Every crime.
Every atrocity.
Stretching across the globe.
I kept my voice even. Knowing one misstep and it was over. Any one of these cocksuckers could fire and it was done. Only thing that stopped it from happening was Kade who kept his aim trained between the assholes on either side of me.
Apparently the three guys lying on the floor were proof enough that he might just be a better aim than them.
Could hear the rustle of something at the back of the house. Wanted to cover it. Cover it for Royce and Rhys who I knew were getting the other five women to safety.
“Everyone in between. Including you.” I let the taunt roll out with that, wanting his anger directed at me.
He laughed a menacing sound. “You think we don’t own every judge? Every prosecutor? Every cop? You are nothing. Just like Karl Fitzgerald and Cory Douglas were nothing. This is so much bigger than you. Now tell me where the rest of the girls are, and I won’t have to shoot.”
He shoved the barrel of his gun deeper under Violet’s jaw, making her head rock back and the air rasp from her lungs.
Toes barely touching the ground, she whimpered and squeezed those eyes closed like she could shield herself from the deranged depravity that dripped from this monster.
My wife.
My wife.
My heart banged at my chest.
Wanting to get to her.
To erase the space.
Wrap her up and take her out of here.
That energy whipped through the room and banged against the walls.
Begging to be filled.
To be heard.
“If we’re nothing, then just go.”
Except I knew every person in this house was a threat to them. Possessing too much information for them to let a single one of us walk.
Knew if he didn’t put a bullet in Violet’s head, he thought he was taking her with him, and that was not going to happen.
“Where the fuck are the rest of the girls and your little boyfriend, Royce? Boss wants him, too. Prick cost him over twenty million. He’s got quite the debt to pay. It’s not going to be pretty.”
That was right when a dog started barking from a neighboring yard and the sound of a helicopter echoed in the distance.
Coming closer.
Closer and closer until it was so loud there was no mistaking it was low and hovering overhead.
The asshole’s attention snapped toward the window. The rest of the bastards surrounding us did the same.
A frisson of nerves and uncertainty.
It gave us one second.
One second to our advantage.
I looked for a clear shot when Lily was suddenly on her feet and running around me.
“Lily, no! Get down. Get down.” I shouted it. Fucking begged it.
Violet wailed, those eyes going round in stark, utter terror. David Jacobs shifted Violet to his side, holding her around the neck, while he stretched out his arm and fired.
In an instant, the house was nothing but pops and cracks. A blister of bullets and shells. Shattering glass and splintering wood.
Lily rocked back before she stumbled forward. The momentum fully knocked Violet free of David’s hold.
I pulled the trigger.
What felt like a hundred times.
Same as his was being pulled with his gun aimed at me.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Shock. Shock. Shock.
He went down.
So did I.
I dropped to my knees.
Too fucking stunned to feel the agony.
My hands went to my abdomen, fingers covered in blood.
Footsteps rushed and pounded, chaos and dust and debris.
Smoke.
A haze.
Thunderbolt eyes staring down at me. Tears streaming down that gorgeous face. Desperate hands searching. Pleading. The girl weeping over me.
And I was swamped in it.
Violets and grace and the good.
My fairy girl.
Her hands were on my face.
Magic.
Magic.
Safe and whole.
The one thing in this world that ever mattered.
My moonflower.
My wife.
Every lyric.
The song of my heart.Forty-OneVioletThe monitor beeped quietly. Steady and unending. A drone that lulled through the darkened room and pushed time into eternity. I held his warm hand in mine, the pad of my thumb caressing over the violet tattooed on the inside of his wrist.
Prayin’ and prayin’.
I touched his pallid face.
The man far, far away, while I sat in the seat next to him begging him to come back to me.
“Don’t leave me, Richard. Don’t you dare. I’m gonna need you now more than ever. Besides, you owe me a really big explanation.”
The last hitched on a breathy laugh.
On a plea.
On desperation.
Except Lily had told me everything.
I didn’t think I had even needed to hear it.
I’d seen everything I needed to know go down right in front of my eyes.
The protectiveness.
The selflessness.
The willingness to give.
I saw the goodness.
I saw it.
Amor. Amor. Amor.
“Do you feel me, Richard? Do you feel me falling with you? I’ve always been floating in your eclipse. Please, find me in it. I’m right here, calling for you.”“Hi,” I whispered.
He blinked, sage eyes staring up at me in confusion, like he was wonderin’ if it were a dream.