Mine to Keep

by Cynthia Eden

  Reese’s gaze flickered at the sound. “Maybe you should get that call, boss.”

  “And maybe we should all just wait right here until the cops arrive.”

  At that, Reese laughed. “Like the great Trace Weston gives a flying shit about local cops. You do what you want, when you want. You always have.”

  And the mask that Reese had worn seemed to fall away. His face twisted with bitterness.

  This was my friend?

  “You climb out of hell, and you rise to heaven,” Reese’s voice was a grating snarl. His eyes flashed with fury. “That’s your charmed life, isn’t it?”

  “My life’s never been charmed.” An alcoholic mother. A father who used his fists too frequently and forgot to even feed his son most days.

  One war zone after another.

  The phone stopped vibrating.

  Reese shook his head. “You do have a weakness, though.” Reese smiled at him. “And I can’t believe you just left her alone…with Anna Jean.”

  In that instant, Trace’s heart stopped.

  “Oh, yeah, boss, it’s her. New face. New contacts. New hair. But you—you’re always so taken in by the innocent ones. The ones who look lost and scared, just like Skye.”

  Skye didn’t look lost and scared. She looked like the most perfect thing in the world.

  “Anna Jean came to me,” Reese told him, smug now. “She told me about what you’d done. How you’d left her and Tucker to die. I’d heard the story before, of course. You’d told me your version, but this was different.”

  Anna Jean’s story was bull. “You know Anna Jean betrayed the team.”

  “Like I gave a damn about that. I wasn’t on that team.” His smile stretched. “She wanted vengeance, and you know what I wanted?”

  “No clue.” Every instinct in Trace’s body screamed for him to attack.

  Alex still lay prone on the floor.

  “I almost died for your girlfriend,” Reese snapped. “When that freak of a doctor came after her, I wound up in the hospital. Collateral damage, right? Screw that!”

  “You were not—”

  But Reese cut right through his words and said, “I had your back day in and day out, but I got nothing.”

  Trace shook his head. “That’s not true, you—”

  “You saved my ass in battle, so what? I’m supposed to be your lackey forever? I want my share! Why do you get everything? Why?”

  This time, Trace didn’t try to talk. He knew Reese didn’t care what he said.

  “You were going to marry her. As soon as I saw the chunk of glass on her finger, I knew I had to act. I got Anna Jean in town, and we started our plan. Skye had to die, of course.”

  He fucking dared to speak so easily about her death?

  “If you married Skye, then you’d change your will,” Reese said, jerking a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t let the money go to her. Not after all the time I’d put in to make sure I was the one closest to you.”

  Now Trace laughed. “You idiot. I never planned to change my will.” Reese was so wrong. About so many things.

  Reese blinked. “Wh-what? But…but I thought…”

  “I was always going to take care of you, Reese. You were my friend.” A lying, deadly friend. “But Skye, she was the one I loved. Even if I’d never gotten back with her, the bulk of my fortune was always set to go to Skye when I died.” It had been his only way to take care of her.

  Reese’s jaw dropped.

  “With the ring or without it,” Trace said. “She was always mine. And I protect what’s mine.”

  Trace’s head tilted. Ah, he could hear the siren now. It was time to end this.

  “You didn’t protect her this time!” Reese’s body vibrated with fury. “Anna Jean killed her. Your precious Skye bled out while you were on your way here. Anna Jean killed her the instant you left the studio. Then she killed Drake and Claire. They never even saw her coming.”

  Skye’s alive. Skye’s alive. He yanked out his phone.

  Reese’s hand flew up. He grabbed a gun—one that he’d had hidden behind his back—and he fired.

  Trace fired at the same instant. The blasts thundered through the room.

  Reese’s lips moved. A weak gasp slipped from him.

  Trace hadn’t aimed for his heart. The bullet had blasted right through Reese’s head.

  Reese’s body thudded to the floor.

  Trace’s weapon dropped. He pulled out the phone. Called back the number that had tried to reach him again and again. It wasn’t Skye’s number. It was a number he didn’t know.

  “Trace!” Skye’s frantic voice shouted over the line.

  She was alive.

  “It’s Reese,” she told him, her voice warming him even as a chill seemed to surround his heart. “He’s the one who’s been after you.”

  Sirens screamed, coming closer.

  “I’m on my way to you! Be careful, Trace, be very—”

  “I love you,” Trace told her as emotion rose up to choke him. “Always, you…”

  “Trace?”

  The phone slipped from his fingers.

  Trace stared down at his chest. Reese had always been such a damn fine shot.

  A good friend? No.

  But a good killer.

  I love you, Skye.

  He just hated that he’d broken his promise to her. He’d said that he would return to her.

  She’d asked for only one thing. Come back to me.

  It was the one thing he couldn’t give her.

  ***

  Skye raced toward the apartment. Her breath heaved in her lungs even as her heart thundered wildly in her chest. She’d been disconnected. Trace’s call had just ended and no matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t get him back on the line.

  “Ma’am, stop!” A uniformed cop appeared in her path. “This is a crime scene, you can’t go in there!”

  Police cruisers lined the street. Three ambulances—three—were there. “My fiancé is in that building! I’ve got to find him!”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but no one is getting in there now.” His face was grim but sympathetic. “Now just stand back.”

  “Injured officer!” Another voice shouted. “Make room!”

  Her head snapped to the right. Two EMTs were pushing out a man on a gurney. They wheeled right past her, and she saw Alex’s ashen face.

  “Alex!” She rushed toward him.

  His hand rose and caught her wrist. “So…sorry…”

  An EMT pulled Alex’s hand away.

  But she grabbed it right back. “Where’s Trace?”

  Alex’s eyes squinted up at her. “Was…watching Reese…caught him t-tailing me…thought Weston had…sent him…”

  “Please, where is Trace?”

  The uniformed cop wrapped his arms around Skye and pulled her back. The EMTs loaded Alex into the back of the nearest ambulance. The doors slammed shut and the siren screamed on.

  “One fatality,” a voice behind her muttered. “But did you see the blood in that place? It looked like something out of a horror movie.”

  Skye was glad the cop held her. Without him, she might have hit the ground right then. Her nails dug into his arms, and she turned to gaze up at the young officer. “Was the fatality Trace Weston?”

  “I don’t know who died, ma’am,” he whispered back. “I wasn’t cleared to go upstairs. I just know some guy took a detective hostage and started shooting people in the street.” He pointed to the left, and she looked, gasping when she saw the dark pool of what had to be blood under a street lamp.

  “They already took one man to the hospital. He had a gunshot wound to the chest.” The cop’s lips thinned. “I can’t say anymore, okay? Go to the hospital. St. Mary’s. Wait there.”

  She backed away from him, forcing her legs to move. St. Mary’s. Claire and Drake had been taken to St. Mary’s, too. The EMTS had arrived at her studio. They’d come with police.

  The police had wanted to question Skye
. They’d wanted her to go down to the station.

  She’d just wanted to get away. She’d faked being sick and she’d darted to the bathroom. Then she’d climbed out of the window and grabbed the first taxi that she saw.

  Her gaze flew around the scene. Trace’s car was still there. Far too close to the ominous pool of blood. It looked black. In the darkness, the blood looked so black.

  She didn’t see Noah. She didn’t see Trace.

  “He’s seizing!”

  Two more EMTs ran from the apartment. A man was between them on the gurney. His hand fell limply, his fingers lax.

  In that instant, everything stopped for Skye as she gazed at that hand.

  It was the hand of the man who’d saved her from being raped when she was fifteen. That hand had struck out with vicious accuracy then, beating her attacker again and again.

  That was the man who’d saved her from hell. He’d pulled her out of that terrible basement. Carried her. Held her close with that hand.

  That was the hand of the man who’d proposed to her. His fingers had trembled when he’d slid the ring onto her finger. Weakness, when Trace was normally so strong.

  Trace! They were loading him into the back of an ambulance, and she jumped inside with them.

  One of the EMTs glanced up. “Lady, you can’t—”

  “I’m his fiancé.” Oh, God, his chest. The blood. “Help him!”

  The EMT jerked his head and went back to work. The siren screamed as the vehicle lurched forward.

  Skye grabbed for Trace’s hand. She held it like the lifeline that it was. She hadn’t warned him fast enough. Reese had done this. The man they’d trusted.

  Her hold tightened on him. “Come back to me,” Skye whispered because she could tell—she could feel—that Trace was slipping away. His face was too still. Too pale. The life and energy—all that was Trace—gone.

  “Please,” she whispered while the EMTs hooked him up to machines and poked him with needles. “Don’t leave me, Trace. I don’t want to be without you.” She’d tried that. And she’d felt as if she were only living half a life during those years.

  “Come back to me,” Skye said again.

  But Trace didn’t answer her, and a cold chill covered her body.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Skye walked into the morgue. The police chief was at her side. Because of this case, because of who was involved, she’d warranted attention from the man in charge.

  Maybe that was supposed to make her feel better. It didn’t. Nothing could make her feel better. Nothing could make her feel then. Her wounds were bandaged. The doctors had wanted to give her pain medication. She’d refused. There was no need for the drugs because a wall of ice surrounded her, numbing her. Each breath was an effort, sawing out of her lungs.

  “I don’t want to be here,” Skye said. Her voice was wooden. As cold as she felt.

  “We just need the identification process completed, Ms. Sullivan,” he told her. His eyes and his face were sympathetic. Everyone kept looking at her that way. With sympathy. Pity.

  She hated those stares.

  The first body waited. She glanced down at it. Felt no emotion stir. Not even rage. She’d locked her emotions away. She had to lock them away, or else she’d go crazy.

  I’m more like my mother than I thought.

  Because she wanted to kill. Wanted to destroy everyone in her path.

  Skye cleared her throat as she stared at the body. “That’s Anna Jean Hurley. She was working with Reese Stokes. I believe they killed Ben Sharpe, Parker Jacobs, and Sara Kramer.”

  “You believe?”

  “Yes. Anna Jean told me they did, so I believed the bitch.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath.

  Skye glared at the body. For a minute there, rage had cracked through her surface. She couldn’t have that. Because her pain was hidden just behind the rage.

  Her gaze slid to the next slab. To the body that was waiting for her. Her lips trembled. Her hands clenched tightly into fists, and her nails bit into her palms.

  “That’s Reese Stokes.” And he was missing part of his head.

  The chief’s shoulder brushed against hers. “Most people can’t handle seeing a dead body, not one like this.”

  “Most people probably don’t stare at the dead and wish that they’d been the one to do the killing.” She looked up at him. “I do.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Reese was Anna Jean’s partner. I don’t know why. Maybe because he was a psychotic jerk. Maybe because he fell for the wrong woman, and she warped his mind.” Her gaze slid back to Reese. “I thought of him as family, and I hope the bastard is burning now.”

  She stepped back. “Now I need to get back to Trace.” She’d been away from him too long already. Skye skirted around the police chief.

  “I’m…very sorry, ma’am,” he called.

  Her fingers hesitated above the door.

  “The doctors briefed me on Weston’s injuries. I understand that he…he—”

  Her spine snapped straight. “You don’t know anything about Trace Weston. Neither do they. But I know plenty.” She faced him. “He’s the strongest man I know. And he’s a man who keeps his promises. Trace isn’t going to leave me. He’s going to wake up. He’s going to open his eyes any time.” That was why she had to be there. “And he’s going to make a full recovery.”

  The pity flashed in his eyes again. She hated that pity. She wouldn’t look at it anymore. She left the chief, hurrying from the room and running back to the only man who mattered to her.

  ***

  She was only supposed to stay with Trace for fifteen minutes at a time. That was the rule in the ICU.

  Skye was breaking their rules, and the doctors hadn’t tried to throw her out yet. Maybe they were afraid of the Weston name. Of the Weston money.

  Or maybe…maybe they just had pity in their eyes, too, when they looked at her.

  She stood by his bed. Stroked his fingers. They’d told her that machines were keeping him alive.

  Skye wouldn’t believe that. He was alive.

  His skin wasn’t warm to the touch, it was cool, too cold. So was hers. She rubbed his fingers, trying to force warmth back into him and wishing that she could be the one in that bed.

  But she was there, at his side, helpless.

  “Is this how you felt?” Skye asked him. “When I was taken and you were left behind, did you feel like this? Like you were being ripped apart, like you were losing your life…and there was nothing you could do but stand there and watch it all fall away?”

  He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. A tube was shoved down his throat. He couldn’t breathe on his own. They’d operated on him—three times. He hadn’t regained consciousness since the EMTs had hauled him out of that apartment.

  It looked like something out of a horror movie.

  “There’s no one for me to fight.” Her voice had gone hoarse. From the tears? Or from all the hours she’d talked to him?

  Skye hadn’t slept. She couldn’t.

  “I want to hurt the man who did this to you, but he’s gone.” And she was there. Holding him. “I need to confess something to you.”

  She heard the rustle of the curtain behind her.

  Skye didn’t look away from Trace.

  “I would have killed Reese for you. I would have killed anyone to protect you.” She swallowed, trying to ease the ache in her throat so that she could keep talking. “I was never afraid of the darkness that you carried. Because inside, I’ve got that same darkness. I think…I think I just hide it better than you do.”

  She hid her true self from everyone, but him.

  “I would’ve killed them. I would’ve done anything for you.” Her hand lifted. She brushed her fingers over his still cheek. “I still will. I’ll do anything, Trace, just please, please come back to me. Because there is one thing I can’t do…I can’t live without you.” She didn’t want to try.

  A hand touched her shoulder. “
Skye.”

  Alex’s voice. He’d heard her confession. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything but Trace.

  “Has there been any change?” Alex asked her.

  Her fingers slid back down to hold Trace’s hand. “Not yet. But there will be. He’s coming back to me.”

  Alex’s hand fell away from her. “I heard that…” He cleared his throat. “I heard that Claire Kramer and Drake Archer will be discharged soon.”

  Skye nodded. “That’s good.” They’d healed. Trace would, too.

  “Noah York is improving. He lost a lot of blood, so the docs aren’t ready to release him yet.” Alex paused. “Noah said that Weston saved his life, and Claire…she said you are the only reason she’s still here.”

  She still didn’t look away from Trace. She just needed him to open his eyes. Once he opened his eyes, everything would be all right.

  “I saw Reese following me when I left the station. I’d thought that Weston sent him after me.”

  She slipped her fingers over Trace’s knuckles. Her engagement ring gleamed up at her. “You always think the worst of Trace.”

  “I thought he’d killed Parker because he loved you and wanted you safe.” Alex cleared his throat. “But we found evidence at Reese’s place. Photos. He’d been following Parker. Meeting with him.”

  “I guess they both wanted the same thing,” Skye whispered. “To destroy Trace.”

  “Reese was…involved with Sara. We showed one of Sara’s neighbors a picture of him, and the neighbor confirmed that he’d been there to visit her several times.”

  “He was just using her. He used her, and he killed her.” And Skye had trusted him.

  When you put your trust in the wrong person, you opened yourself up for all kinds of hurt.

  Skye didn’t think it was possible to hurt more than she did then.

  “What I don’t understand…” Alex’s shoulder brushed against hers. “What I don’t understand is why I didn’t get killed, too. He had me. Reese knocked me out. He could’ve killed me at any point.”