Free Blake, Abby - Sweet Captivation [A Bride for Eight Brothers 2] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) by Abby Blake Page A

they let Bryce sit with her while they waited. He couldn’t exactly hold her—they’d left the cuffs on him—but at least she wasn’t alone while she waited for news of Matt’s operation. Fortunately, even before Matt went into surgery, the doctors had been confident the bullet hadn’t hit anything important. A few inches lower and it would’ve been a very different story.
    “Davidson!” A short, balding, angry little man waddled into the room and yelled at Bryce. “Where the fuck have you been?” He turned to glare at the police officer hovering near the doorway. “Who put fucking handcuffs on him? Jesus, take them off him for fuck’s sake.” Mikayla couldn’t quite believe her eyes when the uniformed officer jumped to attention and then did as the little man ordered. Within moments the room was empty but for Mikayla, Bryce, the little man, and another who wore a silver badge and appeared to be some kind of police detective.
    “Apologies for the language, ma’am,” their taller visitor said quietly, “but we’d pretty much written this guy off as buried in a ditch somewhere.” He turned to Bryce and held out his hand. Bryce shook it and smiled. “Glad to see we were wrong.”
    “Me, too,” Bryce said fervently. He tilted his head in her direction. “This is Mikayla. She’s my brothers’ wife,” he said by way of introduction. The short guy raised an eyebrow but didn’t offer any comment. “Did Kenshaw make it through surgery?” Bryce asked.
    The detective smiled gleefully. “Yes, he did. He’ll even be able to fill in some details for us when he wakes up. I’m sure everyone in the department will be interested in how much money he got paid to betray his fellow officers. I suspect it will be a rather long conversation.”
    Mikayla had about a million and a half questions, and she had no idea where to start.
    “Who are you?” she asked, realizing she was being very rude and not caring one iota. She’d just seen two people shot, and if Bryce hadn’t come back, she might’ve been one of them.
    “Sorry, honey. This cantankerous asshole,” Bryce said with a smile on his face and a tilt of his head toward the shorter guy, “is my boss, Henry Crane, and this smartass is my partner Josh Ryan.”
    “Partner?” she asked. It didn’t feel quite real. Mikayla had been sure from the beginning that Bryce wasn’t a criminal, but she hadn’t even considered that he might be a police officer. She must’ve had a dumbfounded look on her face because Bryce squeezed her hand and smiled. “I’ll explain later.”
    “The short story is,” Josh interjected, “that Bryce has been working deep undercover for nearly ten years. He’s helped crack several high profile drug rings, but on this assignment his luck almost ran out.” He looked at Bryce, seeming to assess something in the man that Mikayla couldn’t guess at and then said, “Although, maybe his luck has just begun. I’ve suspected for a while that he’s ready to retire.”
    Mikayla turned to look at the man beside her as he smiled and laughed softly. “I never could hide anything from you,” he said to his partner. He turned his gaze to his boss. “You’ll have my resignation as soon as I make sure Mikayla and Matt will be okay.”
    His boss seemed disappointed, but he nodded and shook Bryce’s hand before turning to leave the room. Just before he stepped out the door he turned and growled, “Just make sure your damn report’s on my desk before you leave.”
    Bryce and Josh exchanged a look, and then Josh followed their boss out the door.
    “Undercover cop?” Mikayla asked with a certain amount of excitement bubbling through her. It was stupid really, but she’d believed all along that Bryce wasn’t the criminal he seemed and knowing that she was right somehow restored something that had been stolen when she’d been betrayed by Jet so long ago.
    “I’m not a cop. Not anymore,” Bryce said decisively but the brilliant