Chase glanced around the dilapidated warehouse. He heard the men searching for him, and there was no escape. He was boxed in as Dominic Eli's thugs yelled at each other to find Chase. Chase knew taking on Morgan Hackery as a client had been a mistake. He'd felt it in his gut when Clint had agreed to take the job.

Morgan Hackery had said that he needed protection because he dealt with a lot of money and lately he'd felt as though he was being watched, but after digging deeper, Chase had discovered that Morgan had dealt with a large flow of cash.

Cartel cash.

Morgan up and disappeared two days ago, and had left false clues behind indicating that the Might brothers had something to do with the missing money. They didn’t, and now Chase had been shot, and Dominic Eli's men were searching for him to finish the job. They wanted to make an example of him and his brothers to others who might consider stealing from the cartel.

"I don’t think I'm getting out of this," Chase said as he swallowed roughly. He peered around the haphazardly stack of crates and then quickly ducked back when he saw one of the men heading in his direction. The guy was armed to the freaking teeth.

"Just keep a level head," Clint said. "I know you. You'll figure a way out."

Normally Chase would agree with his brother, but there were too many men in the warehouse and all exits were covered. Sooner or later someone was going to search his little hiding spot and it would be all over for him. He had to move. Moving was the only way to survive.

Glancing around the crates again, Chase saw that the thug had moved on. With his hand pressed over his wound, he pushed to his feet and skirted around the crates, slid around a corner, and then ducked into an old office. The room smelled musty and rancid as if there was a dead animal somewhere close by. A layer of dust covered everything, but at least it wasn't out in the open.

"Okay," Chase told his brothers, "I'm in one of the abandoned offices on the east side of the building, second floor corner."

"That's it," Ryan encouraged. "Keep moving. Do you see an escape route yet?"

Sweat covered Chase's scalp and slid down his back as he clenched his teeth. Fuck, the bullet wound was killing him. His entire arm felt as if it was on fire. He could feel it starting to heal, but the whole process was moving way too slow for comfort.

He checked through the single window that overlooked the ground first and second floor of the warehouse. The glass was dusty and smeared, but even without his enhanced sight he could make out moving bodies on the other side.

"No." There wasn't anything that wouldn't put him in the line of fire. Chase was still trying to figure out how he ended up in the line of fire in the first place. This mission was supposed to be a no brainer. Go in, get the intel to get the cartel off their asses, and get the hell out.

Except, Dominic Eli and his goons had been waiting for them. Someone, somewhere, had squealed. Chase trusted his brothers with his life. He trusted the people he employed at the Might Protection Agency he owned with his brothers to have his back.

So, either Dominic Eli was really good—and he wasn't—or the drug lord had just been lucky. Chase was going with lucky, because he couldn't think of any other way Eli would have known they were coming.

Chase ducked down when one of the thugs moved too close to the office window. He prayed the man didn’t come inside. The clip in his gun was empty and hand to hand combat would make too much noise. He was kind of running out of options.

"How's the bleeding?" Clint asked.

"Still fucking oozing from my arm," Chase bit out, "but it's not as bad as it was." He panted heavily as he gripped his upper arm tighter. His arm was going numb and soon he would lose use of it while it healed. That seriously wouldn't help his hand to hand combat skills. Sure, he could still kick someone's ass without the use of his arm, but it would make things harder.

"No need to get your panties in a bunch," Clint said. "Just getting a sit-rep."

Chase wasn’t in the mood to give his brothers a situation report. He needed to get out of there, but Clint was right. Chase had to keep them abreast of what was going on. They'd need to know where to collect the body if he didn’t make it out of there.

He ducked when a shadow fell across the window. Chase pressed his back into the wall and held his breath as the door swung open and then quickly closed. Squinting into the darkness of the office, he tried to make out the outline of a man.

A very small man.

"Sssh," the man said in a hushed tone as he patted a bundle strapped to his chest. "Don’t worry, sweety. Daddy's going to make things all better."

What the hell?

Chase cocked his head to the side to see what the man was holding. No. No way. This couldn’t be real. Was the guy actually holding a baby? A freaking baby? Maybe Chase had hit his head or he'd actually died and was hallucinating. There was no way a guy had slipped into the office of a deserted warehouse with a baby in his arms.

"Who are you?"

The man spun, squeaked, and then slapped a hand over his mouth. His green eyes were wide as he stared at Chase. The bag in the stranger's hand dropped to the floor as he began to back away and Chase saw pure terror all over his face.

Holding his hands up, Chase shushed the guy. "It's okay. I'm not the bad guy."

The stranger's eyes dropped to the wound on Chase's arm. His grip on the baby tightened. "Please, don’t hurt us."

God. The look in the man's eyes made Chase's chest tighten. "I swear to you that I am not going to hurt you or your baby." This was unreal. Chase was bleeding from a gunshot wound, bad guys were looking to kill him, and there was a man and a baby in the middle of all this.

He needed a fucking drink.

"Patrick!" someone yelled.

The shouted name from outside of the office made the stranger's eyes grow even rounder as his chest rose and fell rapidly. "He knows I escaped."

"Who?"

"Dominic."

Well shit. If Chase had even half a chance of getting out of there alive, the stranger had just blown it.