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She pulled away from me and looked up through those impossibly long lashes at me. “Why?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her all the nasty things I thought about myself. How I wasn’t deserving. How I was a selfish prick that didn’t know how to keep her. How knowing she felt anything for anyone but me made me sick to my stomach.
“Because you’re mine,” I replied. “I’m not worrying about your friendship with them, and neither should you.”
I picked up her hand and stared at the ring there. “I’m going to work. Why don’t you talk to Leo and Atticus, okay?”
I dropped her hand and took a step back. This was for the best. Plenty of people had marriages of convenience in my world. Maybe this needed to happen. Maybe I wouldn’t inevitably disappoint her if I ended us before we started.
“August,” she said, her expression slipping. I knew it was just a temporary disappointment. She’d move on, and Atticus would be there to wipe her tears. Leo, too. “Don’t go. This isn’t what I want.”
I pulled away from her and made my way toward the door, feeling like a fucking asshole for giving up so easily. But if it was tearing her apart to pick me, then why the hell was I forcing it?
I was shuffling away, licking my wounds, trying my goddamn best not to feel like a pussy.
And then a man with a gun walked into the ballroom.
A fucking gun.
I stalled, freezing at the sight of him and immediately thinking of Christine. I’d been around guns my whole life, but the weapon grasped in his fist made every muscle in my body clench. He looked shaky and manic, his pudgy hands raising the weapon and aiming it at me.
Everything slowed for a moment. I noticed his thinning hair. The hole in his jacket. The mud on his boots. He was older. Pale with rosy cheeks. Snot dripping down his nose. The man was shorter than me, with bloodshot eyes and gray spots on his teeth. “Don’t you fucking make a sound,” he said.
I heard movement behind me and a whispered hiss of words I couldn’t make out.
“Who are you?” I asked, trying to buy us some time for the guards to arrive. They would arrive, right? What if they didn’t?
“I said shut up!” he said more forcefully, not wanting to shout but still getting his point across.
Seeing him aim the barrel at my chest made me realize I kind of liked fucking living, and I had a woman I had every intention of marrying—which I couldn’t do if I was six feet underground. “You are not the rightful king,” he said while straightening his spine. “It’s time for a new man to take the crown.”
He was shaking so hard I doubted his aim was really good. My frantic mind wondered if he’d ever pulled a trigger before.
And just when I was about to risk it all and scream for the guards, a flash of tulle and silk rushed forward. I could hear her heels pounding against the marble tile, see her blonde hair flowing behind her as she pumped her arms. “No!” I screamed. Why wasn’t Leo doing something? Why was Christine sprinting toward the man with the gun?
A bullet sliced through the air, clipping my cheek as it went. I let out a yelp and ducked just as Christine collided with the shooter.
Everything happened so fast I could barely make out her swift movements. She pressed her palm to the side of the gun before kneeing him in the balls. The moment he bent over with a grunt of pain, she jerked the weapon from his grip.
“Christine!” I screamed as Leo grabbed my arm and pulled me back, shielding me.
Why the fuck was he worried about me? He needed to save her.
Christine swept her leg out, knocking the shooter forward until he landed on the expensive tile headfirst, blood gushing from his mouth and nose.
She then quickly straddled his back and pinned him down. In a flash, she lifted her skirt and pulled a blade that was strapped to her thigh
She moved too quickly, as if she was trained to defend.
As if she was trained to kill. She pulled his head up and locked eyes with me, a fire in her gaze that was both vibrant but terrifyingly empty. There was nothing but pure rage pulsing through her veins as she pressed the blade to his neck and dragged the sharp edge along his jugular, red blood spilling from the cut almost instantly.
“No! We need him al—”
Leo’s words were too slow.
The flow of blood made me sick to my stomach. Christine looked primal, with her dress bunched up around her waist, the blade clutched in her manicured fingers. She hunched over him, so deep that the ends of her blonde hair were dipped in the blood of her kill.
She dropped his body and stormed over to Leo. “We need to get him to a safe location. There could be more.”
