I let out a shuddering breath and climbed back into my seat. I opened the door, having to kick at it to get it to cooperate, and then I all but fell out into the snow. I reached into the waistband of my jeans and pulled out the gun. It was heavy and lethal in my hand. With a loud, frustrated cry, I launched it into the darkness, out into the snow-covered landscape. I felt sick inside and I knew it wasn’t because my body still wanted me to do the job.
The war between this body and my soul was over.
My soul won.
And with that victory, feelings I’d held back, feelings I hadn’t understood or wanted to feel flooded me. I was so ashamed of everything I’d done.
I reached into my jeans and pulled out my cell.
“Hobbs,” I rasped when my butler answered on the first ring. “I’ve been in an accident… Piper… she’s unconscious. Please help us.”
I rattled off our location, then dropped the phone in the snow, completely ignoring his questions and demands. I knew he would come.
I couldn’t get Piper out of her side because it was smashed into a tree. So, I climbed back in my side and found my leather jacket to wrap around her. Every muscle in my body quivered and protested as I lifted her out. A couple times I had to stop with her in my arms and take a few breaths. I did what I could to make sure she wasn’t injured more, but I knew she got a few more scrapes as I tried to wiggle her out.
Once free of the twisted metal, I carried her to the road where I dropped, still holding her in my arms, to wait.
I looked down at her in the dark and more feelings rushed to the surface. I wouldn’t kill her. I was never going to. All of the times I’d “attempted” to do so were never a success because I hadn’t really been trying. If I were, she’d be dead.
And I didn’t want her to die.
Even if it meant I’d be recalled.
Chapter Fifty-Two
“Safe - Free from danger or injury; unhurt. Secure from danger, harm, or evil.”
Piper
I heard the beeping, I felt the gentle pressure of a blanket over my body, and I knew finally I was somewhere safe. I didn’t open my eyes because I wasn’t ready yet. When I opened them, I’d have to see. I’d have to see everything I’d been blind to for so long.
All this time I’d been falling. Falling for a man who wanted me dead. I thought of him fondly while he thought of ways to erase me from this earth. Had I let my obsession with the man who died for me get in the way of everything else? Did I yearn for him so badly that I didn’t care what I had to do to get answers?
My brain lost these thoughts as a feeling of pain came over me. My body was so tired. I’d fought to stay alive and I was… but for how much longer?
I heard a soft noise beside me and then felt a presence that had probably been there all along. Was it Frankie? No. Frankie would be demanding that I open my eyes. She’d be yelling at me for scaring her this way.
This presence was heavy and silent, laced with regret. Was he here, then? Was he waiting to kill me in my sleep?
Perhaps if I was going to die, doing so peacefully would be best. I tried to die while fighting and that hadn’t gotten me anywhere.
Something cold touched my skin and then was drawn away. I lay there without one ounce of energy to open my eyes. As I began to fall asleep, I heard a heavy sigh and something warm wrapped around my fingers.
Dex.
I thought about reaching for the call button. I thought about getting some help. But I never got that far. Because as soon as the thought entered my mind, Dex began to talk.
He began to confess.
Chapter Fifty-Three
“Confess - To disclose (something damaging or inconvenient to oneself); admit.”
Dex
If she dies, it’s going to be my fault.
The thought mixed with the sound of beeping monitors—the two blending together into a constant rhythm that hummed through me as I hunched close to the hospital bed.
