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He is bluffing. He needs her alive to escape the situation. However, we don’t need him breathing. As he shifts towards the door, a gunshot rings out. Fear clamps around my heart. Who fired, and who was shot? It takes my brain a moment to catch up and see the blood trickling from a hole in Jeremiah’s forehead. It takes me a second longer to see my brother, Kane, with his gun raised in Jeremiah’s direction. He took the shot.
Jeremiah staggers and goes down hard, taking Sariah with him. For a moment I worry she’s hit too. My legs move before I realise what I’m doing. I drop down next to her, my knees slamming into the wood beneath me. Jeremiah’s body is on top of her, and he is heavy to move. Winters is suddenly at my side, helping me lift his dead weight off her. When we get him onto his back, his eyes are glassy, staring unseeing at the ceiling. There is no life in him.
I ignore Jeremiah Wood and give my attention to the downed body of my wife. There is blood on the back of her neck, staining her T-shirt. She starts to move slowly and relief washes through me like a tidal wave. I skim my hand over the back of her body, checking for injuries, but I find nothing. I flip her over and her eyes find mine. Tears overflow, streaking down her cheeks. I gather her into my arms, pulling her against my chest as that ache in my torso starts to loosen. She is safe, she’s breathing, and she’s back in my embrace.
I inhale her scent, nuzzling my nose into her hair. My heart finally starts to calm itself, and I take a free breath. I pull back, cupping her face in my hands. I notice the bruising starting to mottle her skin and my anger flares. If Jeremiah wasn’t lying there dead, I would torture the fuck out of him. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“I knew you would come.” The unshakeable faith she has in me awes me. I have never been someone’s saviour before, but right now I am hers.
When I pull free, I rest my head against hers with my hand still locked on her face. I need the connection to her. The thought of letting her go fills me with unease.
“Is Aurelia okay?” she asks. I notice she’s studiously avoiding looking at Jeremiah’s body. I move us so I’m shielding her from him.
I glance towards my brother who is kneeling over our sister. She is starting to rouse, and both Kane and Malone are helping to sit her up. “She’s okay.”
Sariah clings to me, her fingers fisting my T-shirt. “I thought I was going to die.”
“I would never allow it.” I kiss her head, needing to feel close to her.
She peers up at me. “All I could think about when that knife was pressed to my throat is that I never got the chance to tell you how I really feel. I love you, Luke. I don’t expect you to say it back, but I never want to be in that position again without you knowing the truth.”
Her words floor me. I don’t expect such candour from her. I realise I feel the same. When you know, you know. Sariah is all I need, and all I want.
“I love you too. I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you in Tease, looking lost and out of place. I swear, Sariah, I will never let anything touch you again, and the people who were involved in taking you and my sister will pay for their betrayal.”
And I mean every word of that. I’m going to make it my personal mission to hunt down Aaron Leep and eviscerate the fucker.
I help Sariah to her feet and then I carry her bridal style out to the cars. She nuzzles against me, and I love the feel of her in my arms. I put her in the back of the nearest vehicle and tell her to wait there while I head back to my brother. Malone is helping my sister to her feet, and I wait for him to take her away before I turn to Kane.
“Aaron Leep is mine.”
Kane stares at me. “Why do you get to have all the fun?”
“Because he took my wife.”
“And our sister.”
“I want him dead, and I want to be the one to do it. I’ve never asked you for anything, Kane, but I’m asking for this.”
My brother looks at me as if he is contemplating telling me to get fucked. Then he sighs. “I want to play too, but you can have first go at him.”
It’s a compromise and one I’m willing to live with. I find Weston and get him looking for Aaron Leep. I check my sister where she is sitting in the back of the car with Ryan Malone, something I should probably question, and if I was in my right mind I might have done. Then I take my wife back to the penthouse.
After I clean her up, washing every inch of her skin to remove the blood from her, she makes a beeline straight for the sofa and sinks onto it as I drop my keys and wallet on the edge of the countertop. “Do you need anything?”
She shakes her head as she drags a blanket off the back of the chair. “I just want to sleep.” She taps the seat next to her. “Sit with me.”
I oblige, sinking down next to her and pulling her against my chest. She told me she loved me, and I gave her the words back, meaning it with every fibre of my being. I do love her, and I will do whatever I must to keep her safe.
Including taking Aaron Leep’s life.
We put on a film and sit clinched together while it plays. I don’t watch it. My thoughts are on what I’m going to do to the man who took my wife and handed her over to my enemy. Aaron was someone we trusted. He was in a position of power as my sister’s bodyguard. I wonder how long he has been on someone else’s side. How deep his betrayal runs.
I pull the bracelet out of my pocket and peer down at it. I have carried it with me since that night she left it in the hotel room. I don’t want to give it back. Having it on my person makes me feel close to her, but it’s time. I have her. I don’t need fucking trinkets anymore.
She glances up as I hold it out to her.
“I thought I lost that.”
