Chapter 46
46
COLLINS
I’ve been shot before—but never like this.
There’s something about the nerves in the neck that hurts more than anywhere else.
“Leave us alone!” Penny screams at Tanner’s body that stands over us like a dark cloud.
His pistol is aimed in the air between us. One of his brainwashed goons must have gotten one and left it in the hallway. I doubt he had it during his prison time.
But then I remember Penny’s declaration.
Brothers.
They are twin brothers.
Well, that explains their motives for helping a demented, psychopathic criminal.
Mark looks down the barrel of his pistol. “But I only have one bullet left.”
“Liar,” I call out, making him smirk. I need to keep him distracted.
He alternates the weapon between both Penny and me. “Choices, choices.”
But when he points it back at me, I sweep forward and knock him on his back.
His gun goes sliding across the waxed floor.
With no time to waste, I reach for the weapon, but Penny has it first. So I pull out my own from my holster and aim it at Tanner’s head.
“Well, this was a fun ride,” Tanner snickers, getting up from the floor.
I track him with my weapon. “Hope the temperature is perfect for you in hell.”
Tanner laughs deeply. “Only time will tell.”
“Give me your gun, Penny.”
She shakes her head no. “I want to end this once and for all.”
“If you end me, my brothers will avenge my death.”
“You’re not that special,” I say.
“To them I am.”
“Too bad they’re already all dead,” I say with a smile. I got a text earlier confirming their fates, as I rushed to find Penny stranded here with a madman. “You can thank the Hoffmans for their dedication to waste management. You will soon be a forgotten name. No legacy. No lasting impression.”
“My brothers are safe then?” Penny asks, her voice quivering and full of hope.
“Yes.”
Mark snarls. “It’s not over. My nephew will retaliate.”
“If you’re referring to that fucker, Rex, well, he’ll have to come back as a ghost if he chooses to haunt us from his grave. Killing him was my pleasure.”
Tanner’s eyes twitch. He has no way out of this now. “I just wish I would have seen your face when you opened up the back of the prison transport van and found that poor guy dead instead of me alive. Did you at least take a selfie of your reaction?”
“I’m done with your little games,” I respond. He’s deflecting.
“I hope you stayed for the fire that followed the big reveal. No?”
“I’m tired of you messing with my head,” Penny says with an exasperated voice, pulling his attention from me to her. “And killing you will be my cure. I need to be the one.”
I move behind Penny. Lining up our weapons beside one another, I allow my breathing and heartbeat to match her rhythm. Then I take the gun from her hand and into mine.
“Rip off some of my shirt and make a blindfold for your eyes. You don’t need this image inside your head, Princess.”
Penny listens and once the fabric is secure and cutting off her vision, I hand her back her gun.
“Isn’t this romantic?” Tanner taunts.
Leaning into Penny’s ear, I whisper, “On the silent count of three.”
Taking a deep breath, I line up my aim and then use my free hand to line up hers, placing my trigger finger over hers.
One in the heart…
One between the eyes…
“Are you ready?” I ask her.
“Yes.”
Inhale.
One.
Exhale.
Two.
Inhale.
Tanner charges toward us in one last-ditch effort to survive, as Penny and I press down in unison on our triggers.
BANG-BANG.
* * *
Sirens echo in the distance, followed by the sound of police forces infiltrating the building.
“You’re going to be okay,” I say, trying to soothe Penny. I hug her to me, drawing circles on her back. Untying the strip of fabric, I release it from her eyes for her to see.
We are covered in sweat, blood, and tears.
Staring down at her, I turn her so she’s shielded from the horror scene in the hallway of bodily fluids and gunshot wounds.
“You’re hurt,” she says frantically, while craning her neck to see my wound.
“I’ll be okay.” I can already feel the stickiness from where the blood is trying to clot. “I’m way more concerned over you.”
She must be in shock. I know I’ve experienced a lot of gruesome things in my life, but I’ve never been this scared to lose someone I love.
“We need to get you a doctor.”
I smile down at her. “I’m fine, Princess. Promise. It was all worth it to end this once and for all.”
“It’s over? It’s really over?”
I kiss her forehead and then her lips. I just can’t help myself. For the last few hours, I’ve been running on adrenaline and hope, silently praying I would find her alive—that it wouldn’t be too late.
“It’s over,” I say with certainty.
“What about Dr. Radinsky? She needs help.”
“We’ll find her. It was her who helped open the locked doors at the end of the hall that let me in.”
Penny’s shoulders relax, as the revelations move through her mind. “That’s what Mark said too, but I didn’t know what to believe. He’s been fucking with my mind this whole time.”
“Shhh…it’s over now. I got you.”
“Police!” a group of officers call out.
“We’re over here!” I yell, drawing attention to our location. “Just two hours late.”
Yeah, I’m bitter.
But they all can be thankful this ended the way it did. We all did society a favor. I have no clue how Tanner kept his family hidden from us, but it probably had everything to do with fake passports and name changes.
Dammit, this could have all ended disastrously.
But it didn’t. We survived it.
Now my focus is getting Penny out of this place. The faster the authorities can locate the dead bodies, the faster we can be free.
“I never want to come back here,” she says, with her lip quivering.
“You’ll never be back,” I assure.
Leaning forward, I scoop Penny into my arms, feeling the strain of my muscles pull against my neck wound.
“You are hurt,” she whimpers.
“So are you.”
I refuse to allow Penny to look at the scene. She’s already endured enough trauma to last a lifetime. Why create even more vivid memories?
Before finding her, I took out Rex—that fucker—and shoved his body into a room to be sorted out later.
I’m just glad I found her. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her.
“Please help Dr. Radinsky,” she sobs.
“Let’s go look for her,” I try to soothe. “I bet she is outside by now and getting tended to.”
I tuck her closer to my body, and back us up away from Mark Tanner’s corpse.
“How did you find me?” She stares up at me, as I keep her cradled. “Trackers?”
“Yes,” I confirm.
Penny is silent for a few seconds. “I honestly forgot they are on me.”
I nod. “I could see that you were heading north when you left the fundraiser event.”
“I…” She takes a deep breath as a shiver rocks through her. “Needed help. I thought I was hallucinating. Mark and Rex were making me go…” She struggles to say the last word, but then lets out a choked sob. “Crazy.”
“You are not crazy, Princess. It was all a part of the big plan to break you down.”
Penny nods, burrowing her face into my chest.
I tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You were right about him still being a danger to us. I had staged a big fight at the prison that was going to get him sent to the hospital. The whole goal was to end things before they ever went to trial.”
“And then he tricked you?”
“Yes.”
“He had his minion,” I add and then correct myself, “his brother intercept the transport van before I could get there, kill the driver, and put some guy in the back who was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“His other brother followed me from the charity event so they all knew I was heading to Seattle.”
“Exactly,” I confirm.
“He had one at the waterfront for the photoshoot. I had that nightmare, and I remember seeing the Rose City Cafe shirt on Mark. It’s because his twin brothers were living above the cafe and working there.”
“Fuck. I knew I hated that place but couldn’t ever find anything out of the norm when I would have my men check it out.
“And Mark’s nephew…” A sob breaks out. “Rex... He led me to Limit-X. It was all part of his plan to pull us apart. And it worked.”
“Shh…” I try to soothe Penny, but she is an emotional ball of energy right now.
She grabs her head, giving it a shake. “You’re sure everyone is dead.”
“Yes.” I want to resurrect them all just to kill them again, I am that mad. “Your brothers confirmed they got the twins. And Rex is definitely dead. I took care of him before I got to you.”
“He planted pictures in Luke’s room at our apartment. I found them and I thought my brothers hired him to spy on me. I thought Luke was the one who caused us to break up.” She can’t stop crying. “I yelled at him.”
“None of this is your fault, Princess. None of it. It’s over now. Mark, his demonic brothers, Rex...they are all rotting in hell. No one will ever hurt you again.”
Several more police officers enter the scene. I shake my head at a group of them, annoyed that it has taken this long to even make it to this wing of the facility.
“This is a bloodbath,” one says, glancing around. He looks barely out of high school. “It’s a real horror movie.”
He’s so in awe of the scene, I’m shocked he doesn’t pose with Tanner’s body for his social media page.
“I’m getting her out of here,” I say to him.
“Oh, we need to record your names.”
I tip my chin to Penny. “She needs to be seen by a medical professional.”
“We have questions to ask,” a different officer says. He looks like he is dressed for a routine call for domestic abuse or something.
Did the state send their rookies here to add to their resumés?
Unbelievable.
“Well, you can ask them at another time or trust that I took care of the job you all were called in hours ago to serve.”
I continue walking, not even sticking around to be granted permission.
I shift Penny in my arms, trying to calm down her shakes. She’s in shock. Her chin looks to be bruising around the dried blood that is clumped together in patches.
“Where are my brothers?” she asks, stuttering out the syllables.
Every time she talks, more of the cut on her lip opens.
“They are probably outside.”
And as if on cue, as soon as we get into the misty night air, both Hoffmans come charging toward us in a full-on run. They look like they didn’t have it easy either. Cuts and scrapes blemish their arms. The fabric of their outfits are frayed. And the worry lines on their foreheads more pronounced.
“Oh my, Penny,” Graham says, when he’s just a few feet away. “I’m so sorry.”
I set her down on her feet, allowing her brothers to hug her.
“I was so scared,” she whimpers. “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“We know,” Nic says, rubbing circles on her back.
Then the attention of the Hoffmans is on me. And so much is transferred between us with that one look. “It’s over,” I confirm. “Rex and Tanner were taken care of.”
“And we got the two lookalikes,” Nic replies.
“Tanner’s twin brothers, you mean?” I add with a snarl.
“Dammit.” Graham rubs his hand along the back of his neck, looking to come to terms with that revelation. Then he sighs, looking at his sister. “It’s over.”
Picking up Penny, I place her onto a gurney and then wrap a wool blanket around her.
Two EMTs start to examine her injuries, making me exhale slowly in relief that she is staying coherent and in the present. I can’t have her slipping away inside her head like she has in the past.
“You are bleeding, sir,” a paramedic says to me. “Were you shot?”
“Yes,” I answer, not feeling the need to have anyone fuss over me. But I accept the help anyway because it keeps me close to Penny.
She places a damp piece of gauze over the wound, causing me to hiss at the sudden pain. “Sorry. I need to clean this so you don’t get infected. It doesn’t look like you need stitches.”
“Good,” I mutter, making Penny look over at me. “How are you doing, Princess?”
Her sad smile makes her look even younger. “I’m okay.”
Then looking at the doors of the facility, we see a gurney being rolled out with Dr. Radinsky being worked on.
“Is she going to be okay?” Penny asks frantically, as they load her into the back of the ambulance.
“Yes,” a worker confirms. “She’s going to be just fine.”
As I get finished with the bandages on my neck, I see Graham and Nic motioning for me to join them.
“I’ll be right back, Princess.”
“Okay.”
Sliding off the gurney, I make my way over to the Hoffman brothers.
“How did the bastard die?” Nic asks, far enough away so his sister can’t hear.
“Penny shot Tanner near his heart, and I got him right between the eyes.”
“She shot him?” Graham asks in shock.
“Yes. And now she can move on without this weighing her down ever again.”
He looks back at Penny. “And she’s okay from that?”
I nod. “She didn’t witness anything other than what occurred before I could rescue her. He had her trapped in a fucking room. He made this personal so his death became personal as well.”
I can tell Graham is thinking over what I just revealed. He may not have done things my way, but I did what I thought was best given the circumstances and Penny’s mental state.
“Thank you,” he says softly after several long seconds.
My eyes glance to my feet and then up to Nic whose clothes are saturated with blood.
He looks behind me at the building that is only visible in the muted outside lights, causing me to turn in that direction as well.
Five body bags get carried out. “Five?”
Graham clears his throat. “The receptionist got caught in the crossfire and caught a bullet from one of the lookalikes’”—he stops and shakes his head in disgust—“I mean, twins’ guns.”
I nod.
“She had a wad of cash on her,” Nic explains, “and probably was paid off.”
“Makes sense. They had easy access to the entire wing where I discovered Penny.”
“I have to give it to Tanner,” Graham says with a half laugh. “He sure was able to keep his brothers and nephew a secret. I had no clue he had any living family members.”
Penny makes a high-pitched squeal, causing us all to look.
The EMT at least looks apologetic as she goes to work on cleaning up Penny’s wounds.
I make my way back over to her, hopping up on the gurney with her and tucking her to my side. It feels oddly natural to be this close to her in public, and I dare anyone to ask me to move.
Both Graham and Nic can’t help but stare at me holding their baby sister. I refuse to let her go. I’m never going to let her go.
I don’t give a fuck if anyone thinks it’s wrong.
I love this girl.
And I’ll spend this next part of forever trying to prove to her that I’m worthy of her heart.