Ava cried out for John as he ran in the back, but her scream broke off. As he came around the corner, he saw a tall man in a mask he recognized from watching videos of it all week. The man smashed his fist into Janna’s face, sending Ava’s sister flying.

The other hand grabbed Ava by the hair and pulled her against him. John saw red. He wanted nothing more than to race at the man and tear him apart with his bare hands. The drive to do it was almost primitive in nature.

And it took all of John’s training and control to stop, to think before he acted.

He prayed Kirsten had called the police or hit the silent alarm, because he needed backup, fast.

He raised his weapon. He wanted to tell the fucker what he would do to him if Ava had so much as a scrape at the end of this. He wanted to describe in brutal, unmistakable detail the ways in which he would mete out punishment to this asshole if any harm came to her.

What he said instead was, “Police. Show me your hands.”

Christ, it took all he had not to shoot.

He would have, but Ava was there in his line of fire. The asshole had pulled her to him and was clinging to her now, using her as a protective shield.

Wild eyes met John’s, and there was no doubt in John’s mind, this guy was cranked up on something. Meth, coke—he didn’t know what, but something.

John looked at Ava. The man had her hair wrapped around his fist, a gun pressed to her cheek. John looked only into her eyes. He tried to tell her he had this, that he would get her out of there alive. He didn’t put it in words. He put it into his eyes and willed her to trust in him, to believe it. To know it.

Janna was on the floor, sobbing. The side of her face was red and swelling, and she looked stricken at the scene before her.

John knew what she was doing. She was blaming herself for this. He could guess what had happened. The assailant and Ava were standing by the back door, a bag of trash at their feet. Janna had likely started her nighttime routine, taking the trash out to the back, forgetting they couldn’t do that right now. But that was on him, not her.

He was an idiot. He’d gone out to the front of the store to chase off the irate customer who’d been pissed they closed before he got there. John had done that without reminding Janna that she couldn’t go out the back. He’d seen how absorbed she was in what she was doing all day. He had left without so much as a thought to her because he had wanted to be Ava’s knight in shining armor, making the creep up front go away by waving his badge around.

And now they were all paying for his fuck up.

“Janna,” he said calmly. “Get behind me.”

When she didn’t move, he put a little bite in his tone. “Janna, now.”

She moved then, still down on the ground, still sobbing, but she moved.

Then he spoke to the asshole whose life was about to end if he didn’t let Ava go.

John knew he had to handle this carefully. This guy was on drugs. On drugs and off the rails, nothing left to lose.

“Adam,” John said, making a conscious decision to let the guy know the police knew who he was. He wanted to convince him he needed to let Ava go and run. “The guard out front has called for backup. I’ve got backup on the way.”

Lord, he hoped that was true. Eric had said they were doing regular drive-throughs in all the areas they knew Adam might be, and this was one of them.

“You’ve got seconds to get away from here. Minutes if you’re lucky. Let her go and run now. This is only slowing you down, letting them corner you.”

John heard Kristin come in behind him, letting him know it was her with a murmured word to him, quietly backing him up.

John knew there was a good chance the guy would choose to strap in for the ride, using Ava and the rest of them as bargaining chips. Or, he could come at them, trying to kill them all because he didn’t have a whole hell of a lot left to lose at this point. John had to be ready for any of those scenarios.

“You don’t want to add to the body count, Adam. Get out and run while you can.”

In the distance, sirens sounded, and John saw the flash of panic in Adam’s eyes. He saw the split second the man made a decision. John’s response was automatic. His finger moved from the slide of his gun to the trigger.

Adam moved, shoving Ava at John and raising the gun to aim at John.

Suicide-by-Cop.

John saw Ava clear the space in front of him, and he fired. Once, twice. He paused, fired once, twice again. He processed that Adam had fired his weapon in there. He processed pain in his arm. But there wasn’t time for him to think about any of that. The back door opened, and he saw unformed officers enter.

In the chaos, John shouted to them, identifying himself as an officer. Thankfully, they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later, but they did shout at him to drop his weapon.

He did. He could see the life had drained from Adam’s eyes.

Ava was safe, cradling a screaming Janna behind him.

Within minutes, his partner was there, telling the uniforms to stand down. Then Eric looked at him and his words sent cold through John.

“You’re hit. John, fuck, you’re hit.”