Logan slid his knife from the sheath attached to his leg and thrust it up and into the man’s chest, catching him just to the left of the sternum. The man staggered and Logan landed several punches to his face before his opponent fell to the floor at his feet.
Before Logan could get to Sam to rouse her, the sound of feet and sharp orders for him to drop to the floor flooded the stairway behind him. Logan fell to his knees, hands laced behind his head, waiting for them to cuff him, all the while talking to Sam.
“It’s all right, Sam. You’re safe now, baby.”
She didn’t move.
Someone’s knee was at his back, hand on his head. Hands pushed him down as a voice instructed him to lay face forward on the floor.
“You’re all right, Sam. Wake up for me, babe.”
“Stay down. Palms flat on the floor—” came a voice from beside him.
In moments, those hands lifted him forcibly and pulled Logan from the room. Still more officers entered the room to check on Sam, but they’d pulled Logan from her line of sight. He couldn’t see into the room any longer, didn’t know what was happening to Sam.
“Sam! Sam! Is she awake? Is she breathing?”
No one answered and Logan began to feel the thin threads of the life he’d been painstakingly tying back together unravel before his eyes.
Chapter 15
Logan sat in Sam’s bedroom with an officer at his side as an EMT tended to Samantha’s injuries. She’d come around almost immediately, so he suspected she wasn’t suffering any lasting effects, but he couldn’t see past the man working on her wounds to tell what was going on.
Now that he eliminated the threat to Sam, he felt panic rising in his throat at his lack of ability to control the situation. They uncuffed him and no one had read him his Miranda warning, so he must not be under arrest yet, but he wasn’t exactly free to move around.
He was always in charge in a situation like this, not shut down. Not useless, unable to defend Sam.
“Is she all right?” he asked quietly, hoping the officer standing next to him would answer. He’d already tried yelling at several of the officers, with no results. Apparently, this guy took pity on him because he nodded.
“She doesn’t have any signs of a concussion. They want her to go to the hospital for some stitches, but she’s giving them a hard time about it.”
“Stitches?” Logan didn’t want to know why she needed them, but he needed the answer at the same time.
“Seems they took a knife to her chest before you got here,” the cop said.
Logan felt his whole body go cold and hard. If he hadn’t already killed the men who’d done this to her, he’d be tearing heads off.
Right now, he needed to focus on getting to whoever was behind this. The men who attacked Sam didn’t come here of their own accord. Logan needed to find out who was behind it.
“And Jeff? Have you guys found him yet?”
The cop’s mouth formed a tight, thin line. “In the trunk of the car. He’s on his way to the hospital. He was shot several times. He fought them first—”
They were interrupted by loud voices from downstairs and everyone seemed to freeze as they listened to the exchange.
“Who the hell called the Feds in?”
“I did, sir,” came the answer from a disembodied voice on the first floor. Logan assumed it was one of the responding officers. “With the firepower these guys were carrying, I thought the ATF needed to be called in. It’s not your average crime scene. Three purported assailants, all carrying assault rifles and explosives.”
“Crap,” mumbled the cop standing over Logan, under his breath.
Logan glanced up and raised an eyebrow. The cop bent at the waist a bit, speaking under his breath. “Eric Westbrook, the state’s attorney.”
Logan’s attention was pulled away at that moment by Sam, who pushed past the EMT working on her.
“What are you doing? Why are you holding him? He saved me, you idiots. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, looking from where Logan sat to the officer standing beside him. Logan was relieved to see her looking and sounding so fierce.
But then his eyes fell to the blood on her pajama top and the way she clutched the front of it closed. It looked like it had been torn loose from her.Christ.