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That dog starts up again, his late-night rage muffled this time, and I cut the bindings off her hands and haul her to her feet.
“Wha—” Chloe starts, shaking her blonde hair out of her face as she frowns blearily up at me. Her eyes widen just a fraction, and I can see panic trying to work its way through whatever they’ve drugged her with.
“Quiet,” I whisper, stabilizing her when she sways. “Riley sent me. I’m taking you to her. You’re safe, Chloe.”
Chloe’s eyes are a lighter brown than her sisters, but they gut me just as hard when they spill over with tears at those last three words. But the minute she nods in understanding, I ignore both the tears and the distraction of how hard her similarities to her sister hit me and tuck her hand through my arm, putting one of mine around her waist to hold her up and moving us toward the door I slipped in through.
The two shitheads playing cards laugh at something, and she mumbles something inaudible, shuddering against my side.
“Stay close. Stay quiet,” I murmur.
She seems too out of it to follow directions, but when I keep moving, she stumbles after me obediently. We make it out the back without incident, and are ten feet from the Escalade before that fucking Rottweiler starts up again.
I make the mistake of assuming McKenna’s assholes will continue to ignore it.
I’m wrong.
“The fuck?” I hear along with the sound of pounding footsteps behind me, a split second before gunfire lights up the night.
I shove Chloe to the ground and swing around to return it, picking off three of the guards racing toward my position when their muzzles blaze and give theirs away.
“Fuck,” I bite out after the third one drops, reaching down to yank Chloe up as lights come on in every goddamn house in the neighborhood. More West Point men are on their way, and no matter how well armed I am, the only way out of this is to escape quickly now that my stealth plan has gone to shit.
I manage to shove Chloe into the car before any more of McKenna’s people make it to our position, but when I dive for the driver’s side, a familiar line of white fire blazes across my neck, the bullet slamming into the Escalade’s framework.
I growl out another curse and slam the door shut as adrenaline does its fucking job and keeps the pain at bay long enough for me to peel out of the neighborhood and call for backup. Some of it shows up as I fly through Halston’s streets, Reaper-driven vehicles blocking off the ones I can already see giving chase, and the rest is waiting for me back at the house.
I’m bringing Chloe home, and unlike that incompetent motherfucker who doesn’t deserve the territory he’s laid claim to—or anything else in this city—I’ll have a full protective detail in place. One who knows how to do their fucking job.
“Shit, boss,” Vic, one of my lieutenants, growls when I finally make it back to the house and pull Chloe out, his black scowl promising pain to West Point.
Chloe is still drugged up, and it’s not until I realize how out of it she is and sling her over my shoulder to carry her inside that I understand the grim nod Vic directed at my chest.
My shirt is soaked in my own blood and my neck stings like an angry bitch, but that shit doesn’t matter. It’s just a fucking scratch, and one that Logan will bitch less about stitching up than he will about the bodywork the Escalade is gonna need when we dig the bullet out of it. Right now, what matters is that I’ve kept my promise and brought Riley’s sister home. What matters is that she was fucking hurting, but now I’ve brought Chloe back to her, she doesn’t have to anymore.
And whatever it fucking takes, I’m gonna make sure she never has to again.
39
RILEY
I’m notsure what the noisy commotion that wakes me is all about, but it drags me kicking and screaming out of a sleep so deep it feels like being underwater. My body feels like lead and my heart is even heavier, and I swing my legs over the side of the… couch?
I blink groggily, but yeah. I’m not in my room, and breaking through the fog of sleep slowing down my thoughts feels like a bigger job than I can bear. At least, it does until I turn toward the deep voices of the three men who are starting to mean safety to me, who are starting to meanhome.
They’re not alone, and my focus sharpens fast. “Chloe?”
I must be dreaming. But as I scramble off the couch I don’t remember lying down on, Maddoc carries her in and sets her on her feet in front of me, and dream or not, I don’t want to question it. I just want to wrap her in my arms and never let her go.
“Chloe,” I breathe out as I hug her tight, not even a little bit ashamed of the sob that escapes me once I finally feel her familiar shape in my arms.
It’s really her.
I’m wide awake.
Somehow, the Reapers brought her back to me.
I squeeze her tighter, and she leans heavily against me as she mumbles part of my name. “Ri...”
