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Nik pushed her to the floor, going down with her as gunfire began to echo around her. She heard curses, enraged and furious, as Nik moved.
Maddix went down, his eyes rounded with terror as he began trying to crawl across the floor to her. A bullet fired into the wood floor in front of him, chipping wood and causing him to fling himself to the side.
The lights went out, throwing the room into complete darkness as chaos and bullets swirled around her.
When silence finally reigned, Mikayla struggled to penetrate the shadows, to find Nik. Everything inside her was demanding that she call out to him, that she find him. Rising to her knees, she stared around desperately, feeling her lips tremble, fear crawling through her system.
"You fucking whore!"
There was no way to avoid the arm that suddenly went around her neck, restricting her breaths as the sound of Luke's heavy breathing blasted in her ear. Instantly blinding spots of light centered on them.
"I'll kill this bitch!" The words were screeched into her ear. This was Luke. And she had never seen the pure evil that existed inside him.
"You're going to let her go or I'm going to kill you." Nik's voice came out of the darkness. "Don't make that happen, Luke."
"Fuck you, Steele!" His arm moved.
A shot rang out.
Mikayla felt Luke still, felt the sudden shock of his body that indicated something had happened before he crumpled behind her.
She was left standing in the middle of the room, her breathing harsh, heavy, for no more than a second. A lifetime. A brutal, freezing eternity before Nik's arms were suddenly around her. He pulled her against his chest, held her close to him, and she could swear she heard him breathe a prayer.
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Chapter 24
Luke was dead, as was his uncle Floyd Cantwell. The two men hadn't known who they were dealing with when they faced Nik. An ineffective mercenary? She didn't think so. As she watched the black-masked men who filled the Nelson library hours later, she knew he was anything but a mercenary.
Maddix Nelson was slumped in a chair, his third glass of whisky in his hand, tears unashamedly dampening his cheeks. He'd lost everything in a very short amount of time. The brother he hadn't known he had, the son he hadn't known the true evil of. He was a man fighting just to believe the events of that evening.
The chief of police and the detective assigned to the case stood close to Maddix while Glenda stood at his side, silently weeping for him.
Say what one did about the woman, she genuinely seemed to care about Maddix. His parents were on their way from Arizona. God only knew how they would handle the truth of what had happened to the child they had believed had died. Nik stood with Jordan Malone and Ian Richards on the other side of the room, talking
to four other men, all in black masks and black clothing. They were all tall, hard bodied, and hard-eyed as they surveyed the scene.
Clapping Nik on the back, each in turn, they walked through the patio doors as Mikayla watched, disappearing into the night as Ian and Jordan moved to where Maddix and the police sat.
Nik moved to her.
"We're leaving," he told her as he held his hand out to her. "I've given the investigator your statement. It's over, baby."
How could it truly be over when so much had been lost?
Taking his hand, she let him pull her to her feet, his arm wrapping around her as he led her to the door.
"I want to stop at the hospital and check on Kira." Mikayla wanted to cry until there were no tears left inside her.
"A friend has been at the hospital," he told her. "Ian checked on Kira; she's doing fine. She's resting and she'll have a few more scars to add to her collection, but she's going to be fine."
Mikayla nodded. So much for delaying the inevitable.
"We're going home, then?" she asked.
"We're going home," Nik agreed.
He handled her gently, lifting her into the truck and helping her buckle her seat belt because her hands were shaking so hard. She didn't want to go home. She didn't want to watch him leave her.
