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My heart was slamming against my ribs as we tore towards the mansion. In the chaos, Gregor hadn’t been able to get his men after me so quickly. We had the jump on them, at least for now, and I was going to make the very most of that I could.
"Keep watch," I barked to the men in the back. "Tell me if anyone’s following us. We might need to throw them off."
One of them nodded curtly in response, and I saw Morgan’s head jerk up beneath the bag—she recognized my voice at once. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here myself, could have sent some of my men to handle this instead, but when it came to her, I knew it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t risk it. I needed to make certain she got out of there in one piece, no matter what it cost.
No matter what.
I screeched to a halt around the back of my father’s mansion and motioned for the men to get Morgan out of the car. She stumbled in the spiky heels she was wearing, nearly tumbling to the ground, but I grabbed her.
"Hey, hey, it’s okay," I murmured to her. "You’re good."
"Alex?" she whispered, as though she could barely dare to hope.
"You need to get inside," I told her, pulling the bag back so she could catch a breath. I didn’t want her to see exactly where we were in case she fed the information back to Gregor out of some sense of misplaced loyalty, but I knew it had to be stuffy under there.
We led her into the house, and I took her to my study, where a fire was blazing in the fireplace, waiting for her. Tentatively, I pulled the bag back from her head, and she heaved in a deep breath and then turned to face me in complete and utter shock.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded.
"You need to sit down," I told her, guiding her to a large, leather seat opposite the fire. "Here …"
"Don’t touch me!" she argued, brushing me off at once. "What’s happening, Alex? What’s going on?"
I grinned at her.
"You’re safe," I promised her. "You have nothing to worry about. Gregor can’t get you here—"
"I’m safe?" she exclaimed, cutting me off. "Do you hear yourself? You just kidnapped me! How the hell could I be safe—"
"Because I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to," I told her. "You want to go back to Gregor right now, you can. You’re free to. Walk out that door, sell me out, tell him I’m the one who took you, and go back to being his wife."
She fell silent for a moment. She might have been pissed at me, but it was nothing compared the sheer terror that passed over her face when I suggested that.
She sank down into the seat and put her head in her hands.
"You don’t know what you’ve just done," she protested, shaking her head. The dress she was wearing was ridiculously short, cutting off at her thighs, and I could see goosebumps all over her skin. I grabbed a blanket from the chair beside her and draped it over her shoulders. She gripped onto it tight, pulling it against herself as though it was the only thing keeping her safe right now.
"I know that I got you away from him," I told her, sinking down on my haunches in front of her. "I know you don’t have to sleep in a bed with him tonight. You don’t have to spend another day pretending to be a loving wife to that psycho."
She lifted her gaze to meet mine again. I could tell how conflicted she was right now. Because, yes, she was out of there, at least for now, but at what cost?
"I didn’t ask you to do this," she replied, through gritted teeth. "You didn’t have to get involved like that—"
"I know I didn’t," I replied. "But I had to. When I heard what he was doing to you, what he was expecting from you, I … I couldn’t let that stand. I’ve known your family for a long time, Morgan; I’ve known you for a long time. I wasn’t just going to stand by and let that man do whatever he wanted."
"You barely knew me at all," she shot back. "I was just Leo’s little sister to you. You barely gave me the time of day—"
"Because Leo would have freaked," I pointed out. "Not because I didn’t like you. And even if I didn’t know you at all … you really think I could let him do that to you? Force you that way? I couldn’t live with myself. That’s not who my father raised me to be."
Her head sank down to her chest again.
"You don’t know how much trouble you’ve just caused," she muttered. "When he finds out—"
"If he finds out," I corrected her. She stared at me for a moment, clearly not able to believe what she was hearing.
"You really think it’s a matter of if?" she demanded. "You know how powerful he is. He has eyes in every corner of this city. And when he finds out it was you, he’ll …"
She trailed off. She didn’t need to fill it in for me; I knew the risks of what I had just done, and I was willing to take them. I had been planning this since the moment I had first seen her there, putting together the plan in my head. I knew time was running short, the time before he forced himself on her ticking away, and I couldn’t just look the other way and let it happen. My father had been many things, but he hadn’t been the kind of man who would allow a woman to be violated that way if there was anything he could have done to stop it.
