Chapter Fifty-Eight
BANE
She kicks and screams as I lift her away from the bloody pulp staining the floor now. The bathroom door bursts open a moment later, and Ezekiel’s friends burst through, stumbling to a halt when they see me—or rather the crimson scene we made together.
Mine and I.
“Seth…” I growl, and the one Ezekiel calls Khalil swears. “Bane?” I don’t respond, and his gaze flicks back and forth between Mine, who is still now and staring, unseeing, and me. “What happened?” he questions as he keeps a healthy distance. “Bane? What happened? Did he hurt her?”
“No.”
“How the fuck are we going to explain this?” the one called Thorin barks before kicking the one who tried to hurt Mine.
“Self-defense?” Khalil throws out.
“Believable before she turned his face into ground beef.”
“Who cares? He’s clearly not dressed for the gala, and he brought a gun. He was here for one reason, and we all know what it was.”
Thorin still shakes his head. “It’s too risky with the conservatorship hearing coming up. We need to get rid of the body.”
“We’d have to make sure there is nothing left of Marston to find, and even if we did, his DNA and hers are all over this place. We can’t pull off that kind of cleanup with two hundred people down the hall. We have to risk it.”
“What about cameras?” Thorin volleys. “It could prove she was in danger.”
“There aren’t any in this hall. It’s the first thing I checked. This hall is a blind spot and likely the reason Marston chose it.”
Thorin swears and then nods his reluctant agreement and looks at me warily. “Bane,” he huffs out. “I need to check Aurelia. I need to make sure she’s not hurt.”
I tighten my grip on her and give him a look to stay away.
“Bane,” Mine croaks a moment later. “It’s okay. I’m safe. Thorin and Khalil are safe.”
Safe.
Ezekiel thinks so too. And Seth.
I eye the men as they wait anxiously for me to allow them near her. It’s what Mine wants, so when Thorin steps forward, I don’t kill him. I stand motionless, holding Mine close as he gently turns her cheek and inspects her bloody nose. “What happened?” he asks her.
And then Aurelia recounts everything from before I woke up on the bathroom floor to after I pulled her off her uncle. Thorin and Khalil hang on her every word, their eyes filling with rage until the story is over and they’re silently wishing they could kill him all over again.
“We have to play this one by the book. We need to report this. It’s our best chance of walking away from this. Do you think you’re up for it?”
“I can do it,” Mine swears with a determined nod and then swings her brown eyes my way. “Bane, let me down.”
I slowly set her down, and then the four of us leave the hallway and return to the ballroom, where the screams of the guests rent the air once they see Aurelia painted in her uncle’s blood.