by Fallon Hart
He wore a suit.
Perfectly coiffed.
“What do you want?”
He smirked, that malice I had seen in his eyes from the beginning, shining out for the whole world to see now. Unbuttoning his suit jacket, he took a gun out of his waistband, lowered himself onto the floor, resting an elbow on one bent knee. With the gun in one hand, he brushed his fingers of the other through his hair. So casual. So unmoved.
Like he hadn’t soaked a rag in Isoflurane and kidnapped me. Like he wasn’t brandishing a gun.
Was I going to die?
Griff.
Tears stung my eyes at the thought of leaving Griff like that. He’d never get over it.
I couldn’t let it happen.
Flexing my fingers I tried to figure out how tight the ties around my wrist were but unable to move enough under Pete's intense study there was no way of knowing.
Unless I distracted him.
“What is this about, Pete?”
He guffawed. “Well, Scarlett, I’d think that’s pretty obvious.”
“Not to me. I don’t think anything that’s happened between us warrants you kidnapping me and threatening me with a gun.”
Pete chuckled humorlessly. “You would think that. I’ve tried to think that," he gestured to himself with his gun hand. "I've been to therapy. Yeah. I've been talking my head off for months about my feelings for Griff, trying to sort them out so I could get rid of this rage. But it's just… it's just not going away." When he glanced away in thought, I yanked on my hands to test the rope.
It was tight.
But it could be tighter.
I wriggled my wrists together, attempting to loosen it until Pete looked back at me.
“You know he and I met at business school?”
I nodded.
"I'd never wanted a man before him," he said conversationally, fondness softening his hard features. "I'd fucked girls and liked it. Then I met Griff, and I hated how I felt at first. He was never a big talker," he chuckled, "but he didn't need to be. The son of an English lord. Charismatic, intelligent. Dry-witted. People flocked to him, you know. Men and women alike. Even when they were intimidated by him, they were drawn to that air of power around him. You know what I'm talking about."
“Yes,” I whispered, discomfited by the adoration in his voice.
“I wanted to be him.” he smiled boyishly and then that smile slipped, his voice thickened, “But I soon realized I just wanted him. I didn’t understand it. But it was true. I fantasized all the time about him bending me over and fucking all that power into me. God, I get hard just thinking about it.”
I flinched, looking away, beyond discomfited now. Man or woman, I didn’t want anyone talking to me that way about my husband. He was mine.
“Women came and went. They didn’t matter.” Pete shrugged. “he didn’t care about any of them. But I liked fucking them after he had, knowing our cocks had been in the same place. Sometimes I’d watch him with women without him knowing.” His eyes blazed “Once I managed to catch you two at it in his office. You were so lost in each other you didn’t hear me knock. I watched for as long as I could.”
Revulsion shivered through me.
Obsession.
Everything Griff had feared from his father and more seemed to live beneath this man’s skin.
Pete's expression darkened. "He was different with you. I knew that before I caught you fucking. I knew it as soon as he put you in the penthouse. I couldn't work out why you weren't sharing a bedroom, but I knew by the way he watched you when you weren't looking. You fascinated him."
Tears filled my eyes.
"Still fascinate him." Loss. The absolute loss made his features sag with weight. "Do you know how heartbreaking it is to realize the man you love is in love with someone else?"
“Pete—”
“I hate you, Scarlett. I’ve hated you from the moment we met.” He gave me an apologetic shrug. “It’s not your fault. I know that. But what is your fault is the way you turned him against me.” he pointed the gun casually at me.
I froze.
My breath stopped.
Then he lowered the gun again, smirking. “All I ever did was try to make his club a success.”
“By blackmailing people?”
“I did what I had to do for Griff.”
I scoffed. “It wasn’t just for Griff. You used what you knew to get what you wanted. And you tried to break us up with Bryce.”
"Ah, Bryce." Pete shook his head in disappointment. "I really thought you'd go for him. It was obvious something was off between you and Griff. Bryce is charismatic in his own way. You both liked books. And he had a serious hard-on for you." He chuckled. "He actually told me that if he had to be blackmailed, it was the best way it could happen getting to fuck a sexy redhead. Of course, that was before it became clear you weren't going for him. Then I put the pressure on, and he got a little desperate, didn't he?"
Rage made me squirm in my seat, and I felt the ties loosen a little more. "You think it's funny that he tried to rape me?"
He raised his hands in defense. “I’ve never been a supporter of rape…” he flashed me a malicious smile. “But I would have liked to have seen that. For Griff to know you weren’t his innocent little librarian anymore… but a sullied whore just like your sister. Oh yeah, I know about her now. I know about everything.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” I whispered.
He narrowed his eyes and waved the gun. “Unwise.”
I bit my lip so hard to stop a retort that I drew blood.
“I’ve been watching you, you know.” He nodded slowly. “Not in the club because Griff has made that impossible but anytime you go somewhere together… I’m there watching. I’ve never seen him like how he is with you.” he sneered. “Tender. Sweet. Loving. You fucking broke him. You destroyed what made him hard and powerful and strong. But if I do you,” he tipped the gun to me, “That’ll bring him back to me. He’ll be Griff again.”
“You’re disgusting.”
"I'll get him back," he continued as though I hadn't spoken. His eyes were glassy, dazed, and I knew whatever had been wrong inside him, to begin with, had taken over.
“You’re delusional, Pete,” I tried to speak calmly. “If you hurt me… Griff will never forgive you.” Griff would probably kill him.
“Oh but I’m not just going to hurt you.” he dragged his eyes down my body. “I’m going to fuck you first to see what it is he feels. To be where he was last. To be close to him one last time. Then I'm going to shoot you in the head," he said it calmly like he was talking about doing the grocery shopping. It chilled me to the bone. "And then I'm going to shoot myself."
“What?” I breathed in disbelief.
"Do you think I don't know this is wrong?" he laughed somewhat hysterically. "This love and hate I feel? It's all I think about, Scarlett. How much I love him and hate him in equal measure. Everything I've ever done since we met has been about him, and I've tried to find ways to stop. But it's in here," he hit the butt of the gun of his head, "And it won't stop, and it's eating me fucking alive. So I'm going to make it stop. But I'm going to make sure that Griff is who he's meant to be. And maybe when I'm gone, he'll regret throwing me over for you."
That's when I began to sob, the fear overwhelming me, and I started to yank at my hands in my panic. The tears so blurred my vision, my sobs were so loud, I didn't see or hear Pete approach until I felt the cold metal against my forehead.
I froze.
He glared down at me. “Stop.”
I hated him. I knew he wasn't well, but I hated him. "He was never who you thought he was. You never got to know who really is because he never wanted you to. I know him," the tears streamed down my face. "I know him in ways no one else ever will, and that's why I know that when this over, he'll find a way to be okay. Because he knows that I will always be with him. You can't destroy our love for each other. Not even in death, Pete. Not even the devil himself is fuckin
g powerful enough to destroy what Griff and I have. So go ahead and do your worst, you son of a bitch. You can't ever touch us!"
He roared, and I squeezed my eyes closed. But the gunshot never came. Instead, pain blazed down the side of my head and the opposite length of my body as I slammed into the ground.
"Arggh!" Pete screamed as I stared up, dazed from the floor. He'd struck me so hard, he'd knocked the chair over. As he bent his knees, hands to his head, and yelled his rage, I didn't waste any time untangling the ropes.
The idiot hadn’t bothered to tie my feet, so I pushed slowly away from the chair, calculating my next move.
I glanced behind me and saw the door beside a disused kitchenette. I thought we might be in a studio apartment. But we mustn’t have neighbors. Pete was shouting loud like he didn’t care if he was heard. Looking back at Pete, I knew I couldn’t run for the door without being shot in the back. I’d have to charge him. I had to try.
But then his head whipped to me, and he stood from his haunches and shook the gun slowly at me. "Uh, uh, uh."
How the hell was I going to get out of this? I glanced around the room, looking for anything I could use as a weapon.
There was nothing.
He’d cleared the space entirely.
“Face it, Scarlett,” he suddenly said, sounding weary, sad. “This is the end for us. It has to be this way. I won’t find peace otherwise.”
I curled my lip in hatred. “I could give a flying fuck about your peace. You’ll never find peace, Pete. If there is a hell, that’s where you’re going if you do this.”
“I don’t believe in hell.” He sighed, walking toward me. “I believe that when we die there ceases to be nothing left of us. That’s why I want to do this. Taking you with me, as I said, will assure that when I leave Griff behind, I leave behind the man I know him to be.”
There was no point arguing with him. He'd never see beyond what he wanted to believe about Griff.
He leaned down over me and pressed the gun between my breasts. “Now we can do this easy or hard. Take off your shirt.”
“Fuck you.”
Pete narrowed his eyes and lifted the gun to point it in my face. “Don’t make me blow off this pretty face.”
My eyes dropped to the Glock.
The safety was still on.
Without thinking, I grabbed the barrel in both hands. Call it adrenaline, call it whatever. All I knew was that I was so fast he didn't see it coming, and I used all of my strength to slam the gun up into his nose.
The sound, the crack, was sickening as he collapsed back, howling in pain.
I scrambled off the chair, my heart racing, my legs like jelly as I sprinted across the room to the door. Sobs of relief broke out of me when it opened, and I found myself in the hallway of what appeared to be an abandoned house. I rushed down the rickety stairs, a scream wrenching out of me as my foot went through a hole I hadn't seen.
I clung to the banister, hauling myself up as I looked frantically behind me for Pete.
He wasn’t there.
I wrenched my foot out of the hole and dashed down the next flight of stairs, going so fast I slammed into a pair of old step ladders that clashed and fell behind me as I continued.
Hope blossomed as I stumbled downstairs to the small entrance of the house, light shining through the pasted paper over the glass-fronted door.
I tried to race around a stacked pile of drywall and tripped over a paint tin. Fear made my heart sputter, but I righted myself before I could fall, and instead smacked into the front door.
Shaking, I latched onto the handle and pulled the door open with all my might. The light blinded me as I stumbled outside.
“Hold your fire!” I heard Griff yell, and I stopped, blinking.
We were on a street somewhere. In a neighborhood of townhouses. Three police cars were parked on the road, cutting off traffic.
Guns were pointed in my direction.
“Scarlett?”
“Hold your fire!” someone else yelled.
And suddenly I was in Griff’s arms.
“Oh my God,” I sobbed, clinging to him. “Oh my God, you’re here.”
I felt his hard, frantic kisses all over my face and then he was demanding to know where Pete was. I told him, and then I was being shoved toward someone else's hands.
“Take her.”
Realizing he was heading toward the house, I screamed his name as police officers rushed after him. "He has a gun!"
But he was gone. Disappearing into the house.
I tried to break free of whoever was holding me and turned to see Quentin. “Let me go!”
He shook his head, his face hard.
And then we heard it.
The gunshot.
I screamed in terror and wrenched myself out of Quentin’s arms.
People tried to grab at me as I raced by, my feet caught on split wood, splinters bit into my hands as I rushed up the stairs, the nausea welling up at me at what I'd find.
As I came off the last step onto the landing where the studio apartment was, police blocked my view. Then they were moving inside.
“Man down. I repeat man down.”
“Griff?” I whispered.
My lips felt numb.
No.
NO!
“Suspect has shot himself.”
"Griff!" I yelled, and two policemen turned to me, reaching for me.
“Let me see to my wife!” I heard his beautiful voice cut through.
And then he was there.
Pushing through the cops.
My knees gave way.
But he caught me before I landed. Griff caught me.
And I held on.
Jesus Christ, I held on for dear life.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Griffin
To say my nerves were shattered was an understatement.
It was one o’clock in the morning as I walked Quentin and Amelia to the door of the club.
“We can stay the night if you want,” Amelia offered. “Be there for her in the morning.”
I shook my head. "Go home and get some sleep. You can call in tomorrow after you've rested."
“It’s been the longest day of my life,” she muttered before she pressed a kiss to my cheek.
I'd argue that it had been longer for me, but I was too exhausted.
Quentin clapped me on the shoulder.
"Thanks for your help today," I said.
“You never have to thank me for this.”
I nodded and said goodnight.
When I turned around Xavier was there. “Christ, man, you should be home. Get some sleep.”
“I fear I might find that difficult this evening, sir. I just wanted to make sure you and Mrs. Mandeville have everything you need.”
Grateful to him for his support during the worst fucking day of my life I patted him on the shoulder as I passed. “We do. Go home. Rest. You’ve earned it.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned before I stepped onto the elevator. “Oh and, Xavier.”
“Yes, sir?”
“From now on in private, if it doesn’t make you too uncomfortable, maybe you should just call us Griffin and Scarlett.”
His lips twitched. “Perhaps, sir.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“A difficult habit to break.”
I grinned wearily. “Goodnight, Xavier.”
“Goodnight, Griffin.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Yes, it is weird,” I agreed with the unspoken comment, just before the lift door closed.
Slumping back against the lift I willed it to move faster. Leaving Scarlett in our bedroom had been almost as hard as the rest of the day had been. It hadn't taken much time for Dean to analyze the license plate, but it led to a different address from the one we'd found her at.
Dean had hacked into traffic cameras quicker than the police could and followed the vehicle. We used the last street we spotted it at it as a guide while Dean scoured Pete's f
iles until we found the house in Mattapan he'd purchased a year ago as a renovation project. Quentin's friend, the superintendent, had questions about where we found this information, so I lied to protect Dean and said I remembered the purchase.
Every second that ticked by was torture knowing Pete had Scarlett and having no idea what he planned to do to her.
The relief when she ran out of the house was incredible. The fury seeing the blood dripping down the side of her face was uncontrollable.
I wanted to kill Pete.
Instead, I didn't even get to confront him. I'd burst into the apartment with the police trying to pull me back, and Pete had taken one look at us and put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
It was fucking horrifying.
Still, worse than that, was sitting by my wife in the police station while she told the investigating detectives what Pete had said and what he’d been planning to do. The chance she’d taken slamming the butt of the gun into his nose. It could have gone so badly.
The thought made me want to throw up.
I shuddered as I strode wearily out of the lift toward our bedroom.
She was here.
She was alive.
That was what mattered.
But I vowed as I pushed into our room and saw her lying in bed, eyes open, waiting for me, that I’d never let anything like that happen again.
"You're never to take the car out of the garage again," I bit out as I walked around the room, shedding my clothes. "Xavier or one of the guards will bring it to the front of the building, so we have an eye on you at all times."
“Griff,” she whispered.
“I’m doubling security at the club until O’Connor’s sentencing too.”
“Griff.”
"And when you're out, and I'm not there, I want a man on you. No fucking arguments."
“Griff.”
I yanked on my pajama bottoms. “We need to get you a gun and train you.”
“Griff.”
I pulled up the covers to slide in beside. “Maybe some basic defensive training too.”
My wife rolled into me, and I dragged her tight against me, glaring at the cut on her temple where he'd smacked her so hard he'd knocked her off the fucking chair she'd been tied to.