Chapter 23
LEO
“Cass!” I stumbled to my feet, my boots crunching on broken glass as I sprinted through the front door for the lawn.
She was lying on the grass, right beside her new flower bed. Pink and yellow petals were strewn around her hair.
“Cass!” My legs wouldn’t go fast enough as I raced. The heat from the garage fire carried on the air as I collapsed at her side and gripped her shoulders. “Cass, wake up. Wake up!”
She groaned. “Leo.”
“Come on.” I scooped her up, surging to my feet and pulling her farther away from the garage to the opposite side of the driveway.
The explosion had spattered the yard and driveway with debris. The windows on the house were shattered. My bike was lying on its side beside Cass’s car.
The neighbors who’d been home on a Friday afternoon came rushing outside, and in the distance, someone shouted, “Call 9-1-1!”
But my focus was on Cass.
“Talk to me,” I ordered as I carried her toward the next-door neighbor’s property, laying her down the second I found a patch of clean grass.
“Cass, talk to me.” My hands roved over her body, feeling for blood. My eyes followed the path, sure I was missing something when I came up empty. Her chest had no gushing wounds. There were small cuts on her arms and tears in her black tee, but nothing else.
“Can’t. Breathe.” She panted, her eyes squeezing shut as she struggled to take a breath.
A row of faces and people hovered around us. “Call an ambulance.”
“They’re on the way.”
I ran my hands over her again, unwilling to stop touching her. To feel her heat under my palms. The tension of pain in her chest. Pain was good. Pain meant she was alive. “You’ll be okay. You’ll be fine.”
She winced as she tried to breathe, her hands coming to her sternum where she clutched her heart.
“What do I do?” My eyes blurred with tears. “What do I do? Be okay. Please be okay.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t open her eyes. She just clung to her chest as her face twisted in agony.
“Cass, please. You gotta breathe, babe.” I shook her shoulders gently. “Breathe.”
Years ago, in the days when violence had been part of our everyday lives, we’d had a run-in with a meth dealer. The crazy son of a bitch had wanted to join the club. Draven had told him no, but he’d come around often enough that we’d let him party with us.
Then one day, he’d stopped coming by. He’d been cooking meth in his house and the place had exploded. Only he hadn’t died in the explosion. He’d been outside in his yard. According to the reports, the shock wave had ripped the air from his body and his internal organs had failed.
The way she was holding her chest. The way her face contorted in sheer pain.
Please, God.
“Don’t leave me, Cass. Please. Breathe.”
A drop of water landed on her cheek. A tear. My tear.
“Cassandra.” I bent low, dropping my forehead to hers. There was barely a breath on her lips. “Please. Stay with me.”
I clung to her, and when I looked up, the faces of my neighbors, people I barely knew, were full of shock and fear. “Where’s the ambulance?”
No one answered me.
“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” I screamed.
An older woman wearing a green dress flinched and took a step back.
A man, the guy who lived three houses down and mowed his lawn at seven in the morning every Sunday, held up his phone. “They’re on the way.”
“Cass. Firecracker.” My fingers pressed into the skin of her face. “Breathe.”
A moan escaped her mouth. I leaned in close, my fingers shifting to her pulse. It thrummed beneath my skin. “You’ll be okay.”
She nodded, her hands lifting as her fingers searched for mine.
I clasped them between my palms, squeezing tight. “You’ll be okay.”
Her eyes cracked open and she winced, then she rolled away from me, curling into the fetal position. And that was when she finally managed to draw in a breath.
As she filled her lungs, the air rushed out of mine. Fucking thank you.
Cass tried to shove up on an elbow, cringing with the slightest movement.
“Let me help.” I pulled her gently to a seat, then wrapped her in my arms, holding her against my chest.
Her breaths were labored but with each one, she seemed to find the next more easily.
“God, you scared me.” I peppered her hair and forehead with kisses. My hands roamed over her back and shoulders and ribs, just to feel her alive.
“W-what happened?” she slurred.
“The garage. It . . . exploded.” My gaze shifted to the place where my garage had once stood.
Flames licked and clung to the skeleton of the building’s frame. Smoke billowed into the blue summer sky, coating the sun above in a haze of gray. What remained of my workbenches were black and on fire.
“Fuck.” I raked a hand through my hair.
Cass had gone to get the helmets. Had she not turned back . . .
“Leo.” She clung to me, her gaze worried as she glanced up.
“Yeah. Another accident.”
She shook her head.
No, this hadn’t been an accident. And the doubts I’d had about the others all vanished. Someone had meant to kill me, because Cass never went into the garage. She had no reason to. That bomb had been meant for me.
I scanned the street, taking in the neighbors who were still hovering close. One had crossed the driveway and was staring at the blaze with a hand over her mouth. The piercing wail of sirens sounded in the distance.
The faces were familiar. The men. The women. There weren’t many—most people were probably still at work on a Friday—but each person here lived on the street. I knew these faces.
Except . . .
There was a man standing beside a car two houses down. While everyone else had rushed outside and toward the explosion, he had hung back.
I knew his face but not from the neighborhood. He was a customer at the garage. The day of the jack accident, he had been there for an oil change. He’d hovered over Tyler’s shoulder to see if I was alive.
“Babe, I need you to stay right here.” I shifted, moving slowly away when she stiffened and sat straight.
“Leo.”
My eyes were locked on the man. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he was here, at yet another accident.
“Leo,” Cass’s voice cracked.
“Wait here.” I stood and the moment I was on my feet, the man turned and began walking the opposite way down the sidewalk.
The neighbors tried to talk to me, to ask me where I was going, but I blocked them out and started running. I hit the street and broke into a dead sprint, my boots pounding and my lungs burning as I tore down the street. The man was walking even faster.
He must have heard my steps because he glanced back and when he spotted me running, he took off, darting into a yard. Except the yard he’d chosen had a tall fence. He bounced off the boards and scrambled to pull himself over the top.
Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the fury—maybe both—but my legs had never moved faster. My hands fisted, my arms pumping. The man hadn’t had enough of a head start.
The moment he was within reach, I stretched, catching a handful of his jeans. Then I yanked him off the fence, the movement making us both stumble.
He tried to get up, to get away, but I found my balance first and leapt on him, tackling him to the lawn. Our bodies thudded on the grass and he let out a yelp.
It was the only sound he made before my fist raised above his face. “Who the fuck are you?”
He brought his hands up, blocking his nose, so I slammed a fist into his kidney.
“Ah!” He screamed, thrashing and writhing beneath me, trying to get free, but I just kept punching, hit after hit until he dropped his arms.
Mistake.
My hands found his throat and wrapped tight. “Did you do this?”
He clawed at my wrists and forearms but it only made me squeeze tighter.
“Did you do this?”
He gurgled, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to get some oxygen.
“Did you do this!” I roared.
A pair of hands wrapped around my bicep, yanking hard, but I didn’t move. “Let him go.”
Another person tugged at my shoulder.
I was a mountain, not to be moved. And I’d choke the life out of this motherfucker for nearly killing Cass. An innocent man would have shaken his head. He would have gone wide-eyed and afraid. But this son of a bitch was guilty.
It was there in his dark gaze.
“Let him go!” The voice barely penetrated the blood roaring in my veins.
An arm banded around my waist and I was ripped away, pulled back with such force I didn’t have to turn to know who it was.
“Calm down, brother,” Emmett said.
“Fuck that.” I shook my head and surged forward, but his hold on me was firm. “He almost killed her.”
The two cops who’d tried, unsuccessfully, to pull me off the man were hauling him to his feet.
He doubled over, coughing and gasping as he braced his hands on his knees.
“You have no options here,” Emmett said, his voice low in my ear. “Calm down before you land yourself in jail. Think of Cass and Seraphina.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, letting the rage burn for another second.
An ambulance whipped past us, hauling ass down the street.
“Let me go.” I shook Emmett off and stepped away, pointing to the man the cops were standing beside. “He was at the garage the day of the accident. He was here today. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“Go.” Emmett jerked his chin. “I’ll stay here.”
“Don’t let them release him.”
“Go.”
I nodded and turned, taking off down the street toward home, running as fast as I had before.
The group of neighbors who were crowded around Cass broke apart as a couple of EMTs rushed toward her. One of the EMTs was the same woman from the truck accident.
“Move,” I barked, pushing my way through the people to Cass’s side.
She spotted me and looked down the road. “Did you catch him?”
“Yeah,” I panted, kneeling at her side.
Her shoulders sagged. “Now what?”
“Now we go to the hospital.” I looked to the EMT, who gave me a small nod. Then she let me pick up Cass and carry her to the ambulance.
“I love you,” I whispered against her hair as we walked.
“So much for our ride.” Her gaze tracked to the bike in the driveway.
“There will be others.” I hugged her tighter.