Beware of Me (Dark Obsession 4)

You’ll be bleeding and choking and I’ll just watch you die.

***

The lights from the ambulances lit up the scene. Two ambulances. Two victims. Both still fighting to live.

Charles was loaded in an ambulance first. Victor insisted on it. Carly could hear him yelling out orders. He even grabbed one of the EMTs and snarled that his agent had better “fucking be his priority”.

The EMTs were already working fast and furiously to save Charles. And Charles—he was moving. His legs and his arms moved, and Carly was so grateful that Curtis’s bullet hadn’t lodged in his spine. When she’d rushed in after Charles and heard the blast of gunfire, she’d been terrified.

And I just grabbed for Curtis. I didn’t want him to hurt anyone else.

“He…did it,” Charles said, grunting. His gurney was being loaded into the back of the ambulance as Carly watched. She stood outside of her building, blood on her, with too many neighbors and curious bystanders glancing at her with shocked eyes.

She inched closer to the ambulance so that she could better hear Charles.

“Ethan…” Charles said. “Heard…confess…he killed Quincy and he…”

“He used the scalpel on Curtis?” Victor finished. “Yeah, don’t worry, buddy, I got that part.”

But Charles gave a hard shake of his head. “Saved…her.”

She saw Victor’s shoulders tense.

“C-Curtis…shot me…would have…killed…all…us…”

She knew that Curtis had wanted her dead. If he’d had his way, yes, Charles was right, Curtis would not have let any of them leave alive.

“Ethan…stopped him…”

Ethan had stopped him, all right. Another sight that Carly would never forget. He asked me to close my eyes.

She hadn’t. She’d been too afraid to look away. Afraid that in that instant—I’d lose Ethan.

“Listen,” Victor said, his voice sounding hoarse, “right now, all I want you to do is let the EMTs and the docs do their work, okay? Forget everyone else. Forget the case.”

Charles had been loaded securely into the ambulance.

The doors were slammed shut and a few seconds later, the siren screamed on.

Carly jerked at the sound.

“Just concentrate on surviving,” Victor said, his voice low, but Carly was so close she caught the words, even though she knew Charles hadn’t. He was already gone, rushing away in that ambulance toward the hospital.

She had to blink away the tears in her eyes. She was sick of the death and blood and—

More EMTs burst out of the building. This time, Curtis was on the gurney. Nausea rose within her as she saw him. He wasn’t moving, not like Charles had been. In fact, his body was stone still and his skin was ashen.

“I want a guard to stay with him every moment!” Victor bellowed. “That man is dangerous! No risks, none! He shot an FBI agent, and he is going to pay!”

Carly thought he was paying. He was dying. Maybe even already dead. He’d be joining his brother soon enough.

A few moments later, the second ambulance left the scene. Victor watched it for a moment, then he whirled to face her. “You knew,” he said.

Carly could only shake her head. She wasn’t sure what she knew anymore.

But Victor closed that small distance between them. He put his hands on her shoulders. “You knew Ethan wouldn’t leave you. And he killed for you…again, right? This is the second time?”

She wasn’t going to lie or hide, not anymore. She also wasn’t going to let Ethan take the blame for her. “I was the one who stabbed Quincy Atkins. Ethan has spent all these years covering my crime because he wanted to protect me.” Yes, he’d shoved the knife in even deeper, plunging it harder into Quincy’s chest, but she knew the truth…Quincy was already dying then. Ethan just sped up the process.

She heard the door to the brownstone open behind her. She looked back over her shoulder. Ethan stood there. Ethan—tall, dark, dangerous Ethan Barclay. His scars glinted under the sunlight. It was the first time she’d looked at him and really seen those scars.

It almost felt as if it were the first time she’d truly seen him at all.

Blood covered his shirt. His hands. Because he’d just sliced open a man’s throat with no hesitation.

“Why would he do that?” Victor asked. “Why protect you?”

She swallowed. “Quincy had friends. If they’d known I killed him, they would have come for me. Just like Curtis did…” A deranged psychopath, bent on vengeance.

“Why didn’t Ethan throw you to the wolves?”

He was handcuffed. The handcuffs appeared ridiculously fragile around his wrists, and as she stared at his wrists, she could see the blood there. Not blood that had come from Curtis, but Ethan’s blood. Because he’d been tied up and he’d fought frantically to get free.

Just as I had, years before.

Curtis had wanted Ethan to beg for her life. But the only time he’d begged, it had been…

When he asked me to close my eyes.

She cleared her throat. “Why didn’t he throw me to the wolves?”

One of the agents opened the back door of a police cruiser. Ethan was pushed into the back seat.

“I have a pretty good idea,” she murmured.

Chapter Nine

He wasn’t in interrogation this time. Instead, Ethan was waiting in a small cell, one located in the back of the police station. A federal agent had come to see him hours before, and Ethan had asked to make his phone call.

And with that one call, he’d reached out to his contact in D.C.

Now…now he waited.

The hours had slid past at a snail’s pace. He looked down at his hands. The blood was gone now, but he knew exactly what he’d done. He’d killed a man.

And if he had it to do all over, he’d just send the SOB to hell a lot faster. Before Curtis had managed to shoot Charles.

There was a window in his cell. A tiny one, lined with bars, near the ceiling. He knew when darkness came because the faint streak of light stopped shining through that window.

He wondered where Carly was. Still with FBI Agent Victor Monroe? Was the FBI agent offering her a new life, maybe some new identity in Witness Protection? All she’d have to do would be to testify…

Against me.

He hoped she took the deal. He could still see the terrible horror that had been on Carly’s face. She would never forget what he’d done. And he couldn’t regret the act. After all, Carly was alive now. The threat to her was gone.

Case fucking closed.

He heard the low groan of one of the doors opening down the hallway. Probably a guard, coming to bring him a late dinner.

When he’d made his phone call, he’d been asked if he was calling in his lawyer, Sophie Sarantos, from D.C.

He’d said yes but…

“Ethan Barclay, you sonofabitch…” The feminine voice seemed to echo around him.

A guard hadn’t brought him dinner. Instead, his visitor from D.C. had finally arrived, and from the looks of her, she was pissed.

At least she made good time getting here…

Detective Faith Chestang was wearing one of her usual, no-nonsense suits. A truly horrific suit. He’d figured out early, though, that she donned the suits to try and downplay her own attractiveness—like that would ever happen. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, and her coffee skin was clear and pretty much ageless—though during his research into Faith’s life, he’d discovered that she was actually thirty-five.

And she was also heavily involved with one of the most powerful men in D.C. A man who was at least twenty years her senior.

Another story, though. For another day.

“You’re just going to stare at me?” Faith demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. Her badge was clipped to her side. “My cousin was on your detail, and he got shot! Shot! My favorite cousin!”

Right. She was definitely pissed. “Sorry?” Ethan offered.

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Her eyes turned to slits at that response.

“In my defense,” he added, “I did call you right away. I didn’t want you to wait on getting official notification and all that crap.” He eased toward the bars that separated them. “How is he?”

She huffed out a hard breath. “How do you think he is? Charles was shot. Twice. What kind of coward shoots an FBI agent in the back?”

“A dead one.”

Her long lashes lowered. “So you already know that Curtis Thatch didn’t make it to the hospital.”

He knew now. Before, he’d just suspected.

“One shot in the back, and one in the shoulder. Charles is right-handed,” Faith said, “so I’m betting he dropped his weapon as soon as he took that hit in the shoulder.”

Ethan nodded.