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“Well, this is awkward,” Jerry said, his hand wrapped around Kat’s throat despite Jerry not appearing to have a weapon. Instead, the man to his side had a pistol out and aimed at Bradley. “If you’re here for goodbyes, please get them over with quickly. Katherine and I need to get reacquainted.”
Bradley swung himself off the horse then slapped its hindquarters to get it to go. He didn’t need it taking a bullet or panicking in the event that the muscle over there fired his gun. A panicking horse would just make the situation worse.
It took off, letting Bradley focus on the scene in front of him instead. He peered at Kat. “You okay?”
She nodded, but her gaze dropped as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Why? Shame? Maybe it was too hard since she assumed she was going to never see him again.
Fuck that. If Kat thought she was goinganywhere,she was sadly mistaken. “It’ll be okay, Kat.”
“It won’t,” Jerry said, his voice full of arrogance. “You see,Katherine,I fell for you because of how much trouble you are and how much fun breaking that will be. You are the sort of woman who brings chaos to everything around her. You caused the death of all those women, and the one you just ‘saved’? She’s going to carry those scars all her life and they’re your fault. If your buddy here does anything stupid, his death’ll be on your hands, too. Haven’t you figured that out, yet? Look at how much every person around you has suffered all because of you.”
The words were cruel, but it wasn’t hard to see each one taking apart any confidence Kat had inside her.
The sound of the golf cart made Bradley breathe in deeply. Sure enough, a moment later, it pulled to a stop beside Bradley and Olin and Dean got out.
“The woman…” Kat said, the foolish brat always too worried about everyone else.
“She’s fine,” Olin assured her. “She’s safe at the house waiting for an ambulance.”
“Detective Ramiz,” Jerry said with a grin. “When I heard you were involved in this, I’d assumed at first it was just because of me. Then I heard you took time off just to watch over Katherine. It seems you were ensnared by her just like me, but are you really willing to die over it?”
Olin didn’t back down in the least, his chin held high, a gun in his hand though not raised. “Yeah, I am. Killing women is one thing, but killing a police officer on camera like this? I don’t think you want that sort of attention.”
Jerry lifted his gaze as if he’d just spotted the cameras that sat on large poles around the property. Still, he shrugged. “After everything that’s happened, I knew I couldn’t stay here. I already have a lovely place waiting for us in a non-extradition country. So whatever I do here won’t matter a bit.”
Bradley closed his hands into fists, hating how useless he felt in that moment. Another man was threatening the woman he loved and there wasnothinghe could do about it.
Dean spoke up for the first time, ignoring Jerry and focusing on Kat. “What are you doing, Brat?” His voice was soft and almost sweet despite this undercurrent of darkness, the sort of sound Dean usually tried to keep secret. “I thought you understood that turning yourself over for any reason wasn’t allowed.”
“I couldn’t let him hurt that woman,” Kat answered.
“Foolish girl,” Dean muttered, though the harsh words came out affectionate. “That’s enough selfless crap, don’t you think? You made me a promise, remember?”
She frowned, as if she wasn’t sure what he meant.
Not that Jerry gave a damn. “A promise? Pointless. Katherine isn’t in the position to promise anything. She’s mine. She has always been mine and she will be mine until the day I choke the last breath from her body. I don’t care what you’ve done to her or with her, because she has been and will always bemine.”
Bradley didn’t let the words deter him, especially as he realized Dean’s play. Instead, he followed Bradley’s lead. “Dean’s right, Kat. I’ve watched you outsmart every scary Dom at Sanctuary, seen you outlast the more stubborn people in the world. You’re tougher than you think.”
She blinked slowly, as if the words had started to sink in.
Olin spoke next, his voice relaxed. Then again, out of any of them, Olin had been in the most high-risk situations, no doubt. “I’m not done with you, Kat. This can’t be the end of it. I want to hear you insult me for years more to come, and I want to smile as you pull stupid pranks and I want to watch you walk circles around anyone who thinks they can control you. You want that too, don’t you? What that asshole says, none of that matters. He’s a coward, just trying to convince you what other people have tried to convince you of foryears. That you’re not good enough, that you’re too much, that it’s inevitable you fail. They’re liars, though, and they’re just trying to make you small enough for their little brains to sort out. Don’t fall into their trap.”
Bradley held his breath as he watched, desperate to see the spark in Kat’s eyes, the moment she realized what they meant.
Because if they couldn’t get through to her, if she didn’t figure it out, Bradley would lose her, and that wasn’t something he could allow.
Kat struggled to make sense of the words of the men, the way they spoke to her and ignored Jerry.
Her head was a mess of guilt and fear, a feeling that she’d failed everyone around her. The words of her parents came back to her, like they always did, like wounds that would never heal and that Jerry only made that much larger. She’d failed, over and over again, and so many others had paid the price for her.
“Look at me,” Dean said, his voice compelling her to meet his blue eyes, as if he controlled her alone with that voice. When she did, he smiled, though it held no warmth. “You swore you wouldn’t give up, didn’t you?”
His words reached through her confusion, through all the negative things that had swarmed her. She had said she wouldn’t give up, hadn’t she? It suddenly felt like the most important promise she’d ever made.
Because…she wanted to come back to Dean. She wanted to see Bradley let out one of those snorts when she did something he found funny even if he didn’t want to admit it. She needed to feel Olin’s kisses over her bare skin and needed to watch as that switch in Dean flipped, when he stopped holding back and she glimpsed the real him.
But none of that would happen if she gave in, if she listened to Jerry.
