by Cynthia Eden
Ethan’s head tipped back. He stared at Gwen with dawning horror in his eyes. He twisted in his bonds.
“Before I kill you…” Now Gwen realized that Daniel was speaking to Ethan, not her. “I thought you’d like to see Gwen once more. You know…to tell her good-bye.”
Ethan’s eyes were frantic.
“After that, I’m going to kill her.” Daniel laughed. A truly chilling sound. “I’ll kill her, then you…big brother.”
Gwen shook her head. Had he just said…brother?
***
Chance grabbed the gun. His fingers were soaked with blood so the gun nearly slipped away, but he just tightened his hold on it. He rose slowly, fighting the pain and the nausea that rolled through him. One bullet was in his back. One in his gut.
The bastard should have killed him. Because only death would have stopped Chance.
I’m coming for you, Gwen. One step. Two. He pushed the pain back. Focused on her. He reached out for the door.
Locked.
Like that would slow him down.
He pointed that gun and fired. The lock didn’t give so he fired again. If he had to, he’d claw down that door because he was getting inside. Chance was getting to Gwen.
I love you.
He’d heard those words from her. Seen the love in her eyes. Chance would kill the fool who’d threatened her. Kill him.
The lock gave way and Chance shoved open the door.
***
At the thunder of gunfire, Daniel spun around. “What in the hell?” His hold eased on Gwen as he surged toward the dying blast.
That moment of confusion was just what Gwen needed. She tore free of him and raced toward the nearest chair.
“No!” Daniel lunged after her. “Stop!”
Gwen threw a chair at him even as he fired. She felt the burn of the bullet graze over her arm. She grabbed for another chair. She lifted it—
His gun was aimed at her again. Pointing at her heart.
“Devlin is coming,” she said, her words rushing out quickly as she kept that chair up, her only weapon. “He was out back. He’s the one who—”
Daniel laughed. “The dark-haired one? Yeah, I already took him out.”
Gwen shook her head.
“I used my knife on him, so you wouldn’t hear the attack. Did it nice and fast. I left him in a pool of blood…”
Ethan muttered frantically behind his gag.
Daniel’s gaze flew toward him. “What? It’s your fault. It’s all your fault. You’re the one dear old Dad chose. He lived with you and your bitch of a mother, but you weren’t grateful. He turned his back on me and my mom, but you still hated him. You still—”
Gunfire. Thundering. Erupting. Slamming into Daniel and he jerked like a marionette on a string. He tried to turn toward the shooter, but Gwen slammed her chair into him. Daniel fell, and his gun slid across the floor. Gwen scrambled after it. She grabbed the weapon, fumbled, aimed it, and saw…
Chance stood just a few feet away. Bloody. Swaying a little. And with his weapon still up and pointed toward Daniel.
Gwen ran to Chance. She locked her arms around him and held on to him as tightly as she could. Tears were filling her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. Chance was alive. Strong. With her. He was—
Falling.
She couldn’t stop him. They both crashed to the floor. Frantic, she yelled, “Chance!”
There was so much blood. Too much. She looked behind him and saw that he’d left a trail of blood as he walked into the room.
“Can’t…feel legs now…” Chance whispered.
Her heart nearly stopped.
She grabbed his hand.
“Can’t…feel you…so cold…”
No. No! “Chance, please, please don’t do this. I love you!”
His lips lifted, in just the faintest smile. The smile that had stolen her heart so long ago. “Always…love you…do anything…for you…”
Gwen could hear the scream of sirens. The police were coming. Someone must have reported the shots. Police—and an ambulance? “Help is almost here. We’re both going to make it. We’ll be okay.”
Ethan was muttering, growling behind his gag, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t look away from Chance.
Even though his eyes were closing.
“No!” Gwen yelled. “You say you’ll do anything for me? Then don’t die! Don’t you dare die! You live with me. You live for me!”
His eyelids flickered.
“Please don’t leave me,” Gwen said. Her hands were pressing to the wound over his stomach. She had to stop the blood flow. Had to help him. Nothing else mattered. Only Chance. Only him. She kept talking to him. Kept applying pressure and the minutes seemed to crawl by. The sirens were louder. Closer. Help had to be nearly there. Hurry, hurry, hurry—
“Drop the weapon!”
That was Faith’s voice.
Gwen looked up, blinking past her tears. Faith was a few feet away. The detective’s gun was in her hand and she was pointing it at Gwen.
I don’t have a weapon. I had to put it down so I could help Chance. I had to—
“I will kill you,” Faith said, voice fierce.
She isn’t talking to me.
Gwen glanced over her shoulder. Daniel was on his knees. He had a knife in his hand, and he’d been heading toward Gwen.
Ethan was still snarling behind his gag.
Uniformed cops raced in behind Faith.
Daniel dropped the knife.
“Good move, asshole,” Faith said. The cops closed in on Daniel.
Gwen looked back down at Chance. His eyes were open. On her. “Chance?” Don’t go! Don’t!
“Anything…” he told her, his voice a bare breath of sound. “For you.” His fingers slid toward her. “Anything…”
Medics rushed in and they pushed Gwen back. She watched as the team swarmed into action. “Devlin,” Gwen said, voice sounding like a stranger’s to her own ears. Too cold. Too hollow. But she had to tell Faith about the other man. “He’s out back. Daniel said he attacked him. Dev needs help, too!”
Faith motioned with her left hand and cops rushed toward the back of Wicked.
When the medics hoisted Chance on a stretcher, Gwen raced after them. Snow was falling outside. A light covering, reminding her of so many other times.
Reminding her of a kiss with Chance, a kiss hot enough to melt that snow.
“Gwen!” Someone grabbed her arm. No, not just someone. She shook past the fog of memories that had surrounded her and found herself gazing into her father’s frantic eyes. He stared at her a moment, almost as if he were afraid to believe she was really there, in front of him, then he yanked her against his chest and held her in a grip that hurt. “I was afraid,” he told her, voice gruff, “so afraid I’d get here and you’d be dead. When Faith called me…she was already racing over here and I didn’t think either of us would get here in time.”
Her tears fell harder. “Dad…it’s Chance. He was shot protecting me.” She pulled away from him and saw that Chance had already been loaded into the back of the ambulance. “I have to go with him. I can’t lose him!”
Her father glanced over at the ambulance. Swore. And then he was running with her to the back of that open vehicle. Gwen tried to jump in the back, but the EMT waved her away. “No, ma’am,” he said, “this man is critical. If you aren’t family—”
“She is his family!” Her father shouted. “She’s the woman he loves and you’re letting her back there or your ass will be on the street next week looking for a new job.” He puffed out his chest. “Son, you don’t know what kind of hell you’re—”
Gwen shoved her dad back before he could finish his threat. She jumped into the back of the ambulance just as its siren roared on again. Gwen scooted over so she wouldn’t get in the way of the EMTs and then…
“I love you…” Chance’s hand reached for her. “My…Gwen.”
She wrapped her hand around his. The ambulance lu
rched forward.
“Won’t go…anywhere…” Chance told her, even as his eyes drifted closed, “without you.”
“You’d better not,” Gwen said. Because she didn’t want to imagine the rest of her life, not without him in it.
***
By the time the ambulance rounded the corner, Will Hawthorne already had his phone out. He knew where the ambulance was headed—and it just so happened that he was on the board of that hospital. So his phone call was immediately put through to the emergency room director, and he started barking orders. “When Chance Valentine comes in, he’s to get the best care, you understand? That man will not die. Anything that my daughter wants, anything she needs for his care, you give her immediately. You put your best doctors in there with him and nothing can go wrong, do you hear me? Nothing. My daughter wants that man healed and—”
“They’ll take care of him, Will.” Faith’s soft voice came from right behind him.
His shoulders stiffened. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Will snapped into the phone. “And he’d better already be back in surgery by then.” He hung up his phone and turned to face Faith.
Her gun was holstered, her hands folded over her chest and her eyes—still beautiful enough to break me.
“You should really learn to ask nicely for things instead of always barking out your orders,” she told him. Her voice was mild, but there was sympathy and worry in her eyes.
He stepped closer to her. “You saved Gwen.”
“I did my job.”
He took another step. “You saved my daughter. Anything you want, you have. I know you’re up for a promotion, I can make that happen, I can make—”
Her hand lifted and touched his chest. “I was doing my job, and you don’t need to make anything happen for me. I do that for myself. Always have. Always will.”
Yes, she did. Just one of the many things he admired about her.
“Chance is the one who took the bullets for her, and from what I can gather…he’s also the one who shot Daniel Duvato.” She pointed to the right, toward the man who’d been strapped in the back of another ambulance, a man under police guard.
Two more ambulances roared up to the scene.
Will kept his gaze on Daniel Duvato. “Will he make it?”
“Maybe. Hard to say at this point. Chance wasn’t exactly looking to spare the guy when he pumped his bullets into Daniel.”
If Daniel lived and Chance didn’t…
“But he won’t hurt your daughter again, that’s for sure. Because if he does survive, he’s going straight to jail.”
Another team of EMTs rushed by. This time, they were carrying Devlin Shade on a stretcher. Devlin saw Will and called out, “Chance! Gwen! Are they all right?” His shirt was covered in blood.
“Gwen is,” Will yelled back. I don’t know about Chance.
Devlin blanched. The EMTs secured him in the back of the ambulance.
“So much pain,” Will said as his gaze swept the scene. So much…Why?
And then he saw the last victim. Ethan Barclay was being wheeled out of Wicked. At first, Will thought the man was dead. Then he saw Ethan’s arm moving. Will rushed toward him. “Ethan!”
Ethan’s head turned. His eyes were too bright, almost feverish. “M-my fault…” Ethan muttered. “Didn’t know…br-brother…”
“What?”
The EMTs forced Will back.
“H-he was…brother…”
The sirens were screaming again.
Will stood there a minute, feeling lost. No, feeling as if he were trapped in hell. Because he remembered another time, another night when violence had torn his world apart. That night, he’d arrived too late. His wife had been gone.
His daughter had stared at him with stark, terror-filled eyes. For weeks after that, Gwen had woken screaming in the night.
Weeks…
Faith touched his shoulder. He flinched away from her.
“You can’t control everything,” Faith told him, her voice carrying no further than his ears. “You just can’t.” Her fingers curled around him. This time, he didn’t back away.
He’d run from Faith before, because he’d known that she could do so much better than him. A bitter, control freak of a man with too many enemies to count. But, right then…
He pulled her into his arms. Held her tight.
“Thank you,” he told her.
Will felt her soft nod.
And he knew he owed Faith, far more than he’d ever be able to repay.
Chapter Thirteen
Gwen paced in the hospital waiting room. Paced again and again—the same circular path around the little room. As soon as the ambulance had arrived, Chance had been wheeled away. He’d gone to surgery and she’d sunk into her own hell.
She’d watched as the others were brought in—Dev, Ethan, and Daniel. Damn Daniel. Cops had followed him back into surgery and he’d been cuffed to his gurney. She’d seen him, and rage had poured through her. Gwen had lunged toward him, ready to kill him right then and there.
But Lex had appeared. He’d pulled her back. He’d wrapped his arms around her and held Gwen until Daniel had disappeared—and until her control had come back.
Lex had told her that Sophie was in the same hospital. She’d been attacked—no doubt, by Daniel, too. Though Gwen didn’t understand why Daniel had hurt them. It was all still a tangle to her, and she couldn’t work out the knots because she was too worried about Chance. She needed Chance. Her steps became faster. More frantic.
How long were the doctors going to take? How long?
The surgery doors swung open. Gwen stopped pacing. She stopped breathing.
The doctor took off his mask. “He’s all right. Chance Valentine is in recovery right now. He’ll be coming out from the anesthesia soon, and…” The doctor’s gaze slipped toward Gwen’s father. “He can, um, have one visitor.” The doc’s stare shifted to Gwen. “Just for a few minutes, ma’am, but you can go back.”
She nearly tackled the doctor in her haste to get back there. The scent of the hospital—antiseptic, cleaner—filled her nose as she hurried back to the recovery area. The nurse pointed her toward Chance’s area, and then she saw him. Hooked up to so many machines. Looking so pale, lying so still. Her heartbeat stuttered in her chest. “Chance?”
His eyes were closed, but his breathing seemed strong. Deep and even. She inched closer to the bed.
“Chance…the doctor said you are going to be all right.”
The machines beeped.
She reached for his hand. For some reason, she’d expected him to be cold to the touch. He wasn’t. He was so warm. So very warm. Her Chance.
She bent near the bed and brought his hand to her lips. Gwen kissed his hand. “We’re both okay, Chance. It’s over. The police have Daniel in custody. We can…we can try for our future now. We can do it.” You just need to get better. Be strong for me.
The machines beeped. That beeping was reassuring. Constant. Steady.
Gwen kept talking to him. “I should have told you I loved you sooner, right? I knew for a long time. I knew before last Christmas. Why do you think I followed you out onto that balcony? It wasn’t just desire, though…yes, you are hot.” She smiled. But then the smile vanished as fast as it had appeared. “I’ve loved you for a long time. I tried to stop, but that didn’t really work out for me. I tried to move on, but then I realized…other men weren’t you. No one else is quite like you. Stubborn and strong and…so everything that I want. You know me well, Chance, better than anyone else, so I guess part of me always thought…you had to know how I felt. You had to see that I loved you.”
She blinked away her tears. Kissed the back of his hand again. “But I don’t think you did see it. And I didn’t see that you loved me. We were both blind, but we don’t have to be anymore. We can go after what we want. We can be happy.” She stared at his face. A face she loved so much. “You just have to get better. You said you’d do anything for me, right? You have
to get better. Get stronger. And give me the life that I want. Give me a life with you. Because I won’t take anything else.”
She kept talking to him. Promising him a Christmas together. Promising that they’d get a tree. That in the summer, they’d take a trip. Maybe go to some exotic island and spend the days naked together on some beautiful beach. “We can do anything,” Gwen told him. “As long as we’re together. Any dream we want, we can have.” She swallowed. A thick lump wanted to fill her throat. “I just need you. I need you to open your eyes. To be with me.”
A soft knock came from behind her.
“Miss…”
Gwen looked over her shoulder. A nurse stood there.
“I’m sorry,” the woman told her softly, “but your time is up. You’ll be able to visit with the patient again later, I promise.”
Gwen rose. Her hand still held his. She turned away, her fingers beginning to slide away from Chance’s hand.
His fingers tightened around hers.
Gwen’s breath caught. Her gaze immediately flew to Chance’s face. His eyelids were opening.
“Any…thing…” Chance managed, his voice rasping. “Told you…anything…for you…”
She shot back toward that bed. Kissed him. Ignored the wires and beeping and everything else.
“Never l-leave you…” Chance whispered. “Always…my Gwen…”
She kissed him again. She tasted her own tears. And she tasted happiness.
A life together. That was what they’d have. A future.
Love.
***
Five days later…
“You know you shouldn’t be here,” Faith murmured to Chance. “You just got out of the hospital.”
“I’m fine.” Well, actually, he was fucking pissed. He stared through the one-way mirror, his gaze locked on the face of Daniel Duvato. Daniel had gotten out of the hospital the day before, too. The guy was pale and currently handcuffed as he sat at the small table in the interrogation room.
Daniel wasn’t alone. Ethan Barclay stood across from him.
Daniel hadn’t asked for a lawyer. He’d just asked to speak with Ethan.
“They’re brothers,” Faith said.
They didn’t look like brothers. The two men appeared to be nothing alike.