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“Fucking hell,” Diggs breathed into my neck. “Forgive me.”
“Diggs—”
“We need to go,” he said over me, gripping me even tighter before pulling away. “I’ll spend the rest of our lives on my knees, begging you to forgive me for this—for everything. But I gotta get you out of here first.”
My heart stuttered before taking off in some sort of dizzying, hopeful dance just as he glanced the way we’d come before looking the way I’d been going. “We can go that way.”
“Wait—Autumn,” I hurried to say when he stepped around the mangled body and dog. “She was helping me.”
“Kieran has her,” Diggs said in a tone that let me know she was safe, then reached back for me. “Can you run? We’re almost there, but I need you to run with me.”
My head bounced in a mess of nods and shakes as I stammered, “Y-yeah.”
I swayed a little when his fingers trailed down my arm and teased the sensitive flesh of my wrist, but then he was gripping my hand and hurrying down the hall much the same way I had been just minutes before.
Only this time, fear wasn’t coating my veins. This time, my only worries were of later repercussions, not of our current situation. And even when Diggs released my hand so he could lift his rifle, I knew I was undoubtedly safe. No one would get through him, and if anyone came up behind us, I now knew what the dog at my side was capable of.
“Oh my God,” I breathed when we rounded the oversized elevator and spilled out into the large bay—now illuminated with the dull glow of backup lights and revealing the same group of men Autumn and I had run into not long before.
Only now, they were all dead.
From their clustered position and lack of weapons, I wondered if they’d even known what was happening before they’d all been killed.
Not that I felt an ounce of remorse for them.
“That’s the Keane Street boss,” I said as we ran past the bodies, then snapped for Chaos when she stopped to smell each of them.
Diggs glanced at me, his eyebrows drawing low in concern and making him look even more mysterious with the bandana covering the rest of his expression.
“We’re aware,” he finally answered as he slowed, reaching back to make sure I slowed with him as we neared the open bay doors.
“I can still handle you.”
He faltered in his next step, his breath coming out harsh and shaky before he made a quick check around the corner of the door.
With another slow exhale, he looked at me. “Dare and Mav are waiting for us. They’ll have our backs, and I’ll have theirs. Don’t wait for me, just run to the SUV. Understand?” When I nodded, he added, “Get the dog to stop following you.”
“No,” I said as I stepped up to his side. “Lachlan took me...I’m taking his dog.”
“Lachlan’s dead,” Diggs informed me bluntly, even though I should’ve already known they wouldn’t let him live with all he’d done.
“Then I’m still taking his dog,” I said resolutely. “She followed me when he was still alive. She chose me.”
Diggs eyed the massive beast at my side, then gave a sharp nod. “Let’s go.”
As soon as Diggs lifted his rifle, I did what he said.
Ran.
I didn’t look back for him. I didn’t focus on Maverick and Dare with their rifles trained at different points of the building, bursts of gunfire filling the night. I just ran with a blood-covered beast of a dog at my side, dragging in deep breaths of the first fresh air I’d tasted in days, until I reached the idling, blacked-out SUV just as the back doors opened.
I’d barely rounded one of the doors when I was grabbed by Alexis’ dad and hauled into the back, where a bed of blankets waited.
“The hell?” he snapped, stumbling back with me when Chaos jumped in as if she’d been invited.
“The dog’s apparently coming,” Diggs said as he followed us in and shut the doors.
“We going?” Dare yelled as he slipped into the driver’s seat.
