Slowly backpedaling, I split my attention between them and searching the room for any item I can use as a weapon.
“I’m going to kill you,” Michelle thickly whispers, running a hand over Kareem’s back. “I’m going to do what I should’ve done the moment your father introduced your ass to me. Put you down like the little whore you are.”
Before I can charge her, Michelle jumps to her feet and darts across the short distance to the credenza against the wall. She snatches open a drawer and pulls a gun out, pointing it at me.
Fuck.
I didn’t think about her having a weapon.
Fear should prickle my skin, flood my nervous system. But it doesn’t. A calm descends on me—calm, and a resolve that this may be it but she won’t be able to get away with murder. Asad won’t let her. And that is more than enough for me.
Asad.
A wave of grief hits me. Grief and regret. Of what could’ve been. Of things left unsaid. Of fears not conquered.
Of love not professed.
“Put it down, Michelle,” the low, midnight voice comes from behind me, and I almost sink to the floor.
Not with relief. Not all of relief. There’s joy. There’s fierce triumph.
There’s an even fiercer, obsessive, all-consuming love.
Asad came for me.
Hefuckingcame for me.
“Prince.” The gun trembles slightly in Michelle’s hand as she rushes toward me. Cursing, Asad moves at the same time, but she grabs my shoulder and spins me around, jerking me in front of her. “Wha-what’re you doing here?” Not waiting forhis reply, she retreats, tugging me with her. “She killed your brother, Prince. I have to shoot her. For him. She can’t live, and she killed my baby.”
“Cut the shit,” Prince growls, moving farther into the room, his own weapon trained on her. “I know everything. Next time, choose a better partner than my fuckboy brother. He kept everything on his computer—every email, transaction, text. Once I knew where to look, it was all right there. Including the messages between you two.” He shakes his head, and underneath the rage burning in his molten gaze, pain lurks there. A hurt that causes a corresponding ache in my chest. This is his mother, and his brother lies dead on the floor. At my hands. “Xavier mentioned family being involved. But I swear, even with how you did my father, I for some reason didn’t conceive you’d do me the same way. So much for that maternal instinct. It’s over, Michelle. You’re not walking out of here. Let Ember go.”
“Ember. Fucking Ember,” she snarls in my ear, her fingernails digging into my bare shoulder. Hate and fear jumble together. Hatred for this woman who harms everything she touches. Including her sons. And fear because she’s about to steal one more thing from me. My future. “That’s all you care about. All you’ve ever cared about. You think I didn’t notice how you were with her when you were younger? It’s how I kept you in line. As long as she was around and under my thumb, so were you. But she’s not your mother,I am. I should have your loyalty. Your love. Fuck her. Fuck her mother. And fuck you if—”
A shot rings out, and the heat of the bullet sears me. Behind me, Michelle stiffens, her grip reflexively tightening on me, but I jerk away in time to see her body tumble to the floor. A neat bullet hole pierces her forehead, and she stares up at me, sightless, lifeless.
I whip around, and Asad lowers his Glock, his gray gaze fixed on me. Scanning over me.
“I’m fine,” I rasp.
“C’mere.”
“You came for me,” I whisper.
“C’mere, Ember.”
“You chose me.”
His hard expression softens. “Come here, ma.”
On a broken cry, I’m moving before I acknowledge it, and I’m flying across the room. I’m running to my safety. My protector. My home.
Before I reach him, Asad crashes into me, his arms closing around me so tight, my ribs faintly protest, but I shut that down because this is what I need. How I need to be held by him. If I could, I’d crawl inside his skin and pay rent to stay.
He’s mine. Because I’ve chosen him, too.
“I’ll always come for you, Ember. Love won’t let me do anything else.”
“You love me?” I ask, cupping his face, sweeping my thumbs over his stark cheekbones. Aside from Sam and my mother, no one has loved me. Has ever said those words to me.
