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“Malgor said I had to guess the numbers.” She sank into the chair at the table and pressed the space bar on the laptop. A timer popped up with only one minute and thirty seconds left. “Shit.” She hit another key. A screen came up with four squares to insert the code in.
Cannon crouched next to her, his gun still on Malgor. “Could it be a date? Maybe the day he stabbed you?”
She typed in the numbers. Nothing. She tried the date Devon was kidnapped.
The countdown flashed red. One minute left. “What’s the damn code?” she yelled to Malgor’s still body.
Cannon gripped her shoulder. “What about time? What time was your father shot? Or you stabbed?”
She tried variations of the approximate times. Still nothing. The day of her father’s funeral. Her birthday. The number of cyberattacks Malgor carried out. Ransom amounts. Nothing worked.
“Think, Rosalie, what else did Malgor say to you about the bomb?”
“He said he was going to take me to his headquarters to break me. That I could be his…” A light bulb in the shape of a red rose flashed in her head. “He said I could be his Valentine.”
She typed in zero, two, one, four and hit enter. The timer stopped with twenty seconds left.
Cannon pulled her off the chair and crushed her in a hug. “I knew you could do it, Snow Angel.”
A force from behind sent them toppling to the floor. She rolled with Cannon and sprung up. Malgor stood in front of them, his back to the hearth, blood dripping from the side of his face like a madman in a horror movie. Before she could react, a gunshot sounded from the doorway. A round hole dead center in Malgor’s forehead pooled with blood. He stared at her, disbelief on his evil face before he collapsed in a heap of neutralized gray.
Rosalie whirled to the door. Julia braced herself in the frame, a gun hanging from her fingers, Easton and Wulf flanking her.
Cannon lunged and caught his shaking sister. She allowed him a quick hug before she pushed him away and looked at Rosalie. “Sorry I got the kill shot. I know you’d been looking forward to your revenge.”
Rosalie flew across the tiny cabin and gathered them both into a hug. Emotion clogged her throat, but it wasn’t born from anger, fear, guilt, or any of the life-sucking emotions she’d endured the past two years. This emotion was something she’d never let anyone hold for ransom again.
She eyed Wulf in the doorway and motioned him closer. Tears that matched the ones in his sprung to her eyes. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him into the hug and whispered in his ear, “Anya and I got our revenge. It’s over.”
It truly was over, and everything was truly okay because she had everything she needed in her arms.
FORTY-ONE
Cannon limped off the elevator and into the executive suite. Every muscle in his body, from his busted nose to his knees, hurt like hell.
So did not having eyes on Rosalie.
After Julia had shot Malgor with a life-ending bullet, they’d learned, remarkably, none of Rosalie’s colleagues had been fatally wounded during the rescue mission, but most were in bad shape after engaging with Malgor’s men, and several were in critical condition. Cannon had accompanied the worst of them in the ambulance and hadn’t left the surgery suite until he’d been sure that every man and woman who’d risked their lives to save his sister pulled through.
They had, and now it was almost midnight.
Hours since he’d held his snow angel.
Now he needed to find her and make damn certain she knew how deeply in love he’d fallen.
If there was a chance for a future now that Malgor was in the morgue, he’d take it. He’d known for a long time that tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed. Now he knew who he wanted to spend the rest of his todays with.
Irene rose from her desk and extended her arms for a hug. “Thank God everyone is okay. I was so worried.”
He squeezed her tight. Withdrawing, he held her at arm’s length and noticed the lines around her eyes appeared deeper. “We’re all safe. You look exhausted. Go home and take the next couple of days off.”
“I plan to. When I come back, I’m looking forward to being back to business as usual.”
No, not usual. Usual meant without Rosalie. He didn’t want to go back to that state of living.
Ever.
“Have you seen Julia? Annie said she had her wounds attended to in the ER and then disappeared.”
