“Did you call the cops?” Jameson yelled to Axel as he got out of his car.

“Oh yeah, and they were thrilled to get an emergency call about a woman who won’t answer her door. They said they’d be right over.” Yeah, okay he really didn’t need the kid’s sass right now but he had a point. As far as anyone else was concerned there wasn’t an emergency yet.

“Did you take a look around?” Jameson patted the pouch holding his .45 as a reflex while at the same time hoping to hell he didn’t need it.

Axel shook his head at him. “No. Jameson, maybe it’s nothing. Look I know you’ve got it bad for her but—“

“This has nothing to do with how I feel about her! Fuck, maybe it does, but all I know is right now that little voice in my head is screaming she’s in trouble. I can’t just sit here. I’ll watch the front exits, you go around the back.”

“I think that is the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say in a week.” It was a testament to how worried he was about Candy. Not that it didn’t tear him up to have the kid take point but she would have been the first one to say he needed to learn to trust other people. He did, just not when it came to her.

“Get going.”

“Hey she’s pissed at you. She still loves me.” And didn’t that bite.

“Even if we never get back together,” the thought burned like acid dripped in a wound. “I’ll still do what I can to protect her. She deserves to have someone look out for her, even if I have to do it from afar.” All this talking wasn’t getting the job done. If he was wrong, he’d apologize and get the hell out of there. If she felt the need to punish him, he deserved it. It may have taken a baseball bat, but he’d learned his lesson.

He watched as Axel pulled himself up on the window ledge for one of the living room windows on the far side of the house but there was nothing to see. No little beast either and the dog was still barking his head off. Goddamn it, he’d never missed his legs as much as he did right now. Axel worked his way further back. He glanced up at the next window. That would be the bathroom judging from how high it was from the ground and the fact that it was done over in glass block. The kid couldn’t reach it and even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to see anything. Axel disappeared behind the house and he settled in to wait for the kid to show his face again.

The crackle of underbrush brought a flash of sweat to the back of his neck but Axel was already chasing the guy down. A second later there was the sound of someone hitting the ground hard and then it got quiet. Too quiet but at least there were no shots fired.

Axel pushed Snell through the overgrown bushes between Candy’s and the empty house next door. Snell was sputtering but mostly choking in the neck hold Axel had on him. The guy had tears streaking his face from the arm lock Axel’d put him in.

“You!” Both he and Snell yelled at the same time.

“Yeah, me. I’ll be damned if you are going to burn Candy out of her house so you can rob her blind. We know all about what you’re up to. And so will the police.”

“He didn’t have anything on him,” Axel interrupted. And the dog was still barking like crazy, could have been from Snell sneaking around outside. The beast was getting a nice meaty bone when this was over. Fuck, if Candy said it was okay. Goddamn he missed them.

He came back to the moment to hear Snell sniveling. “—It’s not a crime to make money! Corporations do it all the time! So some old people moved on and I bought their places, so what. They weren’t going to be around forever anyway.”

“What about Lombardi? He didn’t exactly move on.” Snell paled at the mention of the old guy’s name.

“I didn’t have anything to do with that! I swear. I bought up his place but his kids came to me. I didn’t set that fire. I did a few things to scare some of the old people. A little graffiti, knocked out a pane of glass or two. I always helped them fix it and we all pitched in on the cost if someone couldn’t pay. But then things started happening, things I didn’t do! I swear! I didn’t say anything because it got people to leave faster but...”

“But what?”

“I swear I saw someone else hanging around here. The first time I thought it was just some bum but then I realized things were moved around in some of the empty houses. Then Candace took back her key from me.” He couldn’t help himself and smiled at watching his girl stand up for herself. Fuck, not his girl, not anymore, maybe not ever again. “And I realized I never got the ring of keys back from Lombardi’s kids.”

“So they probably got tossed.”

“They were labeled as belonging to the housing association.” Fuck, it probably didn’t make any difference.

“You’re just trying to cover your ass.”

“I think I saw someone let themselves into Candace’s house earlier!”

“Now you’re just trying to distract us. Nice try, you’re the villain here. Axel, call the cops.”

“Wait! I’m serious. I don’t know why she’d want you over me, I mean you don’t even have two good legs but I still care about her. I was doing this so I’d be rich, then she’d want to be with me, but I don’t want anything to happen to her. I didn’t break her windows, someone else did! Someone really angry at her.”

He wanted to scream that Snell was wrong, that he was the perp and what he said was bullshit but his stomach was trying to eat itself and all his instincts told him the guy wasn’t lying. Everything he’d done had been the coward’s way out, including this. Threatening Candy, to her face wasn’t going to be this guy’s MO.

“Let him loose.”

Axel looked at him, then at Snell. “Are you fucking kidding me? We know he’s a dirtbag.”

“Yeah, and we’ll go to the cops with what he did. But right now my only concern is Candy and something tells me he isn’t the one we need to worry about there.”

“Fine.” The look on Axel’s face said it was anything but. The shove he gave Snell that sent him sprawling to the ground put the exclamation point on it. The kid had impulse control issues but his heart was in the right place.

“Come on, we need to get back to checking out Candy’s place.”

“I’ll help.” It took everything he had not to pistol whip Snell where he lay. Okay, so maybe the kid wasn’t the only one with impulse problems.

“If I see you within fifty yards of her place and you aren’t on your side of the goddamned fence, I will shoot you and damn the paperwork. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”

Snell’s eyes bugged out and he looked like he was going to vomit before he started nodding like a damned bobble head doll. “Good. Now get out of here, and expect a call from the police.” Snell started running before he’d even stood up.

“Jeez, for a minute there I thought you were going to let him off without at least scaring the shit out of him. So now what? We know it isn’t Snell in there.”

“Which is why I’m going to take a neighborly little stroll around the back. Go wait up front. There’s no need for her to be pissed off at the two of us for peeking in her windows.”

“You are one twisted bastard.”

He made his way to the bedroom window and started swearing under his breath. He’d forgotten about the drapes she had there. They’d never really bothered with them. The thought made his gut ache with missing her. He rolled closer since he really hadn’t come up with an alternate plan short of calling the cops and dealing with the fall out. He wasn’t the kind of guy to let other people do the job for him anyway.

Jameson peeked around the edge of the window. Hell, he didn’t really want to see if Candy was with some other guy. Christ, he wanted to get sick at the thought. She’d said she loved him, didn’t stop her from kicking his ass out though. He couldn’t see much of anything which was a mixed blessing. What he could make out was one figure pacing back and forth in the small bedroom. It too tall to be Candy and he was almost certain it was male. His gut told him something was wrong. Maybe the guy was just waiting for her to come out of the can? Still the beast was barking like hell had broken loose. He watched in shock as the guy pointed what had to be a gun at the dog. He held it there a second and then kicked the dog crate against the door. Yeah, there was no way this guy was her guest.

He wanted to tear the window apart with his bare hands. If he’d had two good legs he’d probably have just gone straight through it and caught a bullet for his trouble. No, he needed to be smart.

Jameson raced back to Axel as quickly as he could. He hadn’t seen Candy. There hadn’t been anyone in the bed and she hadn’t been yelling either. Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to hear over the noise the dog was making? But if Candy was there and not in trouble, no way in hell she’d have let him abuse the dog.

“So?” Axel asked as he got closer to him.

“Looks like a guy with a gun and he kicked the dog.”

“Candy’d never let him get away with either of that.”

“Yeah, so either she isn’t in there or she is, but too scared or not able to do anything about it.”

“Fuck this, I’m going in.” He blinked at Axel.

“No, I’ll do it. Call the police.”

“Gimme a break.” The kid took off for the front door. Axel was smart and didn’t just bust the door in. Maybe he had a point but he wasn’t going in alone. Jameson dialed 911 and gave them their location and the armed intruder info, then got himself up the damn stairs. Axel pulled a lock pick set from his pocket and in less than a minute had the door unlocked. Jameson didn’t want to know where the kid had picked up that particular skill, he was just thankful he had it in his bag of tricks.

Axel stuffed the picks in his pocket and pulled his gun from his waist band. If the situation weren’t so dire he’d have laughed at the cannon the kid carried. Thank God he knew the kid was a dead shot with it but seriously Dirty Harry was a movie not real life. He palmed his coal black .45. What it lacked in impressiveness it more than made up for in being deadly. His thumb worried the groove. If that bastard had hurt Candy...

Axel worked the angles like the pro he was. Candy didn’t start yelling at them from the kitchen so it was a safe bet she was scared or hurt. His blood boiled but he focused on getting her out of there and after that he was gonna goddamned lock her in a fucking safe, bubble wrap and all. They made it through the living room without incident. Thank God these cape houses didn’t really waste space on hallways. Axel nodded towards the sewing room door and he shook his head cocking it toward the bedroom door. Axel gave him the go signal and then kicked in the bedroom door.

The door exploded before it was half open. Axel managed to get a shot off but collapsed on top of him, the wound in his side the only indication where the shooter had been.

“Fuck!”

Jameson struggled under the full weight of Axel. He was spattered with the kid’s blood which made it hard to get a decent grip to move Axel out of the way. Axel’s shot must have clipped the guy because he was holding his upper arm and roaring in pain. Blood seeped from what looked to be a flesh wound on the guy’s shoulder but the most important thing was his gun was missing. Probably dropped it from the buzzing in his hands. He said a quick prayer Candy wasn’t hit in the crossfire. He struggled to push the kid to the ground beside him.

As little time as it took, it still distracted him. The chair rocked with the head-on charge from Candy’s attacker. Jameson cursed himself as his .45 slipped from his blood soaked hand as it tangled with Axel. Instinct took over and he grabbed the guy’s shoulders and neck trying to wrestle him away from getting the gun. In his struggle the idiot kicked the gun further behind him. Recognition and hatred flashed in the man’s eyes while they grappled.

“You made her a whore! She was the one, the one! And you defiled her!” The man shook with rage as he screamed. His grip on the guy slipped in surprise. Candy was about as far from a whore as you could get.

“You’re insane!” He could feel his own anger surfacing. Anger made a man do stupid things. Now wasn’t the time to let it get to him. He needed to focus on protecting himself and subduing this guy. Though he was skinny, he was quick and fought like a man with nothing to lose. A few quick jabs to the wound on his shoulder helped slow him down. Keeping a handle on him was tough with the blood from Axel and now this guy’s. A quick look showed no sign of Candy.

He needed his goddamn gun. In order to get it he’d have to go through this guy and they were locked in a stalemate. None of this was helping Candy and the longer she stayed gone the more worried he was getting. He didn’t want to think about her being... Axel moaned behind him. That was a good sign. If he could hold the guy off maybe he could reach Axel’s piece. He didn’t want to give anything away but a quick check and he knew that wasn’t going to be any help. He was out of options.