Page 34 of When He Plays

Morris wasn’t fighting him.

Logan slipped back. Slowly rose.

Morris tried to speak. A gurgle came out of his mouth. The two guards raced forward. There were shouts in the distance. Probably because plenty of people had heard all the shots. Some would be running far from the blasts. Others would be running closer.

That was the way with people.

“Did he shoot you?” Charlotte demanded as she reached for Logan.

The streetlamp hit him. Blood soaked his t-shirt.

“Logan…” Charlotte’s voice trembled.

“It’s his blood.” Flat. Logan took another step back as his guards closed in. “Call the cops,” he ordered them. He pointed to the street cam on the corner. “I’m sure the whole thing was recorded. The cops will see I had no choice. He was shooting at me.”

“He put a bullet in me,” his guard, Dewayne, snarled. “Bastard.” Blood soaked his right shoulder.

“He won’t be firing at anyone else,” Logan assured him.

But…

Charlotte had apparently just realized what he’d done. She’d gone from sweeping her worried stare over Logan to looking down at the shooter.

“Is…is that my knife?” Charlotte choked out.

Yep, it was. Her second favorite knife. The one she’d left upstairs.

He’d brought it with him on his run. It had been a surprisingly compact knife. One that, when the blade wasn’t out, could easily be concealed. But with the press of a button, the blade extended with deadly sharpness.

Now, that knife was lodged in Morris’s chest.

Charlotte dropped to her knees beside the fallen man. Her fingers went to his wound. She tried to stop the blood flow even as the red liquid poured over her fingers. “Logan, help me!”

She wanted him to help her save the bastard who’d admitted to shooting at her? To wanting to kill her? Nah. “He shot at me. At you. At my men. He would have killed us all.”

Frantic, she peered up at him. “Help me.”

He’d known exactly where to put his knife in order to do maximum damage. “There is no help for Morris. It’s too late.”

“It’s not too late! He’s still breathing!”

Breathing. Shuddering. Bleeding out. Dying.

“Logan, dammit, help me! Please!”

She wanted to save the downed man. Because she was the true-blue one. The law-abiding one.

Logan wasn’t.

“I’m begging you!”

He bent next to her. She was trying so hard to save a man who wanted her dead. What was the point of that? Why?

But one thing that really bothered… “Never beg,” he growled. She should never, ever beg him for anything.

“Logan…” Wide eyes. Trembling lips.

Fine. He put his hands over hers.