2-Bound By Law by SE Jakes

moved a little stiffly when he’d woken up. Paulo wanted to question him, especially when he’d noticed the old cigarette burns on Law’s hip, but he hadn’t.
    One of Paulo’s first busts as a detective had included a horrific case of child abuse—he’d learned more on the subject than he’d ever wanted to know.
    He’d given Law a couple of Advil and water—Law had narrowed his eyes at that but he’d taken it—and then Paulo had pulled Law back into bed and given him a massage that turned to sex.
    And then he’d done some investigating, but that had happened later, after Law had been hurt. Paulo had stumbled on some information that led him to more—and although he was pissed at himself that he’d done it, it had given him an immediate understanding of many things concerning Law.
    Now, Styx was telling him there was more to the story. More than living with broken bones and broken dreams through most of childhood, and Jesus, he had to stop thinking about those details in the file because they made him sick and angry all at once.
    He checked out the side window, saw Paulo and Law pacing and talking…obviously, they were still fighting.
    Restlessly, he prowled the house, stopping when he hit the front door. He looked beyond the curtain toward the woods. It was dark and it was snowing and maybe he’d just seen a shadow of nothing…
    But no…something—someone—was out there. Fuck.
    He grabbed a pair of binoculars Styx had left on the kitchen table and used them as surreptitiously as possible. Honed in on a man lying on the ground, covered in snow, with a rifle and a scope, pointing in Law and Styx’s direction.
    The shooter was so busy trying to get a clean shot at both men together that he didn’t see Paulo taking aim with the hunting rifle he took from the table in favor of his pistol, which he shoved into the back of his jeans. He was intimately aquatinted with rifles from his youth, could take down a buck at one hundred yards. Perps, too.
    He took advantage of the window in the bathroom that gave him a good shot. He eased it open carefully, could hear Law and Styx talking loudly. He placed the rifle on the ledge and his hands steadied—he was grateful that Law and Styx were arguing physically, because had they been standing still, the shooter wouldn’t be hesitating.
    There wasn’t time to be nervous any longer. Paulo aimed right between the eyes, and the shot rang through the air and hit its mark. He remained in place, waiting to see if the man moved again, even as Styx and Law came running through the back door.
    They were in and safe. Paulo left the rifle, and he pulled his pistol out of his pocket and ran out the front door, aware that Styx was following behind him. Paulo headed to the man he’d shot, his cop’s instinct kicking in hard, went to his knees and felt for a pulse.
    None. He rolled the man, saw the mark between his eyes—a damned good and clean shot—and was checking for ID when Styx knelt next to him.
    “Check the woods, Law.” Styx handed Law his gun and in that moment, Paulo looked up and saw the jungle in Law’s eyes, the soldier readying for recon.
    “Hey, Paulo, you okay?” Styx was asking, and Paulo turned from watching Law’s back into the dark green eyes of the man in front of him.
    “Fine. You recognize him?”
    “No.”
    Paulo handed him the perp’s wallet and Styx looked through it. “I’ll call Tomcat to run it, but this means we’re made. We’ve got to try to outrun this storm.”
    “And hope this guy’s working alone,” Paulo said grimly.
     
    Paulo hadn’t hesitated—the shot was clean, decisions made in what was no doubt mere seconds, and Styx had seen agency guys crack under similar pressure.
    Instead, Paulo had thrived and had continued to keep control of the situation…until he’d realized how close the man lying dead on the ground had come to killing Law and started to lose it a little. Styx could see it in his face when he’d looked up