Stolen Love (Beauty in the Stolen 3)

“Fuck if I know,” he says with a growl. Kicking the elevator door, he yells, “Fuck.”

I’m going to be sick. “We need to go back.”

“We can’t fucking go back.” He kicks the door again. His hair is messy from the helmet. He spears his fingers through the wild curls. “There’s nothing to go back to.”

I refuse to believe that. I can’t accept it. Straightening with a gulp of air, I charge at him. “Give me the key.”

He punches the button again. “Do you want to get caught?”

I shove him. “Give me the fucking key!”

Grabbing my arms, he shakes me. “It’s over, Cas.”

No. I shake my head, trying to step out of his hold, but he won’t let me go.

“It’s over,” he says again, looking at me with a cold, black fire burning in his eyes.

The door opens.

He drags me inside. I kick in my heels and cling to the frame, but he yanks me against the mirror before the door closes on me. When the elevator rises seamlessly, he lets me go.

I pace like an animal in a cage, a roar trapped in my chest. “What happened?” I’m more talking to myself than to him. “What went wrong?”

“They were never planning on letting him get out alive,” Leon says through gnashed teeth.

Clenching my hands so hard my nails cut into my palms, I turn in a circle. “Someone ratted on us. Who? Who knew? I thought Damian said the men he hired could be trusted.”

“What the fuck does it matter?” Leon bites out.

“It matters,” I yell. “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch.”

Leon says nothing as the elevator comes to a stop, and the door opens onto the lobby. Taking my arm, he steers me across the foyer to the roof exit.

“I’m not leaving,” I say, trying to free my arm. “I’m not going to Zim alone.”

“We didn’t do this for nothing.” When the guard opens the door, Leon drags me through the scanner room to the hallway. “He didn’t die for nothing, do you hear me?”

That’s when the tears find their way to my eyes. That’s when it hits me, really hits me. That’s when I know what Ian must’ve gone through when he buried a coffin with my gun inside. It’s crippling, the pain. I stumble. Leon steadies me, but he doesn’t slow down.

Another guard waits at the exit to the roof. He gives me a sympathetic look. “The pilot is ready.”

I sag in Leon’s hold. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

The guard opens the door and stands aside for us to exit. The breeze is stronger on the top of the building, whipping my hair around my face and obscuring my view. I swipe at the strands. When my view clears, I still. A big, black helicopter waits on the helipad, and in front of it stands Ian.

It can’t be, yet dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket, he looks very real.

Leon freezes. Incomprehension shuts down my brain. We stand rooted to the spot. Leon lets me go so suddenly I stumble. Before I can come to my senses, Leon storms at Ian. Swinging an arm through the air, he hooks a fist under Ian’s jaw.

The impact flings Ian’s face sideways. He doesn’t fight back. When Leon takes another punch at him, he catches Leon’s fist.

“What the fuck?” Leon yells.

“It was Damian’s idea,” Ian says.

Leon wrenches his fist from Ian’s hand. “To blow up the van?”

“Apparently to fake my death.” Ian catches my gaze over Leon’s head, his eyes soft, apologetic. “He placed a dead body with handcuffs and leg irons in the back of the van and another in the driver’s seat and made it look as if the driver blew up the van with explosives.”

“Son of a fucking bitch.” Leon shakes out his fist. “He could’ve fucking told us.”

“He didn’t want the information to accidently leak out, even if he trusts his hired men. He needed the accident to look real. In case you got caught, he needed even you to believe I was dead.”

“Who was it?” Leon asks, still looking like he wants to commit murder. “Who blew up the van?”

“Russell.” Ian doesn’t look away from me as he continues. “He’s the only man Damian trusts with his life.”

Leon flexes and curls his fingers. “How did he manage such a stunt?”

Ian finally breaks our eye contact to look at his brother. “He intercepted us with another van when we stopped at a red traffic light. A man working with Russell followed in a pickup with the bodies in the back. The driver and I drove Russell’s van to the underground parking while Russell and his buddy placed the bodies and the explosives. Russell said they’d leave in the pickup before the explosives detonated. It was damn well coordinated. It only took them thirty seconds to set it all up. We saw the explosion just as we reached the building where you left the bolt cutter, bike, and clothes for me. The driver abandoned the van and left with the bolt cutter, chains, and my jumpsuit in a car waiting there, and I took the bike here. The driver said he was instructed to dump the cutters in Bruma Lake and to burn the jumpsuit. I reckon by now, Damian would’ve sent someone to fetch the van, or maybe he’s bargaining on the criminals scouting the area to have taken care of the removal for him.”