by CR Robertson
He took a bundle wrapped in his balaclava and shoved it into a plant pot.
Cassandra began to shake uncontrollably. I grabbed her arms and stared into her eyes. “You need to breathe, baby,” I rasped. “Right now, we need through this and then you can fall to pieces at home.”
“His b-b-blood is on your f-f-face,” she stuttered.
Grabbing the balaclava from the top pocket of my suit, I then handed it to her. “Please,” I whispered.
She nodded, her hand shaking as she wiped my face and neck. My clothes were black and would hide a multitude of sins tonight. Her fingers straightened my shirt and tie to cover the injury to my throat.
A single tear fell even as she struggled to compose herself.
Jordan stared at Cassandra. “In our world, it’s kill or be killed. He had every intention of murdering Zee, and you did what you had to. Understand?”
Cassandra sucked in a staggered breath and nodded, her fingertips finding my arm. I hauled her against me.
“You did great, baby. We need to get through the auction and get out of this place. You good?” I held her so tightly that I hoped all the pieces falling apart would be pressed together.
“I t-t-thought he was g-g-going to kill you.”
“You saved me, I’m still here.” I kissed her forehead. My throat was starting to swell inside the collar of my shirt, and I was unsure how much longer I would be able to talk.
“Come on,” Jordan said from the door. “It’s starting.”
My weight was heavy on Cassandra because all my muscles felt weak after what had happened. Her arm wrapped around my waist to support me. She’d killed for me, tainted her soul without hesitation because Marco intended to assassinate me. She could have walked away and no one would have judged her for her actions.
The room was too bright against my strained eyes, the sound for the gunshot still reverberating through my head. Jordan took his place beside me with Megan on his arm. His body was tight, his jaw fixed, and his eyes furious.
The auction started and a few times I tried to cough to relieve the pressure in my throat. Jordan summoned a passing waiter and lifted drinks for us all, downing a glass of champagne before lifting another from the tray for himself. The water trickled down my throat like acid burning a pathway.
Our auction finally came up and I seriously doubted I could speak. I lifted my hand to bid, but Cassandra caught it.
“Can I bid, sweetie? I’ve never been to an auction before.” She sounded like an airhead instead of the intelligent woman I married.
I smiled indulgently and lifted her hand to kiss the inside of her wrist.
“There goes my pension fund,” I croaked, and a ripple of laughter surrounded us.
Her shuttered expression told me she was barely holding herself together, but she bid and giggled with Megan as if they’d been let loose in a shoe store with a credit card. Jordan smiled benignly, but I knew he was watching everything intently.
“Going once, twice, last time. The winner is Mrs. Bartholomew,” the auctioneer said.
Cassandra bounced up and down and threw her arms around my neck. People clapped and laughed around us at her display of extravagance.
“Well she had me convinced,” Ash said in my ear.
The auction continued, Jordan and I pretending to bid on various lots. He even won a watch he’d probably donate to charity tomorrow, and a pair of sapphire earrings for Megan. Our presence here had to look real.
Cassandra bid on a diamond ring, claiming it would match her necklace, much to the amusement of those around us.
“Welcome to married life,” a stranger to my right commented dryly.
I raised my glass in silent salute.
When it was over, Jordan and I went to organise payment while the girls stood beside the buffet table. I was suitably scandalised when they couldn’t find my jewels, trying to sound as normal as possible.
“My wife wanted those,” I grated out through my bruised throat. “I want them found because a happy wife keeps me happy. Understand?”
Jordan intervened, demanding they go and look again while drumming his fingers on the counter to display his temper.
I lounged against the desk in the pretence of boredom while surveying everyone around us. There were people here that I knew, but others I’d never seen before in my life. I made sure to do a full sweep of the room for Ash to record them all. Whoever these people were, the Council tended to keep a database of potential enemies.
The gallery was closed down as predicted and the security staff began to pat-down everyone. As soon as the fucker who’d texted Cassandra in the past made his way toward her, I saw red and stormed in his direction.
“You put a finger on my wife, and I’ll break it.” I sneered at him.
He eyed me cautiously, his expression telling me he knew Marco intended to kill me. Fear entered his gaze since I was still alive, his eyes flicking around the room to search for the other man.
“I would advise you to walk away,” I continued. “You don’t want to become my enemy.” The demon inside me wanted him to provoke me. It didn’t sit well with me that my wife became a murderer tonight to save my sorry ass. I wanted to bring Marco back from the dead. To kill him all over again so that sin was on my soul and not polluting hers.
“People like you make me sick,” he hissed, stepping forward to face me. “She only chose you because you have money and position.”
My eyebrow arched. “She never even gave you her number, her friend did. Take the hint, she changed her SIM card to avoid you.”
His top lip lifted in an ugly sneer.
“Baby, what’s happening?” Cassandra’s arm laced through mine. “This isn’t fun anymore.”
“No,” I agreed, staring at the fucker who was fast working his way up my ‘problem’ list. “It isn’t. Let’s go home.”
I pushed past him and deliberately walked toward another security guard to let him search us so we could leave. Jordan had disappeared to the toilet, so I had no doubt that gun was currently well hidden in a cistern or roof tile. There would be no fingerprint or DNA evidence on it.
“Let me know when you find my other purchase,” I snapped on my way out to the master of ceremonies who hovered at the door to apologise for the inconvenience.
“Can you drive?” Cassandra asked in a hushed whisper as my weight slumped on her.
“Yeah, these people know I never let anyone drive my car, they’ll know something is wrong if I hand my keys over to you.”
“I’m your wife,” she retorted indignantly.
“You’re also wearing ridiculously high heels.” I laughed and choked on it when my throat went into spasm.
Her grip on me intensified until we reached the car. My body felt tired and sluggish, and I rested my head back for a few seconds before taking off, my only focus to get home without crashing.
Ash was waiting for me in the carpark, buffering my weight even as I slumped against him. “Get the doors,” he commanded Cassandra.
Her eyes never left me, her teeth chewing the side of her mouth.
“I’m fine, baby,” I rasped. It was a horrible lie, and I was never believing anyone who said that phrase to me again. Even loosening my shirt and tie didn’t stop the swelling in my throat.
“Stay with me, buddy,” Ash said against my ear. “The doctor is already on his way here.”
My fingers gripped his arm tighter in reply.
Ash dragged us into the room that had been used to store all the wedding paraphernalia, ensuring we didn’t contaminate our apartment. Jordan arrived a few minutes later, his furious gaze assessing everything.
“Get in the shower,” he snapped at Cassandra. “Throw your clothes into a bag.”
He lifted a roll of black bags from the drawer and handed them to her. She went to protest but Jordan held his hand up. Right now he was limiting the damage of being able to tie us to the murder of Marco.
“Ash, we need to get back there and ret
rieve the body before anyone else finds him. We may already be too late, but my guess is that they’ll be searching for the jewels, and hopefully blame him on their disappearance.”
My breathing became more laboured, and I stretched my head to try and gulp in air. Together, Ash and Jordan undressed me, throwing my clothes into another black bag. The guys did the same until we were all dressed in plain black training clothes.
The intercom sounded and I finally noticed Megan standing by the door. After a hushed discussion, she pressed the button to let the doctor in. Jordan discreetly moved her into the bedroom, handed her a black bag and a set of training clothes, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Sweat beaded on my forehead and trickled down my back with the effort of breathing.
Our personal doctor tutted as he felt my neck. “You’re lucky to still be alive.” He gave me the annoyed stare that he tended to do when we went to him to be patched up. “If the swelling gets any worse, I’m going to have to intubate you. Right now, I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No!” Jordan barked. “They’ll look for him in a hospital, he’s safe here.”
Even private hospitals kept records of the injuries someone presented with. Right now, he was off the books and being paid in cash. “Fine,” the doctor grated out. “I’ll give him an anti-inflammatory injection to help with the swelling. You’ll need to keep a cold compress on it and make him suck an ice cube to try and help.”
“Thanks, doc,” Jordan mumbled.
“One of these days, you boys aren’t going to be able to be saved,” he lectured us. “Do I want to see the other guy?”
“Nah, you’re a doctor, not a pathologist.” Jordan snorted, and the doctor pursed his lips. He knew better than to ask questions.
Cassandra stepped out of the bedroom dressed in black training clothes, her hair wet around her shoulders.
“My wife,” I said, pointing to her.
“No talking,” the doctor said before turning his attention to Cassandra. “Your husband needs to go to a hospital. If his throat closes any further, he could stop breathing and die.”
Her lips pressed together, and I watched her struggle with emotion. “Thank you for your help. If there is any change in his condition, I will insist on him going to hospital, but right now, I’m more afraid of what is out there waiting for him.”
Jordan gave our doctor his creepy smile that made people’s sphincter muscles tighten.
The doctor shrugged. “On your heads be it,” he muttered as he rummaged in his bag. He injected my arm, and a few moments later, I could barely hold my eyes open.
“What did you give him?” I heard Cassandra ask.
“I put a sedative in with the steroid. It should help control his breathing by making him sleep.”
Sonofabitch just took me out of action. My fingers twitched and I felt Cassandra’s hand closing around mine.
“Sleep, Zee. I’ll be right here when you wake up.” Her lips caressing mine was the last sensation I felt before I fell into the darkness filled with strange images and flashes from the past. My last conscious thought was an irrational fear that I would never get to see our child.
***
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cassandra
Jordan and Ash disappeared a few hours ago, leaving Megan and me to channel hop and sit in silence. The tick of the clock on the wall slowly drove me insane, the constant noise more than I could bear right now. I wanted to scream, to punch something, to rewind time to the night when I visited Xavier’s business. That was the pivotal moment that changed everything in our relationship.
We went from a hot and steamy romance with no real attachments to discovering truths that bound us together. The truth was ugly and treacherous, constantly trying to confuse and corrupt you. I wanted to go back to the happy days of mindless oblivion.
Part of me whispered the truth that we’d have found this path eventually, especially since I’d already been pregnant at the time. It just felt like the past few weeks had been filled with injury and death.
“I killed a man tonight,” I randomly blurted out.
Megan turned toward me with her mouth open and the controller still in her hand.
“He had a wire around Zee’s throat trying to kill him as they struggled. His gun fell to the ground and…” I couldn’t say the words again. “He was going to murder my husband.”
Megan sat and stared at me for several seconds before she blinked. “Then it was better that he died instead of Xavier.”
And that was my current moral dilemma. I sat here beside my injured, unconscious husband and felt no remorse for what I’d done. Where were the feelings of guilt and despair? Did this mean I was a bad person?
“Cas.” She waited until I finally looked at her. “We talked about this in the past when we were at university. You saw shadows everywhere you looked, it was the reason why you went to the firing range and learnt to shoot. You were just too soft to actually get a gun.”
I lifted Xavier’s legs and tucked myself under him, needing to feel his pulse under my fingers as I held his wrist. “I wanted to be able to protect myself, yet, when they came for me, I was helpless.”
“You weren’t helpless when they came for Xavier,” Megan pointed out.
“I froze, Meg. He grabbed him and I watched that wire bite into his neck, and I froze. Only the gun clattered to the floor and broke me out of the horror of the situation, Xavier would be dead right now.”
Megan moved until she knelt in front of me. “You can’t think like that, Cas. He’s alive and Jordan is sorting out this shitstorm the way he always does. We need to take this as a win. These men have Jordan worried, and that man never blinks twice he’s that much in control.”
My hand that wasn’t on Xavier’s pulse grabbed Megan’s hand. “What are we going to do?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly. “No idea. I can do a lot of my work remotely from Jordan’s apartment, but I need to go into work for face-to-face meetings. You need to sit your pregnant, unemployed ass here and let Zee protect you.”
“We both know I’m terrible at doing nothing.”
A faint smile appeared on Megan’s mouth. “Then take up a hobby. You can learn to knit or crochet clothes for the baby.”
She had a point. I walked into this marriage with my eyes open. Xavier had shown me who he was, and he knew everything about me. It was more than most people had before they walked down the aisle and said, “I do.”
The minutes ticked slowly around the clock. Megan curled up on the other sofa and finally fell asleep. Xavier muttered every so often, his hand reaching for his throat, but the cold compress sat gently on his neck. Pressure mounted in my chest making it difficult to breathe, my mind plagued by the thought of Xavier leaving my life. Everyone I loved died and left me. My eyes burned with unshed tears.
Around three in the morning, Jordan and Ash reappeared.
I stared at them, my eyebrows raised in question.
“We had to wait, as they were tearing the place apart looking for the stones,” Jordan said. “He’d fallen into an awkward place to move. We had to activate the fire alarm after I retrieved the jewels to divert their attention.”
“Would they not see you on CCTV?” I asked.
“Nah, we were carrying signal jammers.” Jordan settled himself beside Megan, lifting her head onto his knee. “His body’s been incinerated.”
Nausea crept up my throat. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”
Jordan studied me. “That may be true, but either that was one hell of a lucky shot, or you’ve fired a gun before.”
My thumb circled over Xavier’s pulse for several seconds. “When we were at university, I was convinced someone was following me. I even went through a period of believing that my family had been deliberately killed. Megan took me to a firing range and I learnt to shoot, but I never mustered the courage to buy a weapon. Also, I didn’t have a valid reason for purchasing one. What was I supposed t
o say? That I believed my parents had been murdered and their killers were after me? They’d have locked me up.”
“It probably isn’t too far from the truth,” Ash muttered, and Jordan shot him a murderous glare.
Xavier’s fingers tightened around mine and I knew he’d been listening.
“It’s fine,” I replied. “I worked that out myself after the Malcolm incident. Somewhere in the middle of it was probably my father’s business partner, but he just didn’t have the stomach to kill me when he found me that night.”
“Zee’s already looking into it,” Jordan said vaguely, his fingers combing Megan’s hair back from her face. Why did he hide from his feelings when every so often they were clearly on display?
“Zee’s already dealt with it,” Xavier croaked, his hand running through his hair.
I lifted his legs and ran to get him a cool glass of water to sip. Ash helped elevate him into a sitting position, and I popped a straw into his mouth.
“Do you have a nurse’s outfit?” he teased, his voice raspy, the welt on his throat bright red.
“You nearly died,” I whispered, the terror of the night starting to wash over me.
He didn’t speak, just tugged me until my head rested on his chest. His heart beat solidly against my ear, reassuring me that he was alive. It was the same sound that lulled me to sleep every night. His fingers trailed through my hair.
“How’re you feeling?” Ash asked.
“Like shit,” Xavier rasped. “Everything sorted?”
“Jewels are safe,” Jordan replied. “I’ll study them tomorrow to see why everyone’s panties are in a twist. Marco no longer exists, so anything connecting Cas to his death is gone.”
I buried my head into his chest. “I killed him.”
“I know, baby.” Xavier just kept stroking my head, his strength starting to infuse into me. The pressure that had been steadily building in my chest began to subside. “Everything will be okay.”
When he said it, I believed him because no matter what, Xavier never lied. He belonged to a weird underground group who didn’t think twice about killing people. He owned a chain of sex clubs which catered to your every fantasy. He drank too much and drove too fast, but he never once lied to me.