by K L Clare
As his shocking revelations hit me with the force of a hurricane, my mind howled for vengeance. I closed the gap between Parker and me and pushed the gun into his temple, cutting off his words.
“Drop the knife,” I snarled.
He let the knife fall from his hand onto the pier. “If you make it out of this alive, ask him. Ask what they did to my family. What he did to my sister.”
“I won’t ask. Now get off of her. Get on your knees.”
Parker returned to his knees as I dug the revolver’s short barrel deeper into his temple.
“Pick up the knife, Jess.”
She steadied herself on her feet and retrieved the knife. “Step back, Ellie. You’re too close.”
“He’s mine.”
“This isn’t you. I won’t let you do it. Step back.”
“Don’t worry yourself, Red. She can’t do it,” Parker taunted.
I stepped back, but my mind—the voice—remained focused on Parker. I lowered the gun from his head and aimed for his chest.
“Another one, Ells. Back up more.”
She was granted another step. The thought that guided me and its desire to deliver Parker’s punishment didn’t waver. My fingers absorbed the comforting feel of the revolver’s grip, and I smiled at the sensation. Parker was a dead man.
Will suddenly appeared before me—he stepped in front of my fucking gun.
49
Will handed his gun to Jess and jerked his chin toward Parker. His eyes then burned into mine, unyielding blue challenging vengeful green. “Elle, I’m here.”
I gasped at the way he said my name.
“You have a choice now. You can shoot him and become someone different . . . or choose my hand, baby.” He cautiously reached for me.
I didn’t move, didn’t reach for him, didn’t surrender my weapon. I stared into his eyes and measured his words.
The stranger in my head continued her provocation.
Without breaking our connection, blue and green indivisible, Will stepped aside and allowed the sight of my gun to lock onto Parker’s chest again. He knew better than anyone the battle raging inside my mind.
Boots pounded asphalt and halted somewhere near me. A magazine clicked into its well, and the slide of a pistol scraped metal as a round was chambered. It was Ben.
Will’s eyes delved deeper into mine. “I promise you justice. You must choose between that and vengeance. Either way, this man will never again see the light of day.” His words were deliberate and powerful.
I blinked up at Will. I looked at Parker. The pig was sweating, and his eyes shifted between Ben’s gun and mine.
Ben’s voice as he said something sharp to Jess pulled my stare to his scarred face. He’d placed himself in front of her, shielding her, though his eyes and gun were fully trained on Parker.
The inexplicable energy that drew me to Will reached out and led my eyes back to his. I saw my future—our future, our life together in England—there in his eyes. Visions flooded my head. I saw him slip a ring on my finger as I married him in a gown of white lace. I saw the white fire in his eyes as he made love to me. And I saw my lips smiling down at him as he kneeled and kissed my pregnant stomach.
“I love you, Elle. Give me the gun,” Will said, moving his hand closer.
My head cleared at the sound of his voice—the only voice to truly command me—and I knew in that moment that if I made the wrong decision, it wouldn’t be me who would create those beautiful memories with him. It would be someone different: a hardened, fallen version of myself living my life, stealing from me everything I wanted with Will. A sinful, murderous pretender taking from him the woman he wanted to love until his last breath: his angel.
I lowered the gun and put my hand in his. “You’re here,” I whispered.
Will shoved the revolver into his pocket and caught me as I collapsed into his arms. “I’ll always be here for you,” he said, his words raw with regret. His fingers weaved through my hair and pressed my ear to his thundering chest. “I’m here, baby. Right here.”
Parker lashed out again. He was already a dead man with nothing more to lose. “Your reunion is touching. Enjoy the time you have. She won’t last another six months.”
A vicious snarl tore itself from the dark place where Will’s beast dwelled, but before he could mete out punishment, vengeance reared her head one last time, and I beat him to it. Without thought, without granting my body permission, I pivoted into a swift sidekick, launching my heel into Parker’s face. Bone crunched and blood flew from his nose, and then his back slammed to the asphalt.
I panted, the sound of it hissing through my ears. I was insane and numb at once.
Will anchored me tightly in his arms and moved us close to Neptune. He crushed me against his body and claimed me with a spiraling, fiery kiss that revived my senses. I countered with the same fire, grasping his bearded face in my hands. His fingers threaded into my hair, and he drew me harder to his mouth.
There were no separate breaths, no broken or lost pieces. Our souls reconnected, and we were whole again.
“Elle, how I love you . . . ,” he breathed. He kissed me again, murmuring against my lips, “is beyond madness.”
He pulled back abruptly and cradled my face in his hands as he inspected me with wild eyes. “Are you hurt?”
I lowered my eyes. “No, I’m not hurt. You must be so angry with me. I’m sorry, Will.”
“Look at me,” he commanded, and when I did, he shook his head. “I’m not angry.”
“I can’t bear to be apart from you.” My voice broke on the sob that tore from my chest.
“I’ll never let it happen again.” He wiped at the tears on my face with his thumbs. “I’ll find another way. I will never separate us again.” He pulled me to his chest—my home—where I soaked in the heat of his body and burrowed deeper into his warm leather jacket.
My breath and words stuttered. “I l-love y-y-you.”
“Stop crying, baby. It’s tearing my heart out.”
I nodded and hid my face in the hollow at the base of his neck.
Seconds later, a gunshot blast rang out as the world around me blurred. I found myself gasping for breath with my back flat against Neptune’s wooden deck, a thick, bruising chain digging into my spine.
Will had launched me over the side of the old fishing boat.
Jess was on her knees beside me. She pulled me onto mine, and we scurried to the little cabin and shut ourselves inside.
Another gunshot resounded and struck the boat’s steel hull.
I heard a scream echo through my head and quickly realized it was my own. I cried out for Will, shoving at Jess as I clung to the cabin’s rusted window frame. “I have to see him!” I shouted at her.
Jess gave up the fight to push me to the floor and pressed herself against my back. She wrapped her arms around my vibrating body as I imploded with fear.
“Oh, God, no . . . no . . . Will!” I pounded on the glass with the side of my fist.
Will and Ben had their guns sighted on three assassins and Parker. The three assassins had their weapons sighted on Will and Ben.
A red laser beam danced on Will’s chest.
“He came,” Jess whispered as Josh Mendes appeared behind the assassins.
The glowing red dot disappeared from Will’s chest as one assassin spun toward Josh and fired. The assassin missed—and Josh put a bullet in his head.
Although my gut rebelled at the sight, I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t turn away from Will. I fumbled wildly with the latch on the window frame until the cloudy pane of glass slid open.
“Christ, it took you too fucking long to get here, cop,” I heard Will say.
“Stand down, Hastings,” Josh ordered. He’d lunged and locked onto the remaining gunmen, providing cover for Will and Ben. “I’ve witnessed no crime by your hand here today. Let’s keep it that way.”
“You’ll give me that one,” Will commanded, his menacing stare hooked on Parker. “I promised her
justice.”
Parker lurched, diving for the weapon of the dead assassin.
Will and Josh reacted instinctively, but it was Josh’s bullet that pierced Parker’s chest.
“Now do your fucking job and get her out of here.”
“You motherfucker,” Will snarled.
The last two gunmen took advantage of the pissing match and fired. A bullet grazed Josh’s leg and another ricocheted off of the boat.
Josh fired five rounds, taking out both hit men.
“Go! . . . Get her off that boat and leave now,” Josh urged as he called the police department for assistance.
I leaped into Will’s arms after he boarded Neptune. He lifted me and held me against his warm body. Relief washed through my cold blood, cleansing it of vengeance, cleansing it of pain.
It hit me as Will strengthened his embrace. He had needed that justice as much as I had. He hadn’t made it to the house in time to save my family, so he blamed himself for their deaths.
“We need to go before his backup arrives,” he said close to my ear before he dragged his lips to mine and placed a soft kiss there.
Will vaulted over the side of the boat and held his arms out for me to fall into, and the moment my feet hit those familiar old planks, I knew I’d never again step foot on that pier.
Josh inclined his head when our eyes met but he kept his distance. I’d hurt him. Still, he had risked his life to save mine. Somehow he’d found a way to bury his pain and work with the arrogant English billionaire outlaw who had taken his girl. I didn’t know when their relationship began or even what it was. I knew only that Josh had found Will in London and that they’d worked together to clear my name and eradicate the assassins.
Josh Mendes was a good man who tried hard to play by the rules, and though he wasn’t the man for me, I would never forget him.
As Will and I passed by him, the two men paused to clasp hands for a firm shake.
“Don’t leave the country yet, Hastings. I’ll be in touch.”
Will nodded.
We jogged hand in hand and met Ben and Jess at the car. The four of us were bone-weary, ready to vanish quietly into the night. We headed north out of Stonington.
* * *
“Pull over,” Will said minutes into the drive. There was a desperate sense of urgency in his gravel tone. Before the car came to a full stop, he pushed out the door, rolling off the seat to his feet. Crouched on the side of the highway, he vomited. He stayed low with elbows resting on his thighs and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
I lifted his chin and stared into disoriented blue eyes. “You’re burning up. What’s going on, Will?” Violence and death didn’t typically affect him that way—they had become part of his fabric.
It was something else.
As he straightened to his full height, his breath accelerated, and sweat ran down his face. He shifted his weight several times. “I need to sit, baby,” he slurred.
I called out for Ben. “Something’s wrong! He’s going to—”
Ben was out of the car supporting Will’s weight before I finished the sentence.
“Right side. Passed through,” Will said. “Get me to a bed, my brother.”
“Oh, God . . . you’ve been shot—and you knew?” I yanked at Will’s shirt and found the entry wound under his arm. He’d taken the hit meant for me when he’d thrown me onto Neptune’s deck.
The bullet had torn through his muscled flesh near the top of his rib cage. I glanced at my own body where I’d been pressed against him. He’d bled on me though neither of us had realized it at the time.
I threw his jacket to the ground while Ben held him and raised his arm so I could pivot beneath to look for the exit wound.
Jess leaned over my shoulder and inspected the wounds. “Clean pass through serratus anterior. Neither the lateral thoracic artery nor his lung took a direct hit since he kept going. We need something clean to press to the wounds to stop the bleeding.”
We had nothing. We were on a stretch of highway with nothing in sight. I tore off my jacket and jerked the long-sleeve cotton top I wore over my head and pressed it strategically to both wounds. “Hold it there,” I demanded of Jess. I grabbed my scarf from the ground and tied it around Will to hold the makeshift dressing in place.
Jess tugged on the scarf to make it tighter. “Good. Now keep pressure on both wounds. Push as hard as you can. We need to get medical help immediately.”
Will grew weaker from the blood loss and could no longer stand on his own. “Cover her up,” he ordered, directing his words to Ben after we put him in the back of the car. “Get us to the cottage.”
Ben grabbed my jacket from the ground and held it for me with his head turned, and I slid my trembling arms into the leather sleeves and zipped to cover my bra. My body was in shock, but I wouldn’t let it break me.
I climbed into the back with Will and applied pressure to the wounds again. His face was pale, his breathing labored. Fear gripped me. I closed my mouth and commanded breath in and out through my nose, forcing it to steady, knowing my erratic heart would follow.
“Hospital,” Jess said. “He needs proper medical attention. We can’t risk further blood loss and infection.” She looked from me to Ben, ignoring Will’s cottage edict.
“You know how this works, Ben. I said go to the cottage.” His nostrils flared, and his breathing accelerated again.
“Shhh . . . be calm, Will.” I kissed his cold lips. “We’ll go to the cottage, but you’ll defer to me, and I’ll do whatever it takes. Do not fight me on this.”
I had a plan.
He nodded and closed his eyes.
We couldn’t risk the involvement of law enforcement. The bullets Josh fired from his police-issued weapon were defensible, but we couldn’t allow ourselves to be connected to the deaths that occurred prior to that. There was no way to know whether the jurisdiction of citizenry assumed by British Parliament would prevail, and if not, Will could go to prison in Connecticut for life. The Crown would demand extradition and bring him home only to use the situation to gain the upper hand in our centuries-long silent war.
Ben pulled back onto the highway and headed for Lords Point.
“Jess, please. I can’t lose him. Help me. I know you can do this. I know you can save his life.”
I was asking for more than I deserved, pulling her further into our world, where she would never live the same life she had before. It was wrong, but I needed her. He was my everything—the one person I couldn’t live without, and I’d do anything to save him.
“I’m begging you. Please.”
She stared, measuring the commitment in my eyes. The entire side of her face was red and swelling fast. Tiny beads of blood dotted a small cut beneath her eye. Locked into my gaze, she said to Ben, “Hit the next exit and take a right. I know where to find the supplies we need.”
50
Jess balanced over the console between the two front seats and injected Will with penicillin and morphine. She yanked the scarf and shirt away from the wounds and poured a chemical hemostatic agent into each to aid the clotting process, then pressed sterile gauze against them.
“Hold these and press hard. I’ll start the drip. He’s lost a lot of blood, and not only that, the fluids will combat the toxic effects of myoglobin resulting from the muscle breakdown—I don’t want to wait any longer.”
I replaced her hands with mine. “Do it.”
Jess had done everything she could for Will by the time we arrived at the cottage. The rest was up to him.
We had dosed him with enough morphine to make him sleep so he couldn’t fight us as we cared for him. When he realized what was going on, he made me promise I wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch him, and Ben and Jess both pledged to stay armed while he was out. Just in case.
Jess walked me through the proper cleaning and dressing of the wounds, and then I stripped him of his clothes, washed the blood and sweat from his body, and tucked him into bed.
> His massive body burned through the morphine, and he drifted in and out of consciousness. He moved from the bed only when he needed to use the toilet, insisting he would do that on his own. Each time we dosed him with another round, he kissed my lips and mumbled how he loved me before drifting back into a deep sleep and sweating through it again.
I knew his body and mind were strong. He proved that as he tried hard to come out on the other side. Still. Every second felt like a minute, and every minute felt like an hour. I wept when he was out, desperate for him to come back. I stayed in bed with him, leaving only when my bruised back ached from lack of movement. My body was something Will would fight for, so I curled into his and maintained contact with his fevered skin.
When I wasn’t staring at him, I sketched. One image in particular continued to fix itself in my mind, demanding it be released onto paper. It was the wedding gown I’d seen in the vision at the pier. It took almost no time to pencil its chic likeness.
“Here’s one more,” Jess said as she placed another box along the wall. She’d gone into town to stop by my house and gather some things.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s no big deal. I grabbed a few irreplaceable items. Birth certificates, photos, fabulous shoes . . . you know, those sorts of things. It’s late. Try to get some sleep.”
“That’s more than a few. I’m so lucky to have you. I couldn’t have done this without you. I love you, Jess.”
She stopped and nailed me with her wide blue stare. “You’ve never said that before.”
“Didn’t know how.”
She smiled and glanced at Will, her eyes growing watery. “Love you too, Ells.”
After Jess left the bedroom, I snuggled close to Will and did try to sleep but couldn’t, so I dragged a box of photos close to the bed and started to trip down memory lane.
“My God, Isobel,” I said.
She’d hidden her affair with Ethan well, though I finally stared at the truth. I held a photo of the two of them in a small album she’d never shared. Ethan had both arms around my sister, and they looked happy. They’d been in love. It was a beautiful photo, one I’d save for Lissie.