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For a minute, I thought he was knocked out, but his eyes were wide open. Guilt lashed at my chest as I stared at a man who was nothing like the person I’d been with the night before.
“If I cut you loose, you have to try and haul ass out the door.”
Snatching the knife off the table, I went to work on his restraints, breathing in as little of the nauseating air as possible. When his hands were free, I moved to his ankles.
“Alright, hurry,” I whispered when I was done helping him up.
“Come…with me,” he wheezed out.
How I wished I could. Between Seth and Pierce, I didn’t trust either of them, but Pierce was the one with the connection to Abbi. I couldn’t risk him doing something to her, and I was not going to run back to Seth.
I grunted from the strain of supporting his dead weight. As we struggled together, the grime coating his skin rubbed onto mine. It began to sink in how terrible of an idea this was. At the pace he was going, there was no way he could get out in time, but I couldn’t exactly drag him back to the chair and tie him up again. He had no choice but to try and make it.
“You have to move fast,” I warned him as I pulled the front door open.
Jason wasted no time pushing off me and hobbling across the threshold with a muttered, “Good luck.”
He made it to the tree line, struggling the entire time.
I knew once he got lost in the foliage, he would have much better survival odds.
But he never made it that far.
I heard the gun go off, heard the bullet hit Jason in the back. He went to his knees and still tried to keep going. I looked on in silent horror as Enrique approached Jason from the side of the house.
He lifted his gun and fired another round into the back of his head, execution style. I took a step back and turned around, freezing when I spotted Pierce sitting on the stairs, watching me with an amused expression on his face. He stood slowly, and then took his time approaching. When he was close, he reached around me and shut the door before backing me against it.
“Why?” I demanded to know.
“He touched you.”
“That’s because you told me to get in the car with him.”
“I had to know if you would try to leave me. You didn’t.”
Jesus! He was so callous, so damn cold.
“So, he didn’t do anything outside of that?” My tone was incredulous. Pierce was certifiably fucking insane.
He pinched my chin with two fingers, forcing me to tilt my head back and look up at him.
“He did cut me off in traffic a week ago,” he smiled down at me. “There’s nothing wrong with me, Rebel. You know who I am and what I do. I’ve never hidden it from you. You grew up in this lifestyle. Why is this situation bothering you?”
I swallowed, eyes briefly darting away. “Because he’s dead. And it’s my fault.”
He was shaking his head before I finished speaking. “Jason was the only man foolish enough to think he could be near you without consequence. This isn’t your fault.”
“I don’t care if I told you to seduce him with everything you had—no one touches what’s mine. He disrespected me the second he thought he could. If you are with me, no one will touch you.” He ran the pad of his thumb across my lower lip, pausing when my hands cupped the side of his face.
The sick, twisted truth was that I didn’t hate him. Not even close. He was unnervingly intense. Dangerous. Callous and cruel. Yet, for all his faults he had always been oddly protective over me. Since he’d taken me, he had been loyal to me. I knew that didn’t make up for the half of it, but they mattered. The very things that should have made me hate him were all the reasons why I didn’t. It could have been worse. He could have been Hannibal Lector bad.
Besides, he was right. I did grow up in this world where crime was okay and dirty money was vital in how men provided for their families.
It might not have been right to outsiders, but it was all I knew. Maybe that made me screwed up, because after everything that had gone down between us, and even though there was a man with a bullet hole in the back of his head right outside the door, I still wanted him.
“God, this is so messed up.” Shaking my head, I shoved away from him and headed for the stairs, cognizant he was right behind me. When I pivoted around on the fourth stair to add something else, he grabbed the back of my head and brought his mouth mere centimeters from mine.
