hand.

“It’s Oxy,” I shouted just as a man from my brother’s team dropped to his knees between me and Cass.

“Move,” I heard the man yell at Cass. As hard as it was for Cass to move away from Charlie’s still body, he did it. The man quickly sprayed something into one of Charlie’s nostrils.

“Narcan,” I said in relief. Cass dropped his head and took a deep breath. The medication the man had given Charlie would reverse the effects of the opioid Patricia had given him. It wasn’t guaranteed to work, but it was our only chance.

“Axel, can you fly that bird?” the man called.

Axel, the guy I’d partnered with at the beginning of my first case, was in the process of dragging the dead pilot’s body out of the helicopter. “On it. Two minutes!” he yelled as he climbed into the machine.

The man tending to Charlie leaned down to listen to the little boy’s breathing. “It’s getting stronger,” he said as he put his finger against Charlie’s pulse. “We need to get him to a hospital. He may need another dose of the Narcan before we can get him there.”

The man climbed into the helicopter while Cass picked Charlie up. Cass’s eyes connected with mine. “Go,” I said. I kissed him hard. “I’ll see you soon.”

“My father,” Cass responded even as he began moving toward the helicopter. We kept our heads lowered as the blades began to spin. The noise made it nearly impossible to hear each other.

“Go,” I said with a nod. Cass held my eyes for a few seconds before he climbed into the helicopter. I moved away from the bird but didn’t watch it take off because I was already doing what Cass needed me to do.

I reached for the button on my comms. “Sully, is he alive?”