Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
SHAE
S torm doesn’t say a single word the entire ride to Gold Coast. A guard I recognize drives us back while Riale handles the aftermath of what happened with Zane.
Zane.
God, just thinking his name should evoke deep emotions—anger, fear, rage, pain. Instead, there’s nothing but an icebox where the feelings should be.
I stared at Zane’s corpse on the parking garage floor, and I didn’t feel an ounce of remorse for his death.
I felt vindicated.
Storm clutches my hand like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to this mortal plane, as if he were to release me, he’d float away and never come back.
He’s cold, shut out, shut off.
Storm’s not in there. I’m sitting next to his shell.
The driver doesn’t say anything when we pull in front of the house, and I’m grateful that it’s so late because it means the kids won’t see my bruised face.
When we enter the foyer, I stop at the mirror by the front door, still holding hands with Storm. My skin will bruise where he slapped me, but other than my sore scalp, I don’t think I’ll look too scary for the children to see tomorrow. Nothing some thick foundation can’t help.
Storm’s gentle fingers land on my chin, and I face him. He examines my face with dull eyes, his gaze running over the contours of my abrasion.
“It’s not so bad,” I say, but my voice must hit him like a shout. He flinches and drops his hand from my face. Then, without another word, he marches us to his room.
“Storm?” I murmur when he guides us into the bathroom and starts the taps to fill the tub.
He doesn’t respond.
“Storm, talk to me,” I whisper when he pours lavender and chamomile soap into the water.
He doesn’t respond.
With gentle movements, he undresses me, stripping me down to nothing. He moves around my back, examining the cuts and rapidly forming bruises. He makes a rough sound when he parts my hair, and my hands go to my head, feeling the chunk of hair missing from my scalp.
“It’ll grow back, at least,” I say, trying to break the tension between us.
When he sees the cut on my side, he hisses.
“Do you think it’ll need stitches?” I ask softly as he moves to his haunches.
He still doesn’t verbally reply; all he does is look at me with fire in his eyes and shake his head.
The fire burns into something dark.
Something deadly.
He kisses the slice, pressing his lips to where it hurts the most.
I don’t know why that is what makes me cry.
Storm stands, grabs a short bottle of water, and pulls a medicine container from the drawer. Silently, still so damn silently, he taps three Ibuprofen tablets into my hand and cracks open the water.
I don’t give him any pushback and take the pills without complaint.
I expect the water to burn when he lowers me into the tub, but I get a feeling that if I show him my pain, it might send him off the deep end.
He seems so close to losing it completely, and I don’t know what the hell I’ll do if he does.
“Storm, please,” I whisper, sliding my eyes closed as he turns off the full tub. I count my heartbeats, grateful as hell that I’m still alive.
Storm saved me when I couldn’t save myself.
I expect him to remain silent.
Instead, he leans over me, his familiar scent causing my heart rate to slow, and he kisses me gently on my forehead.
“I love you,” he says with his lips pressed to my flesh.
Those are the only words he speaks before leaving me alone in the warm bathroom, keeping the door open as if he were uncertain if he planned to return.
I blink once.
I blink twice.
I open my eyes, and the water is cold, and all the suds have dissolved into a thin film covering the surface of the tub. I fell asleep.
And still, there’s no sign of Storm outside the fluffy towel, ointment, bandages, and silk two-piece pajama set on the countertop.
I didn’t even hear him return, and I can only assume he’s the one who brought the items in. He wouldn’t let anyone else see me naked, that much I know.
With the pain dulled from the medicine, I drain the tub, dress my wounds, and pull on the sleep shirt and pants.
My stomach drops when Storm isn’t in the bedroom.
“Storm?” I call out, even though I know he’s not hiding in the closet or anywhere else in the space.
The door is slightly ajar, as if calling me to find him.
Daring me to see what he doesn’t want me to.
I don’t know why my feet take me to the garage; I just know to expect him to be there. I don’t expect, however, what I see when I arrive there, peeking through the open door as Storm stands with his back to me, surrounded by Riale and Axel.
“Explain it to me again,” Storm grates out, his voice low and menacing, as if he were being voiced by the devil himself.
Bakari and Darren are bound on the floor, their hands behind their backs, much like mine were when Zane took me. But instead of slight bruising like mine, their faces are swollen and split, as if they’d been beaten for hours.
Blood splatters mark the ground around their bodies.
“There was a sound. It was so late, I didn’t think anything of the cleaning crew or that there’d be anyone else in the building,” Bakari says.
Darren remains quiet.
“Why wouldn’t you operate to the highest extent of your ability to protect her?” Storm grates out.
Bakari sways to the side, shaking his head.
“It was a blind spot,” he spits out, drool spilling from his ballooned lips. “It won’t happen again, sir.”
I can feel the pleading in his voice.
Darren stays silent.
“And you?” Storm rasps. “What’s your story?” That’s when I notice the gun in Storm’s right hand.
From my position, I see the resignation in Darren’s eyes; I track the calculation as he decides there’s no use fighting.
The man spits on the floor at Storm’s feet.
“Fuck you,” he hisses.
Bakari’s eyes widen.
Storm doesn’t move at all, and I hold my breath until he speaks again.
“Who was Zane Gibson working with?” he asks slowly, his voice almost soft.
Darren sneers.
“Why does it matter? The motherfucker’s dead now.”
Storm still stands tall, but this time I watch his shoulders rise and fall as he takes a slow, deep breath.
Then, he cocks his firearm.
“I’ll give you one more time to tell me what you know,” Storm says.
Bakari starts sputtering.
“Man, if you know something, say something!” he shouts, his words falling together.
Darren’s eyes turn flinty, and he tilts his chin up, unyielding.
“Either you kill me, or he does.” Darren delivers the words with a humorless chuckle.
He? Who is “he?”
I call back the nonsense Zane spewed at me before he shoved me in the trunk. Who was he going to bring me to?
“But if you’re gonna do it, get it the fuck out of the way,” Darren says, sneering at the trio.
Storm doesn’t flinch when the gun in his hand goes off, the silencer muting the explosion, and Darren drops to the ground from a killshot.
Bakari’s mouth wrenches open in a silent scream as he stares at the fallen man.
“You know anything?” Storm asks Bakari, his voice calm as if he hasn’t just killed a man where we park our SUVs.
“I don’t know anything! I swear!”
Storm cocks his head to the side for a long moment.
“I believe you,” Storm finally says. Bakari’s shoulders drop, and he almost bows to Storm.
When he straightens, his eyes nearly bulge out of his head. Storm’s gun hovers an inch from the man’s eyebrows.
Shaking his head frantically, Bakari says, “I really don’t know anything! I didn’t have anything to do with?—”
“I don’t fucking care,” Storm mutters.
Bakari locks eyes with me, and I see his innocence. I see he had nothing to do with whatever his partner was involved in.
He was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
“Wait!” I shout, stepping into the room. Axel and Riale’s heads whip in my direction as I run toward Storm.
But he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t react—almost as if he knew I was there all along.
“Storm, don’t!” I scream, reaching for my love, but it’s too late.
Storm drops the remaining man with a twin bullet to the brain.
Breathe. Breathe, Shae.
Still staring at Storm’s back, I track the rise and fall of his breath. I register how, in the reverberation of the gunfire, he seems to calm, settle.
Bakari was innocent. I may not have known the man well, but he was innocent .
And now he’s dead.
“You shouldn’t see this, Shae,” Riale says, stepping between me and Storm.
The man was innocent.
“You should get some rest. How’s your pain?” Axel says, coming up on my other side.
The man was innocent.
My heart pounds in my ears, the woosh of blood beating hard in my brain, drowning out their voices, drowning out reason.
The man was innocent.
The man was innocent.
The man was innocent.
“Storm, why?” I try to get around Riale, my throat hurting as my voice gets louder and louder.
“Storm, why did you do that? ” I screech, and I finally break past Riale. He whips an arm out, and it catches me on my injured side, and I suppose the sound of my pain snaps Storm out of whatever trance he’s in.
Storm turns then, his face completely emotionless, and says, “Stop, Shae. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
I gape at him for one heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Then….
I run.
Panic claws at my throat when I hear his steady, pounding footsteps following me as I race back to my bedroom.
Is this my bedroom? What do I even have that’s mine anymore?
Horror hits me as I stumble into the room, realizing I’ve given everything up for this man.
Again.
Whirling around, I scramble to shut the door and lock it.
It’s too late.
Storm’s there, and his booted foot prevents me from sealing myself inside.
He’s there, wrenching his way inside with ease, with frostiness, as if the material between us were toilet paper and not reinforced wood.
“Shae, stop it,” he grinds out, his voice even with just the slightest spark of fire.
No! I shout, but only in my mind. I just keep pressing and pushing against the door.
“Fuck it,” he says, his voice low and a growl. Then, he’s there inside my room.