Page 84 of Her Ruthless Protector

“Sniper in the stadium light.” Nick’s voice came through clearly in Kane’s receiver.

Shit, he wasn’t wrong.

Kane looked up at the towering lights above the stadium.

Singing turned to shrieks of pain.

“We’ve got injured,” Leo said calmly into his mic.

“Stay in position,” Max said. “I need you and Kane directing traffic.”

Two people tried to run past Kane—one of them was Python. He made a grab for them. They didn’t need more targets. He caught one. It was Shelly.

Another shot. He watched as a burst of blood bloomed on Python’s mammoth belly and he fell to the stage. Then a swath of pink angel fabric from one of the angels covered him.

“Let me go,” Shelly cried. “I have to get to Julie.”

A body fell from the sky and landed with a thump on the stage. Shelly’s scream of terror reverberated through Kane’s skull. It was one of the acrobats. Somehow the sniper had targeted one of the performers in the leotards.

“Do not go to the stage,” A.J.’s loud, firm and clear voice came through Kane’s receiver. “Do not go to the stage. Move to the backstage exit in a calm and orderly fashion.” A.J. continued to speak calmly to the people backstage.

Kane swept his binoculars back up toward the stadium lights, ignoring Shelly as she clung to him like a limpet. “Hunter, which light has the shooter, there’s four of them.”

“I saw shots, for sure, coming from the two lights facing the stage,” Hunter answered.

Kane trained his binoculars up to the Southwest light, but it was no use, the glare of the light made it impossible to see a damn thing. He needed to look up at it from a different angle.

“Who has a good view?” Gray Tyler demanded over their comm.

“I do. I’m almost directly below the southeast light and can see the tip of the rifle, but no sign of a shooter,” Dex Evans said.

“I’m climbing to the roof of the VIP section,” Hunter said softly.

“I’m getting there too,” Griffin Porter, one of Hunter’s teammates, said. He’d been guarding the VIP boxes.

Kane looked at the stage—three of the acrobats had somehow climbed down from their perch and were administering aid to Python and one of the singers. They were ignoring another woman who wasn’t moving.

The bullets were coming at a very slow but consistent interval. It didn’t make sense. It was as if the shooter was a robot. Kane waited and counted off.

“Down!” He yelled.

One of the acrobats threw his partner behind the skeleton of the devil puppet just as a bullet ripped through the stage. Kane mentally started counting again.

Suddenly, Derik was behind him. He threw Shelly at him so that she was no longer in his arms and he could concentrate on the shooters. Then Alistair came up behind and Kane stopped him. “Wait,” he told the man.

“Leo, give a count of ten seconds—that’s when the next bullet will come,” Kane told his teammate. “That’s when you can send out the guys to help.”

“Now!” Leo yelled. “Alistair, you have ten seconds,” he said as he waved the man onto the stage.

“Get your ass up here, Griff. Maybe after we shoot out enough lights you can see something so we can take out this bastard,” Hunter said.

“I’m outside the tunnel and heading to the light,” Raiden said. “I should be able to shoot directly up the pole.”

“Which pole?” Gray demanded to know.

“Southwest.”

“Dex, get outside to your southeast light, maybe you can see the shooter from the outside,” Gray ordered.