“I missed you,” he murmurs. I narrow my eyes on him as bile rises in my throat when the pad of his finger strokes my cheek and down my neck. “All of you.”
My heart races, my fight-or-flight instinct kicking in even though I can’t run away. I’m trapped—at his mercy—but when his finger traces my lips, I open, biting down as hard as I can and not letting go. Did he not learn that from the last time?
I hear Dean’s laugh and Kim’s gasp, but it doesn’t matter what comes next because I’m not the same scared girl I was when he controlled my every movement. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been.
“Fuck!” he screams, yanking his finger from my mouth, and when I feel the wetness of his blood, I let it drip down my chin and smile wide.
“Don’t touch me ever again.”
His eyes burn with rage, so much more than I’ve ever seen before. His hand lifts, but I don’t flinch because I know what’s coming as I prepare for the blow.
My head whips to the side as his fist connects with my eye, but I don’t make a sound before looking back at him and raising my brow.
“You’re out of practice,” I goad.
He jerks forward but stops when a hand lands on his shoulder.
“You’ll get your turn, old man. This is my game, now step back and let me play it so you can win your toy.”
My dad looks at Dean, his eyes flaring at being told what to do. Dean must see something in his eyes because he points the gun at his head and tilts his head at me. There’s a beat where I think my dad won’t do as he says, but he finally moves, only he stops behind me. His hips meeting my shoulders and causing bile to rise in my throat.
“Just wait until I get you back to the house,” he murmurs, only loud enough for me to hear. “This time I’ll have you all to myself.” My muscles tense as his grating words float around me. “I have more patience than most, something you should know well.” His breath flows over my face as he leans down closer to me. “Jonah never did have any which was why I’d never let him have control over you.” His nose runs along my neck. “I made sure to hand him over to the authorities after he lost his way.” He pauses. “He didn’t deserve you.”
My eyes widen at his words, trying to decipher his meaning, and when he moves away from me I want to look back and turn around, so I know what’s coming, but I can’t. I can’t see if he’s about to do anything and that has my pulse racing and my heart about to explode with the reality of the situation as I look at Kim.
“It’s okay,” she reassures. “He’ll keep us safe… he always keeps us safe.”
I know she’s talking about Luke, but I can’t help the gut feeling I have that my life will never be the same after today.
How many times has Luke told me to listen to my gut? Too many times to count. And I know something bad will happen today, but I’ll do all I can to make sure me and Kim make it out of here.
“Time to move this along,” Dean announces before crouching down between us and pulling his cell out. His grin widens as he clicks the speaker button, the ringing echoing throughout the vast, empty space.
LUKE
I scrub my hands down my face as I look out the patio doors in Ty’s kitchen, the sun shining bright, birds chirping in the trees. My eyes burn with tiredness, but I can’t stop watching the peace outside.
We talked about everything for hours in Evan’s safe room but not one conclusion was drawn. Why the hell did Dean come here pretending to be Dean. Although he is Dean; but he’s also Darrell. Did he know about us before Kitty was here? Or after?
It’s all so confusing but none of it makes sense. The only person who can shine a light on it all is the one person we’ve been after for years even though he was right under our noses. How could we all be so stupid as to not see it? The signs were there, the suspicion clear, and yet we failed.
“Go home,” Kay says as she walks into the kitchen. “You need her.”
I shake my head, not willing to let Lily see me like this. I always have the answers, and even when I don’t, I at least have an idea of the answer, but right now I don’t know which way is up and which way is down.
“I can’t,” I choke out, feeling like I somehow failed.
Kay stops in front of me and her eyes search mine before she says, “This is what you’re meant to do. You’re meant to go to her when you don’t know what else is going on around you because she’s your constant.” She takes a breath. “She’s the one thing that’ll always be there, no matter what. Lean on her, tell her what you won’t tell anyone else. It doesn’t make you weak… it makes you stronger than you ever thought possible.”
I stare at her as the tiredness takes over my body, knowing what she’s saying makes sense. I push up out of the chair and wrap my arms around her in silence before stepping back and walking out of their house.
She’s right. I know she is. But I don’t want Lily to see this side of me. She needs to see me as nothing but strong, and right now I feel anything but. My chest hurts, my ear still ringing, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen from here on out.
As I walk across the compound, I look up at the house—our home—and realize I need to let her see me like this. The bad, the good, and everything in between. If I hide this part of me, we’ll never make it, and I want to. I want to still be holding her against my chest in twenty years’ time without a single secret between us.
My pulse quickens as I move faster and ignore the ringing of my cell, my only focus on getting to Lily and holding her against me.
Pushing the front door open, I don’t bother to take my boots off as I stomp up the stairs and into our bedroom. The bed is empty, so I turn and walk into the bathroom, but she’s not there either and my cell is still ringing.
Yanking it out of my pocket, I answer it, not looking to see who it is. “Yeah?”
“And the king finally answers!”
Goose bumps spread along my skin, my back straightening at the sound of Dean’s voice.
“We know who you are now, asshole. Why don’t you come show your face instead of running?” I growl, standing at the top of the stairs.
He laughs, the sound manic and completely unlike the Dean we all got to know.
“Because that would defeat the point of my game,” he screeches. “Do you wanna play?”
Frowning, I sneer, “I don’t play fuckin’ games.” I stomp down the stairs and head into the kitchen, still not seeing Lily anywhere, the line silent.
“Did you find it yet?” he asks, his tone way too light for my liking.
“The fuck you talkin’ about?”
“Look at yourself,” he says cryptically, and my gaze darts to the mirror. “You see it?”
I step closer to the mirror and narrow my eyes on the numbers written on the mirror in black Sharpie.
“Luke!”
My head whips around at the sound of Lily’s voice, and it takes me a second for it to click that it’s coming from my cell. As soon as I realize what’s going on, I dart out of the house, ready to grab the guys.
“Tut, tut. You’re not playing by the rules.” I stop halfway across the compound. “Break the rules and people get hurt.” People?
“You’ve got my attention, fucker. Now tell me what the hell is going on.”
“I’m gonna hazard a guess that you were good at hide-and-seek as a kid. So, come find me.”
The line goes dead and I look down at the cell and back to the house, my eyes narrowing before I run to my SUV, not caring about the pain shooting through my chest. Nothing matters because he has her—Darrell, Dean, whatever the hell his name is.
As soon as I’ve reversed out of my spot, my hand slaps against the button on my dash to let me through the gates and I fly through them just in time for them to be fully open.
I punch the numbers that were on the mirror in the navigation system as I drive down the private road and grip the steering wheel harder before pulling the belt around me. There’s no way I’m gonna get there in an hour… I’ll
make the journey in half the time. It’s my fault she’s in danger this time. Her dad was one thing, but this is all on me, and I’ll do anything I can to get her out of it.
My mind runs rampant playing the call over and over in my head. He said people so that means there’s more than one. I just saw Kay and I know Eli is in bed asleep, so who else could it be?
I shake my head and clear my mind. I can’t go in this place with a murky brain. I need to be clear-headed, my focus zeroed in on getting Lily out of there.
I come to a screeching halt when the navigation tells me I’ve arrived, and I jump out, not thinking twice about running into the abandoned building with half of the roof not attached.
“He’s here!” Dean shouts, gaining my attention, and when I whip my head toward him, I grit my teeth.
“Let her go.”
Lily’s head lifts, dried blood on her chin and her cheek swollen, but there’s not one bit of terror in her eyes as she stares at me. She nods, and I know she’s okay. She’s stronger than I’ve ever seen her right now.
Dean tuts, coming to stand next to Lily and points at a red circle on the floor between Lily and someone else who I can’t see.
“Take your position,” Dean commands, but I can’t move my gaze from the man with his hand on Lily’s shoulder. I want to rip it off and shove it up his ass while pulling out every single one of his teeth.
“Get your fuckin’ hands off her,” I growl out to which he grins and raises a brow.
The sound of a gunshot goes off, but I don’t flinch unlike Lily who tries to make herself as small as she can.
“I said,” Dean heaves out. “Take your position!”
I take a breath, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides, my blood boiling to epic proportions as I make my feet move.
My boots echo on the ground, and when I’m standing in the circle, I look over at the other person, my gut sinking.
“Mom?”
“It’s okay, Son,” she says, pushing her shoulders back. “You’ve got this.”
Dean laughs, pacing a large circle around all of us. My finger twitches, wanting to grab my gun and shoot him between the eyes, and had Lily’s dad not been here, that would have been the first thing I did, but I know I have to choose. I don’t have time to get two shots off, not with the way Dean is on edge. I don’t trust that he wouldn’t kill either Mom or Lily without a second thought.
“Let’s have some storytime… we all loved storytime, right?” Dean doesn’t wait for anyone to answer before he continues, “Once upon a time there was a boy.” He looks up at the roof and points at himself. “Now this boy… he had a mom and a dad, both who loved him very much.” He focuses his attention on me, his eyes flaring. “His dad would visit on weekends—taking him to the park, to baseball practice.” He steps toward Mom and smirks at me as he raises his gun and moves her hair off her shoulder. I jerk forward, wanting to kill the bastard, but he pushes the gun further into her neck. “He was the best kind of dad. Kind, gentle.” His eyes spark when he notices me taking a step back. “But then when the boy turned twelve, his dad just… stopped turning up.”
“What’s your fuckin—”
He spins around and points the gun at Lily. “Nobody interrupts storytime, Luke.” He takes two steps toward her and grips her chin making her open her mouth before he pushes the barrel in there. “You keep quiet or I’ll shoot her brains out.”
I bite down on my tongue, willing my mouth to stay closed as silent tears run down Lily’s face.
“Now imagine this boy growing up for the next eight years without his father. He joins the forces, becomes a bodyguard, makes good on the promise he made when he was sixteen to his dying mother that he’d do something good with his life. He was a good man despite everything.” Content with me not interrupting him anymore, he pulls the gun from Lily’s mouth and faces me before taking a step toward me. He cocks back his gun, a click resounding around the building. I desperately want to look over at Lily or my mom, but I know if I take my eyes off him for even a second, everything could turn to shit... fast.
“Then this man decides he wants to find out if he has anymore family. You know, so that he isn’t all alone in this world.” He comes closer, stopping just outside the red circle I’m standing in. “He finds an older brother… but also his dad’s wife. This confuses him.” He tilts his head to the side and scratches his temple with the gun. I wince at the action but also hope he accidentally shoots himself with it. “Because his dad was married to his mom, not this other guy’s mom.” He purses his lips. “He wants answers, and rightly so, eh? But he can’t get answers because his mom is dead… and so is his dad.” He stares at me, growling out, “At the hands of his eldest son.”
I try to even my breathing out, knowing what he’s saying but not fully registering it as he backs away completely, standing opposite me but farther back from where Lily and Mom are sitting.
“So, you see, my brother took something from me—my dad. So now I’m gonna take something from him.” He swings his gun between Mom and Lily. “But I’m a nice person, y’know?” He places his hand on his chest, smiling. “Because I’m gonna let him choose who dies: his mom, or his wife.”
“Wife?” Mom chokes out, but I don’t have time for that right now, not with this psycho on the loose—a psycho who is apparently my brother. Shit. Fuck. How the hell can he idolize a man like my dad? Can he not see how fucked up the whole thing is? Can he not—
“Choose,” he demands.
My gaze swings between my mom and Lily before I look down at the red circle I’m standing in. This is it, I can feel it in every single part of my body. If I’m leaving this world, I’ll do everything I can to protect the people I love.
I have one chance, several seconds to kill him, but when I look back up at Lily and see her dad leaning down, licking the side of her neck and grabbing at her, all my training goes out the window.
Years of learning to keep your emotions in check, to focus on the only way out, to take a look at every angle. It all disappears as I reach for my gun, holding it up and pointing it at her dad, shooting off two rounds directed at his head.
There’s a second of silence where Lily looks at me, her eyes wide and shocked and I try to show her what she means to me in one final look. One final chance to tell her, “I love you,” and just as the words leave my mouth, I hear her terrified scream, piercing through me with so much force I stumble back.
LILY
“No!” I scream, jerking forward with so much force I knock my chair down. The wood splinters but it’s not enough to get me free. “No! Luke!” Tears stream down my face as I watch him stumble back, Kim’s shouts mixing in with mine as she tries to get free too, but nothing she does is working either.
We’re stuck, watching in horror as the sound of the gun goes off again, a bullet flying through the air and into Luke’s chest. One. Two. Three. Four. With each bullet he jerks back, his arm trying to lift the gun in his own hand to defend himself, but the shot to his arm is too much for him.
I see the pain on his face, the utter devastation as he looks at me, sorrow and sadness shining through his eyes as he collapses to the floor.
“Help!” I scream, but I don’t know why because no one can hear us here. We’re stuck and alone—nothing and no one to save us.
Dean slowly walks between me and Kim, turning his back on us as he stands over Luke, his gun still pointed at him.
“You cheated.” He tsks, shaking his head. “I kill cheaters.” He shrugs. “I was gonna play fair, but not after that. Now you all die… starting with you.”
I can’t stop the sob from breaking free as I watch Luke’s face drain, his body stilling, but the light still shines in his eyes even if it is only a flicker.
I jerk as hard as I can, needing to get to him. To protect him, to hold him.
A small sound gains my attention, and when I turn my head, I see Reid undoing Kim’s ropes. I’m about to shout out—to scream the place down m
ore than I already am—but when he shakes his head, I keep my lips sealed. Once Kim is free, he moves toward me and undoes my ropes.
I expect the rest of the guys to come in, and Reid must see it in my eyes because he shakes his head.
“They don’t know he’s here.”
My eyes widen as the ropes fall away.
“He was evil,” Luke croaks out, his voice nothing like it normally is as his gaze flickers over to me, his body seeming to relax when he sees I’m free. “He deserved to die.”
“No, he didn’t!” Dean screams, pulling at his hair.
“Run,” Reid whispers, pulling his gun out, but I shake my head. There’s no way I’m going anywhere but forward and to the only man I’ll ever love. Nothing will compare to the way I feel about him, nobody will ever have my heart and soul the way he does.
“Time’s up,” Reid growls, causing Dean to whip his head around.
I keep my gaze trained on Luke as he lifts his arm slowly, the sound of his gun firing blasting through the space as the bullet flies toward Dean.
His body jerks, but he turns around, shooting the rest of his clip into Luke’s body before Reid takes a shot at Dean’s head, his body slamming down onto the floor.
It all happens so quickly.
My legs are frozen, stuck to the ground, my limbs heavy, but I fight through it and make it five steps to Luke before I collapse. My knees smack off the floor, blood covering them as I move closer to him. I flutter my hands over his chest, not knowing where to press or where all the blood is coming from.
I push my hands down, hoping like hell I’m at least holding some of the blood inside his body.
“Darlin’,” he whispers, his voice as broken as he is. “There’s too much.”
“No,” I plead as I press down even harder, but the blood flows through my fingers too fast—a river breaking a dam. “You can’t leave, I can’t live without you.”
His hand reaches for my face, his touch so gentle—too gentle.
“I saved you.” He splutters, blood pouring from his mouth. “That’s all that matters.”
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