Chapter Ten
Liss
I couldn’t put Gideon through this. It would destroy him.
“Let me go,” I whispered.
He tore his gaze away from Ryan and looked down at me with solemn, dark eyes. My throat tightened.
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
The clubhouse was on fire. The bed I had shared with Gideon earlier would be nothing but a pile of smoldering ashes in a matter of minutes. The Blackjacks had lost their home. I wouldn’t stand by and watch while their leader was murdered.
“I’m not worth all this, Big G,” I said.
Gideon shook his head.
“You’re worth everything and more, baby.”
Then he raised his gun and fired.
A hail of bullets exploded in the night. Gideon shoved me to the pavement, protecting me with his body. I felt the forceful impact of a bullet hit him in the side when he jerked with a grunt.
“Take cover,” he rasped.
With his hand on my back, pushing me to safety, he continued to fire. I scrambled to a nearby dumpster. Bullets pinged against the metal. The stench of rotten garbage made me gag but I pressed myself back against the wall.
Gideon’s gun clicked on empty.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
Blood smeared his fingers and stained his shirt just above his hip. He fumbled a spare clip from the pocket of his vest and slotted it into place.
“I hate to tell you this, sweetheart,” he said with a wince. “But this is not what I had in mind when I thought about meeting your family. I expected a stuffy dinner, hounded with questions like, what are your intentions toward my daughter?”
Despite the situation, a laugh bubbled up my throat.
“Come on, grandpa. You’re always telling me how tough you are. You can take it.”
Gideon dropped his head back against the wall.
“Call me grandpa one more time and I swear to God—”
“Or what? You’re in no condition for foreplay, tough guy. Save it for when you’re not fucking bleeding from that gaping hole in your side.”
I risked a peek around a corner of the dumpster. The Blackjacks had scattered.
Gatling was on the rooftop of a nearby building with a sniper rifle tucked tight against his shoulder.
Vlad plowed through the junkies with a garbage can lid for a shield and his bare hands. Even when the junkies converged on him like swarming ants, raining down blow after blow, he simply put his shoulder down and tackled the nearest offender, snapping their neck with a clean twist.
Ryan had his arm locked around Kingpin’s throat, hiding behind Kingpin to shield him from the gunfire.
“I can do this all day, Big G!” he called. “Larissa might be nothing but a sweet piece of ass to you, but she’s my flesh and blood. I won’t rest until I get her back.”
Gideon growled.
“That’s my future wife you’re talking about. Show some respect.”
Ryan responded with a spray of bullets. Gideon pressed me back, pinning me between his body and the dumpster. I wrapped an arm around him, staring at the back of his cut and Blackjacks MC in bold letters. The realization settled over me, heavy with finality.
I could lose the best thing that ever happened to me.
Gideon shifted, firing off a few rounds. I heard him counting quietly to himself.
“Liss, baby, I’m almost out of ammo,” he said. “I have two—maybe three shots left.”
A prickle of cold dread crawled up my spine and my stomach twisted. We were sitting ducks here without a way to protect ourselves. I had the knife in my boot, but that would be useless if Ryan still had bullets.
“When I give the signal,” Gideon continued. “You run like hell. I’ll cover you.”
I clutched a fistful of his shirt.
“Are you insane? No. I’m not leaving you.”
Gideon turned around to look at me, prying my fingers free.
“You don’t have a choice, sweetheart.”
I scrambled for another option—anything. The clubhouse behind me heaved and the ceiling collapsed. Vlad crumpled with a roar, buried beneath a pile of addicts kicking the shit out of him. Hot Shot huddled behind the corner of a nearby building, fumbling at his shotgun to reload it. His fingers were slippery with blood and a handful of shells scattered across the pavement.
Gideon grasped my chin lightly and turned my head until I looked at him. My heart soared every time he did that. It made me feel precious, cherished.
“I love you,” I whispered.
He smiled softly.
“I knew that all along, baby.”
Gideon turned away, shifting onto his toes as he prepared to move.
“Gatling!” he bellowed. “Wing the son of a bitch for me, would you?”
A split second of silence filled the air. It was a tight shot. If Gatling was off by an inch, he would kill Kingpin.
Then the deafening boom of a sniper rifle made me flinch.
Ryan yelped. Blood flared at his right shoulder—his shooting arm. He lurched to the side, releasing his grip on Kingpin.
Gideon bolted forward, firing—once, twice.
I forced myself to run in the opposite direction, feeling sick to my stomach. I hated the bitter irony that weighed on my tongue as I realized what I was doing. This is how it all began—running away. And Gideon made me promise I wouldn’t do that anymore.
I slid to a stop, panting.
The crack of gunfire and shouts echoed behind me.
No. This wasn’t the only option.
I bent down and slid my knife out of my boot. The blade was six inches long, with a worn handle that I’d wrapped with tape for extra grip. I found it in my neighbor’s tool shed when I was nine years old, hiding from my father who smashed up the house in one of his usual drunken rages.
Ever since then, I slept with that knife under my pillow.
“Where is she?” Ryan screamed.
A calm certainty settled over me. With measured steps, I returned to what remained of the clubhouse. Gideon and Ryan faced each other, guns drawn in a stalemate. If Gideon had one shot left, he couldn’t waste it. If his clip was empty, he was simply stalling to buy me time so I could get away.
“I’m here,” I said.
Ryan snapped his head in my direction. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a wolfish grin.
“Finally came to your senses, little sis?”
“I guess you could say that,” I replied. “Now that you have me, we can leave. You don’t need to hurt anyone else.”
He snorted.
“These bastards took you away from me once. I’ll make sure they pay for it. And I’ll start with your boyfriend here—”
I lunged. My knife caught Ryan in the middle, just below his rib cage. I pressed the blade up to the hilt with surprising ease, cutting deep into his flesh like soft butter on a hot summer afternoon.
Ryan’s lips parted in surprise. A puff of air escaped him.
“You…little…bitch,” he croaked.
I looked up into his face. And I twisted the knife.
“Go to hell, big brother.”
A strangled noise gargled in the back of Ryan’s throat. He sank to his knees on the pavement. The knife slipped from my fingers as he fell.
When I glanced down, my hand trembled, streaked with hot, fresh blood.
I should have done that a long time ago…but the relief I expected never came. I felt…nothing. Only the roaring in my ears and the sticky blood on my hand—Gideon’s blood, Ryan’s blood.
Distantly, I heard someone call my name.
Then Gideon stood in front of me, holding a rag. He wiped my hand clean, saying…something. His lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out anything clearly enough to understand. The ringing in my ears was just so damn loud.
“It’s over,” I whispered.
Gideon brushed his knuckles against my cheek. His touch was so achingly gentle that my legs buckled and I folded like a ragdoll. He caught me as I dropped, gathering me into his arms to cushion my fall.
“Breathe, sweetheart,” Gideon murmured. “Take a deep breath for me.”
The ringing in my ears faded into silence. I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of Gideon—leather and smoke and the faintest hint of his cologne.
Then a sob tore from my throat.
“It’s over,” I repeated.
My brother was dead. After years suffering under his abuse, he was gone. And I wanted to be relieved. I wanted to hate him.
Instead, all I could feel was grief for losing him.
Gideon said nothing and crushed me against his chest so tightly that my ribs creaked.