27. Chapter 27
Chapter 27
L una
Pandemonium erupted when Milo went down. I tased the man underneath me almost as an afterthought and then tugged Alexa out of the vehicle. Our exit wasn’t graceful, but I wanted her out of that SUV and away from those men.
Milo lay on the ground, groaning and clutching his right shoulder. A red stain quickly spread over his white shirt as I stared down at him.
Alexa knelt beside him, but her hands were still incapacitated. “Luna, stay with me. We have to stop the bleeding.”
The buzzing in my ears lessened, and I came back to myself and dropped to my knees. “Yes. Okay, stop the bleeding,” I chanted. Ripping off my shirt, I rolled it up and pressed it hard against his wound. Less than a minute later, the police found us and the EMTs arrived seconds behind them. Someone eventually freed Alexa from the zip ties on her wrists, and a bystander kindly handed me an extra-large blue t-shirt with Pescadero Pool Care scrawled across the front. It smelled a little like stale sweat, but I was glad to have it.
An hour later, I still wore the t-shirt as we sat in the hospital emergency room, waiting to hear any news about Milo’s condition. I looked down at my hands and vaguely realized I had blood under my fingernails. Alexa and I blearily watched the local news on the TV mounted to the wall as we waited. They mentioned the shooting but didn’t have any relevant details.
A doctor walked out and looked around. “Milo Carlson’s family?”
I raised my hand. “Here,” I lied.
She walked over and stood in front of us. “He’s out of surgery and we’re monitoring him. He’ll live, barring infection and complications, but it’s going to be a long recovery. Mr. Carlson is lucky the bullet didn’t nick his artery.” I nodded and thanked her.
The doctor took off, and the emergency doors slid open. Fenn walked in and his lip quirked when he saw us, but I could see the worry in his eyes. “Lou, have I taught you nothing? You run away from the bad guys, not to them.”
Roman and Gideon strode inside a few seconds later, and Roman stalked over and stood, looming over us. He stared down at me, the tips of his expensive Italian leather shoes almost touching my small black flats. “Milo called and said he was chasing you. That you ran away from him. Why?” His low voice didn’t fool me when I could see the vein on the side of his neck pulsing angrily.
I felt emotions rise where minutes ago I’d been numb and heartsick. They’d tried to take Alexa, and she had the split lip, lacerations on her wrists, and bruises to show for it. She opened her mouth, but I squeezed her hand and slowly stood. He didn’t move, so I carefully pushed him back a couple of feet.
Craning my neck, I gazed into his worried, angry face. “Milo is going to be okay. He’ll need a lot of recovery time, and he… lost a lot of blood.” I swallowed and Roman glanced down at the oversized, blood-stained t-shirt I wore.
“What happened?” he asked.
Gideon said nothing but watched Fenn carefully. Fenn folded his arms and kept an eye on Roman, but he didn’t interfere.
“They grabbed Alexa.” Tears filled my eyes. “We were studying together and she went to the student center for a smoothie. I shouldn’t have let her go alone… no, I should have stayed away from her.”
“It’s not your fault,” Alexa murmured beside me.
I tipped my head back and willed the tears away. Then I told them about getting the text and running. Gideon’s phone rang, and he stepped away to take the call.
Roman’s cold eyes scanned my face. “You ran away from your bodyguard and dove into their vehicle,” he repeated.
His eerie calm worried me. “You said if they ever got their hands on me, they’d probably gang rape me and slice me up before they dumped my body. I couldn’t let them do that to her.”
Gideon walked back over, his phone to his ear. “We got the coordinates to Lionel’s safe house, his men plugged it into the SUV’s nav system.” Gideon shook his head. “I’m sending a team in now. We need to go.””
Roman’s jaw clenched, and he wrapped his arms around me. “Fenn is watching you tonight. But if you run from him, me, or one of my bodyguards again, I’ll do more than just paddle your sweet ass. I’ll tag your fucking ear if I have to. Now promise me you won’t run again–and mean it.”
I gazed up at him, tired, scared, and frustrated. Then I shook my head. “If they grab someone else I care about, I can’t tell you I wouldn’t do it again.”
Fenn sighed behind Roman. “You should’ve just lied, Lou. Roman’s an attorney, he lies all the time.”
Roman ignored Fenn and took me by the shoulders as if he wanted to shake me. “You drive me fucking insane , and we’re not done talking about you diving into that SUV. Stay safe.” He kissed me hard and deep before pulling away and striding out with Gideon.
Fenn called one of his men to retrieve our belongings from the law library and then took us to Ezra’s house, which sat right next to his. The large, older ranch-style adobe homes were located a few blocks from the mortuary, south of the airport between Paradise Valley and Green Valley North. All the properties in their neighborhood sat on acre lots, which was an anomaly in Las Vegas.
When we got to Ezra’s home, we both cleaned up the best we could. Alexa slapped some ointment and a butterfly bandage on her lip and waited impatiently for Fenn’s men to bring our belongings. When she got her laptop back, she cradled it like an infant.
“I need to look up a few things,” she told me vaguely and disappeared.
I washed Milo’s blood off the best I could, and Ezra loaned me another shirt. Then we sat in his kitchen, drinking whiskey and eating leftover apple crisp and ice cream as I told them what happened.
Ezra leaned back, his plate half empty. “It wasn’t the smartest thing, Luna, diving into a moving vehicle full of degenerate criminals. But I can’t say I’m sorry since both you and Alexa are safe. The Stracks wouldn’t think twice about torturing and killing any of you.”
Fenn pointed at Ezra’s half-finished dessert. “You done with that?” Ezra nodded, and Fenn pulled the plate over and shoveled a bite into his mouth. Then he pointed his spoon at me. “What’s going on with you and Fowler? I thought this was a marriage of convenience–meaning he’d keep you alive, and then you’d conveniently get the marriage annulled when the threat is neutralized. Watch yourself with him. He’s a soulless bastard, and he and his partners are fucked up.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He picked up his whiskey and took a sip. “It isn’t fair, but something inside a person is damaged when you go through what they did. And if they ever do heal, it’s usually messy.”
Fenn could have been talking about me, and I looked down at my plate, feeling the sting in my chest as I stirred melted ice cream around. He knew what had happened to me. He and Kilian had been in their early twenties when Ezra brought Sylvie and me home.
He studied my face and realization dawned. “Shit, Luna. I didn’t mean you.”
My fingernails still had a few specks of blood underneath them, I noticed absently. When I got home, I planned to soak in Roman’s tub and scrub myself clean. “We’re all damaged in some way, aren’t we?” I replied. “Every time I’ve brought up getting an annulment, Roman tells me it will never happen. I don’t know if I want one now either.”
Ezra and Fenn exchanged worried glances, and Ezra turned to me. “Luna, do you plan to stay with him when the Stracks are neutralized?”
“Maybe, but he might not want to when he gets to know me better.”
Fenn studied the collar around my neck, then sighed. He leaned forward to catch my eye, then reached out and took my hand, turning it over so my wedding band was visible. “He married you and put a collar and tracker on you. A man doesn’t do that with a woman he plans to cut loose. Fowler also had his tongue down your throat at the hospital today, and he looked almost feral.”
I glanced at Ezra. “Shut up, Fenn.”
He smirked and let go of my hand. “I’ve never seen him lose his shit like that before. The bastard is usually ice-cold.”
Ezra studied the collar around my neck. “Is that a GPS tag?”
I blushed harder. “Yes. He said he wanted to be able to find me fast if I got taken, and he didn’t want it to be easily removed.”
Fenn grunted. “It’ll be interesting to see what he does with the collar after the threat ends.”
That thought had my insides tightening, and I took the whiskey in front of me and gulped it down, then grimaced at the burn in my throat. “God, that never gets better.”
Ezra shook his head. “It’s single malt whiskey. It’s not meant to be slammed back like cheap tequila.”
Alexa appeared in the kitchen doorway with her laptop in hand. She was biting her lip. “Luna, I need to show you something, and you won’t like it.”
Hours later, I lay in my old bed staring up at the ceiling, thinking about Alexa’s bombshell. It took a long time to fall asleep, and early the next morning, someone brushed a strand of hair off my cheek. I felt the mattress depress beside me, and I opened my eyes and looked up.
Roman stared down at me in the darkness. “Let’s go home.”
Tears filled my eyes. “I didn’t know,” I whispered.
“What didn’t you know, Sweetness?”
“I didn’t know my father was a partner in Bitter Creek Ranch.”
He was still in his clothes from yesterday. It didn’t look like he’d been home yet, and there were bloodstains on his shirt.
His body locked, and he studied me carefully. “How did you find out?”
I sat up and scooted back, my heart sinking as I wrapped my arms around my knees. A small part of me had hoped he didn’t know–that it had all been a crazy, cosmic coincidence I’d ended up as his intern. Would I ever get away from my father’s reach and his ability to wound and damage me?
“Alexa figured it out. The internship, my being from Arizona, and the Ranch being located there didn’t add up for her. So she dug around last night and found tax documents that linked him.”
“Get your things, let's go.” He turned and started walking out of the bedroom as if he expected me to follow him.
“Am I safe with you, Roman?” I asked quietly.
He stilled, his head down as he faced away from me. “No, and not for the reasons you think. But you’re mine now, and I vow to keep you safe from everyone else.”
He walked out, and I slowly got out of bed and dressed. The house was quiet and dark in the early morning, and when I entered the kitchen, he and Fenn stood glaring at each other. The silence felt deadly, and I almost wished they were yelling instead.
Shouldering my backpack, I cleared my throat. “I’m ready.”
Fenn didn’t break his stare. “You don’t have to leave with him. You can stay here with Ezra or, better yet, move in with me again–just like old times.”
Roman’s eyes glittered dangerously, and Fenn was purposefully trying to bait him. Sylvie and I had sometimes stayed with him when Ezra went out of town before we moved into the mortuary apartment our senior year in high school.
“Thanks, Fenn. But I need to go home and figure a few things out.” I turned to Roman. “Can we go through a drive-thru and pick up coffee on the way? I need caffeine badly.”
Roman smirked at Fenn. “Yes. We’ll hit a drive-thru on our way home .”
Fenn shook his head. “She called your place ‘home.’ I get it, you fucking bastard. But if you still plan to use or hurt her to get to Montgomery Cross, know this. I will hunt you down personally and do my best to take you and your partners out. I’ve lost enough family, and I refuse to lose anyone else.”
His words warmed and chilled me all at once. As I felt the animosity and anger swirling around these two men, I realized what a horrible idea it was to have them in the same space when emotions were running this high. They were both extremely alpha and used to controlling their environments and the people around them.
Even knowing all that, I walked over to Fenn and cupped his cheeks. “Thank you for loving me like your own sister and protecting me when I was so vulnerable and lost. You, Kilian, and the twins are my brothers, and I would die for you. But now I need to find out where I stand and see whether Roman and I can work through this, or part ways and call it a day. If that happens, I’ll need your help again.”
He kissed my forehead as Roman growled behind me. “Get your fucking lips off her.”
We both ignored him, but I knew what Fenn was doing. “Stop flipping him off behind my back. Please keep Alexa and Sylvie safe, and tell Ezra I’ll call him later today.” Then I walked over to Roman, took his hand, and pulled him out of the house.
I sipped my large coffee and studied his profile on the way home. “What happened last night, why do you have blood on your shirt, and where's Lionel’s safe house?”
His lip quirked. “Lionel got away, but he has a bullet in his thigh, and his soldiers are… incapacitated. You make me fucking daft. We’re going to have a long talk about what will happen if you keep putting yourself in danger.”
“You already mentioned that, several times.”
“If you hadn’t used that taser on the driver, we may not have gotten to you in time. Where the fuck did you get something like that, anyway?”
I decided not to tell him Fenn had given it to me. “Where’s his safe house?”
Roman shook his head in disgust. “In a penthouse condo just off the Strip, if you can fucking believe it. The man’s a moron.”