Free Midnight Captive by Elle Kennedy

something Bailey wasn’t. “Damn it, Gallagher. No.”
    A frown marred Bailey’s lips at the exact moment that all five men raised their weapons.
    Shit.
    Sean tried to take a step forward, but Bailey grabbed his arm, keeping him in place. “Don’t. You can’t—”
    A gunshot cut her off, summoning a wild curse from Sean’s lips.
    One of the men had fired. Nowhere near the Garda officers, as far as Bailey could tell, but she knew he hadn’t aimed to kill anyone.
    Just to provoke.
    And it worked. The police brigade opened fire as screams echoed in the night. The robbers’ bodies fell like bowling pins, their blood spilling onto the pavement as they jerked and twitched from chest and head wounds. As they died in a hail of bullets that made Bailey’s ears ring.
    When the last body hit the ground, shocked silence crashed over the street.
    “Bailey,” Sean murmured. Grim, stoic.
    She snapped out of her horror. Nodded.
    The two of them veered past the waiting ambulances and disappeared into the darkness.

Chapter 5
    Those crazy bastards. Bloody
morons
. Sean almost wished Gallagher and the others were still alive so he could murder them himself. They hadn’t needed to go out in a blaze of glory, damn it! They could have done their bloody time, trusted Rabbit to find a way to get them out.
    But no, he supposed they couldn’t have. The Irish Dagger had too many enemies. A stretch in the Joy for a Dagger member was the equivalent of a death sentence.
    Sean stared out the car window, too preoccupied to pay attention to the city scenery whizzing by him. Christ. How was he going to explain to Rabbit why five of his soldiers had died tonight?
    And how the hell was he going to get rid of Bailey? He didn’t want her anywhere near this mess. It was too bloody dangerous, and Rabbit was too damn unpredictable.
    She was in the passenger side of the sedan, sitting beside the dark-haired man who’d provided their pickup. Rafe. She’d introduced him as a colleague of hers, apparently trusting him enough to assist her, and damned if that didn’t spark a flash of jealousy. God knew she’drefused
Sean’s
help time and again. But obviously his woman was perfectly content letting a total stranger drive her getaway car.
    She’s not your woman, mate.
    His possessiveness over her was too much even for him. She was
Oliver’s
girl. Or at least she had been before Sean had swept in and screwed things up for them. He hated himself for what he’d done, and yet each time he thought back to that night . . . he didn’t regret it. He’d wanted Bailey for so long, and for that one night, she’d been his.
    Which only made him an even bigger asshole. What kind of man went after his brother’s girl and didn’t fucking regret it?
    “My flat is ten streets west of here.” Sean addressed the driver in a curt voice when he became aware of his surroundings. “You can drop me off there.”
    Bailey twisted around in her seat, storm clouds darkening her eyes. “Are you kidding me? You’ve been giving me the silent treatment for twenty minutes and
that’s
the first thing you say? Drop me off at my flat?”
    Sean set his jaw, responding with a cool look that only intensified her anger.
    “I deserve an explanation,” she snapped. “I risked my life for you tonight.”
    That triggered his own anger. “I didn’t bloody ask you to! You shouldn’t have come to Dublin.”
    “God. You’re such a stubborn ass! You were in
trouble
.”
    Maybe it made him a masochist, but he found her so damn attractive when she was fuming at him. Her eyes always went from gray to metallic silver, her fair skin taking on a red flush that made her come alive.
    He’d wanted her from the second he’d met her, years ago in South America. She’d been on a job and neededinformation about her mark, and she’d looked so tiny and delicate during their first meeting that he’d wanted to yank her into his arms and never let go. Didn’t matter that she’d hated him