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“Nolan, look, whatever’s going on, we can work it out,” I tried to bargain.
“No, we can’t,” he gritted out. “You were never supposed to be a part of this. If you hadn’t come along, everything would have been fine. He would have died like he wanted, and everything would have been fine. But you fucking ruined it.”
Birdie stirred on the ground, groaning, and I tried to kneel to help her, but Nolan wouldn’t allow it. “This is your last chance before I put a bullet in her head. I know you don’t want to see that.”
He wasn’t joking. Something was frantic and wild in his eyes, spurring him to do this. The man I’d only ever known to be calm natured was now lost in a sea of despair. “I’m going to count to three, and if you and your sister aren’t climbing into that window—”
A blur moved in behind him, tackling him to the ground and forcing the breath from his chest.
“Lucian!” My voice was too hoarse to yell anymore, but I had never been so happy to see anyone in my life.
He’d pinned Nolan to the ground, shoving his face into the dirt with one hand while he struggled for the gun with the other.
“My wife?” he roared. “My unborn son?”
“I had no choice,” Nolan grunted.
A shot rang out, and I screamed as both men froze. I didn’t know who fired it. I didn’t know who had been hit.
“Lucian?”
He didn’t respond, but it was Nolan who began to cough. “I was going to lose everything.”
“And now, you have.” Lucian raised the gun and held it against Nolan’s jaw. “Just tell me why.”
“The money,” Nolan sputtered. “I needed the money.” Tears streamed down his face as he shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Lucian. I’m sorry I let you down. Please find it in your heart to forgive me.”
Nolan wrapped his bloody hands around Lucian’s. I thought he was going to fight, but instead, in a move that surprised us all, he forced the trigger. Blood exploded across Lucian’s face, and when my eyes moved to the place where Nolan’s face had been, nothing was left but a gaping hole.
Sirens sounded in the distance, and I couldn’t catch my breath. Lucian scrambled away from Nolan and moved toward me slowly, haloed by the light of the fire, the avenging angel I had once declared him to be. Blood and soot smeared his clothes, and his hand was clearly burned, but he was alive. He wrapped his arms around me and whispered the three sweetest words I’d ever heard.
“I’m here, baby.”
“I’M JUST GOING TO RUN to the store.”
Lucian inserted himself between me and the door of the condo we’d rented while the house in Desert Shores was being rebuilt.
“Just tell me what you need, and I’ll have one of Ace’s men get it.”
My fingers brushed over his face, trying to erase the worried lines that formed whenever he felt like I was slipping out his grasp for even a few moments. It had been this way for weeks, and I’d played along for a while, but it was time to address it.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “Birdie is going with me, and Ace will chaperone. You don’t need to worry.”
“How can I not?” he snapped. He was tired and irritable, and I didn’t blame him. For the past four weeks, he’d been going to radiation religiously, battling the awful side effects while he tried to navigate his own inner turmoil and deal with the detectives’ constant questions.
“We need to get back to the business of living,” I said gently. “You know it can’t be like this when the baby comes. There will be times when you’ll have to trust that everything is going to be okay because you can’t be here twenty-four seven.”
“I know that.” He sighed. “But I also know that someone I thought I could trust tried to murder you twice. He tried to take away my wife. My son…”
His voice cracked, and he blinked away the memory of that night while I leaned into him and wrapped my arms around his waist.
“Because of you, I will never have to worry about that again,” I said. “Our son will never have to worry.”
“You can’t be certain of that,” Lucian answered. “Just because Nolan is gone doesn’t mean the threat is.” His eyes looked like a war zone as he thought of all the possible enemies we’d both accumulated over the course of our lifetimes.
“We could spend time worrying about it, or we can be prepared while we carry on with our lives. But if you let them control us, they win.”
Lucian looked down at me, shaking his thoughts away before his forehead pressed against mine. “I know, pet. I just can’t lose you.”
“You won’t,” I assured him. “But sometimes, you have to trust me.”
