AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I recognized the man running toward him. The paparazzi followed him everywhere. Ethan Masters, tech-bro billionaire, ladies’ man, too handsome for his own good. He used to be America’s favorite dreamy bachelor, until he fell for a mysterious blonde who didn’t give interviews. He subsequently retreated mostly out of sight with his beautiful lady friend, breaking all the ladies’ hearts in one fell blow.
But even if I hadn’t seen him in magazines and online, I could have guessed that they were brothers. Ethan was also incredibly handsome. The amazing cheekbones, the piercing eyes. It was a family trait, evidently.
Ethan grabbed his brother’s arms. “We have to hurry,” he said roughly. “We saw them from the air. Four more SUVs on their way. Probably armored. They’ll be here in minutes. Can you guys run?”
“Sure,” Shane said.
“His feet are all bloody and messed up,” I called out. “You should help him.”
Without another word, they flanked Shane, their shoulders sliding under his armpits. They lifted him up off his feet and ran toward the helicopter.
I followed as fast as I could. For a while, I could hear Shane bitching about how they could put him down, he was fine to walk, etc., the stubborn bonehead, but thank God, they ignored him. Soon the helicopter’s roar got too loud to hear him at all.
My hair whipped and snapped in the rotor’s wind. They passed Shane up to someone. Arms reached down, pulling me up into the helicopter.
We rose up before they even closed the door. Someone I couldn’t see in the darkness strapped me into a seat, and wrapped a shiny thermal blanket around me. That person turned, and wrapped one around Shane.
Ethan poured something from a thermal carafe into the cup, offering it to Shane and then pouring another one for me. It proved to be tea, hot, with lots of sugar and lemon. It warmed and steadied me. In the darkness, images kept flashing through my mind in gruesome detail. The slashed throat, the blood-stained glass from the crushed SUV, the knife sticking out of that guy’s eye socket. When my eyes closed that was what I saw. Not the wishful, improbable vision of a helicopter taking form in the fog, sweeping us away from all the badness… toward Reggie. My happy dream.
Shane’s brother touched my arm, and pointed toward the window. For just a moment, before the helicopter entered the raggedy mist, I saw the line of black off-road vehicles, speeding up the road. They were traveling much faster than my aged, struggling Jeep ever could have. Four SUVs, probably packed to the gills with armed operatives. They would have been on us in minutes. They would have flattened us.
I grabbed Ethan’s arm, and leaned toward him, mouthing the words.My sister?
He gave me a thumbs-up.Home, he mouthed, patting my knee.Safe.
That was heartening. But things had been so shitty for so long, I wasn’t sure it could be real.Reggie. Home. Safe.A grouping of words I hadn’t dared to hope for.
I would believe it when I saw it.
CHAPTER12
Shane
Red glowed like a bioluminescent creature in her seat, the silver thermal blanket draped around her shoulders like a shining stole, her eyes huge and shocked looking. It occurred to me that today was probably her very first taste of deadly violence, up close.
I had forgotten how startling that was to a newbie.
I couldn’t talk to Ethan or the others, in the dark and the noise, and that was a good thing, because I had fuck-all to say. I was frozen, fried. I felt numb and stupid, and not really here at all. I looked at my own brother as if he were a hologram.
Or maybe I was the hologram. I had made myself into one on purpose to keep Halliwell out of my head, and I didn’t know the way back. I hadn’t left any trail of bread crumbs for myself. I hadn’t allowed myself to hope for anything but death since before I had passed from Vincent’s and Nicole’s hands into Halliwell’s.
I’d gutted my own emotional wiring. Now I was looking at my brother as if I had never met him before. I knew I shared memories with him. I felt the space they took up inside my brain. But my access to them was cut off. I just couldn’t feel anything.
You sure felt plenty when you had Red gasping up against the bedroom wall.
That dry observation from my own mind just confused me even more.
Then again, a dick had an agenda all its own. Particularly a starved, neglected, long-suffering dick like mine, left to languish without even help from a friendly hand from time to time. Being constantly watched by the camera really squashed that impulse.
I didn’t know how to think about what happened with Red today, so I did what I’d been training my mind for months to do, and thought of nothing.
Ethan sat next to me. I peered through the gloom at the others. Remy Drake had helped carry me to the helicopter. Trey was in there, grinning at me. Shelby was piloting the helicopter, with a huge smile on his face. All of them were old friends from our Army Rangers days. I’d worked with them for years. They were part of that tight group of brothers in arms that we’d coined ‘the Unredeemables.’ Most of them worked for Ethan, on his security force, or as bodyguards. Some of them had worked in my own security company, Ready Line. I’d trusted them all with my life many times.
The Unredeemables had saved my sorry ass yet again.
Ethan had mobilized two helicopters, one to snatch Red’s little sister, and another to come to our rescue. He’d been poised to jump in any direction to help me, on a dime. After all this time.
For that kind of love and dedication, Ethan deserved a brother who wasn’t a hologram. A hollow man.
