by Meghan March
I only have one option, and it’s the one thing a sniper should never, ever fucking do.
Abandon my position and move in to take care of this face-to-face.
I pop the round out of the rifle and eject the magazine before leaving the rifle on top of the container and checking my sidearm.
None of this is happening at a distance.
I climb down from the shipping container to make my way toward the clusterfuck unfolding between the occupants of the BMW and the Suburban.
“Mount never could mind his own business,” Ransom says, staring at Magnolia. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. You were never supposed to know. It was one last job, and I was done. We were going to have a life.”
“Is that why Mount’s guy found accounts in my name in the Cayman Islands? Accounts taking payments for the shit you’ve been pinning on me? Why the fuck would you do that if you weren’t setting me up?” Magnolia’s tone is desperate, bordering on hysterically pissed.
“Baby, you gotta believe me. Everything I did was for you. For us.”
“Don’t you dare tell me you’re selling women to help me. You know what I’ve been through. You know I have lines. You know I would never fucking sink so low.”
Ransom’s tone changes completely. “Come on, Mags. We both know you’re barely a half step above this. You peddle pussy. What makes you think some of your girls didn’t come from me?”
Her head rears back, and she roars.
“I’m going to fucking kill you, Rafe Ransom!”
50
Temperance
I suck in a sharp breath, but it feels like the air is laced with razor blades.
No.
No.
No.
I’m not hearing what I’m hearing.
This isn’t happening.
It’s a nightmare.
“You’re gonna judge me? You, of all people.” My brother’s booming laugh rings out, sounding harsh and fake. “You’re a fucking joke, Mags. You’re a whore who sells whores. You’re no better than me. That’s why we fit together so well.”
Magnolia yanks her arm away from Giles and swings her fist, and it glances off my brother’s jaw. Giles reaches out and grabs her by the throat.
“No!”
Everyone freezes at the screamed word, including me.
“Who the fuck was that?” Rafe looks around, and so does Giles as I cringe.
Oh sweet Jesus. What the hell is wrong with me?
Giles releases Magnolia, shoving her at Rafe. I duck behind the container and run—directly into a hard chest.
Another scream breaks free from my throat before a large hand clamps over my mouth. I look up into piercing blue eyes.
Kane.
He pulls me in close to his chest before spinning us around to move—but it’s too late.
From behind me, Giles speaks. “I got ’em, Ransom. Both of them.”
51
Kane
My worst fucking nightmare is playing out in front of me.
The prospect of killing Temperance’s brother seems like a walk in the park compared to holding her against my side as we’re led at gunpoint by Giles toward the SUVs.
I could have pulled the gun tucked into the back of my jeans and ended him where he stands, but not with Temperance in the line of fire. No fucking way.
Ransom won’t let him kill her. Me, sure. But not his sister. I’m one hundred percent sure of that. Jesus fuck. I never thought Ransom was smart enough to pull off this kind of con.
Never underestimate a smuggler.
“What the fuck? Tempe?” Ransom shoves Magnolia to the ground as we stop in front of him.
“Rafe? What are you doing? Please tell me this isn’t what it looks like. Please.”
Temperance’s begging slices at my heart, and I hate this for her. I hate it even worse than I hated pulling the trigger in the airport in front of her.
“Tempe, what the hell are you doing here?” Ransom’s face is creased with confusion, at least until he meets my gaze. “I know there’s no fucking way Saxon would bring you here with him.” He shakes his head. “What the fuck, man? Thought you’d do a better job of protecting her.”
“Let your sister leave. Right the fuck now.” There’s no mistaking my statements for anything but what they are—nonnegotiable.
Ransom tilts his head, a new light entering his eyes. “Now why would I do that? As long as she’s here, I’ve got you by the balls. I never figured when I hooked you two up, she’d fall so fucking hard for you. But you, Saxon. I knew you’d never be able to resist her. Loner with no one who has ever given a shit about you. And then Temperance comes along, and you take the bait like a catfish to chicken liver.”
“What?” Temperance whispers. “You set us up? You sent the note?”
Ransom nods and jerks his chin at Magnolia, where she’s staring up at him from the ground like he’s sprouted horns and cloven hooves. She might not be far off.
“Stole Mags’s stationery from the club. Wasn’t no hard thing. I wondered if I wrote too sloppy and you’d recognize it as mine. But you didn’t even question it. Just trotted right off and fell into line.”
This motherfucker.
“You sent me to a sex club? Because you wanted to set me up with a hit man? What the hell, Rafe? And then you come warn me about going back?”
I can hear the tears she’s fighting off, and now I wish I’d taken the shot when I had the chance. No one, not even Rafe Ransom, makes Temperance cry.
“You think I don’t know you? If I warned you off, you’d be twice as likely to go back. Stubborn as fuck, that’s what you’ve always been.”
“Why? Why all of these crazy schemes?”
“Money,” Giles says from behind us. “He could never get enough. Always needed more to make sure he’d never be that broke kid in the swamp again.”
“We didn’t need more money, asshole!” Magnolia scoots back in the gravel, and Giles lunges for her.
Ransom pulls his gun and I reach for mine, thinking he’s going to pull the trigger on Magnolia, but he puts a bullet in Giles’s head instead.
What. The. Fuck?
“Never liked that pretentious douchebag,” Ransom says absently, staring down at Giles’s body.
When Ransom looks back up at Temperance and me, he’s looking down the barrel of my gun.
52
Temperance
“Now I keep the money and the girls. Sell them to a higher bidder,” Ransom says with a smile.
“That’s what you did with your last shipment. Isn’t it, Ransom?” Kane’s question clicks into my brain, and all of a sudden it makes sense.
“Oh my God. Tell me he’s wrong. Tell me that’s not what happened.”
“Tell your boyfriend to drop the fucking gun unless you want me to unload the rest of these rounds into his chest in front of you.”
“Temperance, back away,” Kane orders.
My brother apparently still knows one aspect of my personality better than Kane, because instead of stepping aside, I lunge in front of Kane, blocking any potential shot Rafe could take.
“Temperance, you better—”
“You made me watch you die, and it was all because you wanted to make more money?” My voice grows shrill and cracks. “How many lives have you ruined, Rafe? How could you do this? My brother couldn’t do this!”
“Tempe—”
I shake my head. I’m staring at a stranger.
“All for money? Really?” I whisper. “Put the gun down. Let them go. Let us all leave. And then just fucking disappear, because I don’t need a brother anymore. Not if he could do something like that.”
Rafe’s eyes turn hard. “You think you’re so much better than me? You grew up in that swamp the same fucking way I did. We’re the same.”
“We are not the same!”
“No, maybe not. Because I’m not standing in front of a killer trying to pretend he’s better than your brother. Saxon’s only here
because Mount gave an order to his favorite executioner. You can live with loving a hit man, but you want to pretend I don’t exist for what I’ve done? I don’t think so.”
He raises his gun higher, over my head, and Kane shoves me aside.
I hit the gravel as the shots explode in the night.
53
Temperance
“I’m so sorry, Temperance.” Magnolia’s hand shakes as she lowers her small pink pistol.
Magnolia shot my brother. She shot my brother. And Kane—
“Kane!” I scream as I bolt to where he’s lying on the ground. “Please, God. I can’t do this again. You can’t be dead. I won’t allow it.”
I refuse to look at my brother yet as I check Kane for injuries. His palm traps mine against his chest.
“I’m not gonna die. Not this time.”
“Oh my God. You scared the hell out of me.”
He glances down at his shoulder. “Flesh wound.”
I find the blood weeping from the small tear in his shirt, and breathe a sigh of relief. It’s not mortal.
Kane looks beyond me, and I don’t want to turn around. I can’t turn around.
Magnolia is over there, and so are two dead bodies.
“I’m so sorry.”
She whispers it over and over, and my heart is breaking. This time, it’s infinitely worse than the airport, because I feel every single rip as my soul shreds into pieces. I turn to face my brother, but he’s not dead.
He lifts his hand, reaching out toward me. “Tempe. Please.”
He’s not dead.
I scramble toward him and drop to my knees as blood pools in the gravel.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t . . . want you to see this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth, and I hold up my fingers as Kane kneels beside me and uses his shirt to put pressure on his chest wounds—his very real chest wounds this time.
“Don’t talk.” I look at Magnolia. “Call nine one one. Now!”
She reaches for her phone as I look back down at Rafe.
“Help is coming. You’re going to be fine.”
My brother might have betrayed us all, but he’s still my flesh and blood. He might have made horrible choices that I will never understand, but no one and nothing is going to prevent me from trying to save him.
He’s the only family I have.
“I ain’t got much time. Got things to say.”
Tears drip down my cheeks. Magnolia’s voice blurs into the background noise of the night as I focus completely on my brother. “No. You’re not dying, dammit.”
He pulls my hand close to his face. “So fucking sorry. I just wanted to be somebody.”
“You didn’t have to be anyone but yourself! You didn’t have to do this!”
He nods. “It was always gonna end like this. I just wish you weren’t here to see it. Wish I didn’t have to put you through this twice.” He coughs, and the rattle in his chest turns my blood cold.
“Rafe, please.”
“It’s better this way. You found yourself a new life. Be happy, Tempe. Live.”
He coughs again, and his gaze loses focus.
“Take good care of her or I’ll haunt you . . .” His words trail off as his eyes roll back.
“No!” I scream.
Kane clutches me tight against him, like he’s trying to keep me from breaking into pieces. But it’s too late.
I’m already shattered.
54
Temperance
Magnolia didn’t call 911. She called Mount.
And when the cavalry shows up, Mount orders one of his men to take the women somewhere in the bus, and then tells Kane to take me home and for one of his guys to drive the Audi back to the warehouse, where a doctor will meet us to see to Kane’s wound.
Ten minutes after the doctor leaves, I sink to the floor in Kane’s shower, watching red water circle the drain as the last of my tears trickle down my cheeks. My chest aches from my heart breaking.
My brother betrayed us all. The brother who protected me. Stood up for me. Helped me.
I can’t reconcile his actions with who I’ve always known him to be.
What’s more, I don’t want to.
Hot water washes over me, and I wish it could wash my memories clean. Keep them from being tainted by the events of tonight.
But nothing can do that.
The last time I grieved my brother, my guilt compounded everything. I thought I’d led him to his death by letting Kane use me to get to him, but nothing could have been further from the truth. This time, I won’t get so lucky.
These facts are facts, and there’s nothing I can do to change them.
The bathroom door opens.
“You need anything?” Kane asks as he sticks his head inside.
As soon as he sees me on the floor, pain lances through his expression as he comes toward the enclosure, not even bothering to strip off his clothes before he reaches the door. Once he’s inside, he crouches and wraps his arms around me.
“I’m so fucking sorry.” Kane lifts me into his lap, unhampered by his superglued wound, and rocks me, holding me tight as the water soaks us both.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
I press my face against his neck. “Because you wouldn’t have been part of this mess if my brother hadn’t dragged you in.”
“Shh. That’s not on you. None of it’s on you. Besides . . .”
“What?”
“We really should be thanking your brother, because without him, we wouldn’t be here.”
I hadn’t thought about it like that, but in a way, Kane’s right.
Rafe orchestrated all of this. Like some criminal mastermind.
I push that part out of my head and focus on the man whose arms are wrapped around me.
The last time I thought my brother died, I thought I was all alone in the world, but this time, he left me a gift.
“Hold me a little longer?”
“As long as you want, princess. I’m not going anywhere.”
Early the next morning, as Kane keeps me pressed against his side, I roll over and my stomach stages a revolt.
Shit.
I jump out of bed and bolt for the bathroom, barely making it in time.
Kane is on my heels. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
I glance over my shoulder to find he’s got a gun in his hand. I wave at him and heave again. Seconds later, there’s a cold cloth on my forehead.
When my stomach finally calms down, I reach for the washcloth and use it to wipe my mouth. Kane helps me off my knees, and I turn to face his lined expression, trying to find the words that I wasn’t ready to say.
“I think . . . There’s a chance . . . I could maybe . . . It’s possible that . . .”
“You’re pregnant?”
55
Kane
My vision of Temperance from yesterday, when the thought of her pregnant flashed through my mind, comes back full force, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“You’re pregnant?” I ask again, just in case she didn’t hear my question the first time.
From the look on her face, she didn’t miss it. “I don’t know. I haven’t . . . I was going to take a test.”
“And you didn’t even mention the possibility to me?”
“I didn’t want to freak you out if it wasn’t true.”
I step closer and pull her against my body. “What part of this do you think freaks me out?”
“The part where we’ve never talked about kids. If you want them. If they could possibly fit into your life.”
I tilt her chin up so I can look her in her brown eyes. “If you want kids, I want them with you. As for them fitting in my life, I’m done with all of it. I told Mount this was my last job. The only part that freaks me out is the part where you walked your ass into a gunfight thinking you could be pregnant.” I keep my tone as calm as po
ssible.
“I wasn’t sure. I just . . . I wasn’t going to go. But then I heard Magnolia yelling . . .”
I already know what Temperance is going to say. “You heard your brother’s name.”
She nods, her eyes filling with tears again. “I still don’t understand how he could’ve . . .”
“Shh . . . Don’t. That could be why you’re making yourself sick.”
She bites down on her lip and pulls herself together. “We need to make a run to the pharmacy.”
56
Temperance
I never knew two minutes could be so damn long. Never.
“Thirty seconds,” Kane says, squeezing my hand.
His words definitely calmed some of my concerns about the possibility of me being pregnant, especially the part where he said he was done with this part of his life.
I meet that icy blue gaze I’ve come to adore more than life itself. “No matter what, it’s you and me against the world. Deal?”
Kane’s lips stretch in a smile. “No matter what. I love you, Temperance.”
“Not more than I love you.”
He pulls me against his side, and together we walk toward the counter where the test lays.
Holy shit.
It’s positive.
Epilogue
Kane
Eighteen months later
When we drive through town, the first thing I notice is that the Giles name has been removed from all the buildings it used to grace. I suppose Mount arranging for Giles’s body to be found with a boatload of evidence of his involvement with human trafficking will motivate a city to forget the family name.