8. Riley
Adrenaline slams through my body,my heart lurching into my throat. I’ve got no idea what that sound was, but it bounces off the abandoned buildings around us, echoing like a gunshot.
Maddoc hurls himself at me before I can react.
“Now!” he bellows, taking me down to the ground and covering me with his body as a couple of low-slung cars screech into the parking lot behind the SUV he arrived in, armed Reapers pouring out of them.
Gunfire erupts from both ends of the parking lot, bullets flying over our prone bodies. I’ve got no idea if the Reapers fired first or if West Point did, but when Maddoc hauls me back up to my feet, all the Reapers are in controlled firing stances, and McKenna’s are in chaos.
A fierce satisfaction rips through me at that, because it means the Reapers must’ve been the ones who started shooting first. Whatever that flash bang was, they must have set it up as a distraction.
They did have a plan.
“Go,” Maddoc says, shielding me with his body as he pushes me ahead of him. He keeps one hand on my lower back and the other on the back of my head, keeping it down as we sprint away from West Point.
My instinct is to race straight for the Reapers’ SUV, but Maddoc keeps us moving in a zig zag pattern, making us harder to hit.
I don’t question it. I trust him completely.
I do look back, though. Just once. Just in time to see one of my former guards shift his aim to track us, his grin just as sadistic as his boss’s ever was.
“Shit,” I gasp, stumbling.
Then he fires.
Maddoc’s arm whips around my body as he spins into the path of the bullet, shielding me yet again.
The bullet slams into his torso, the force of it driving a grunt out of him as his body flies into mine, and my world erupts in a hot mix of rage and fear unlike anything I’ve ever known.
“Maddoc,” I scream, twisting to try to face him.
“Keep… going,” he wheezes, still on his feet somehow. Still moving us toward the Reapers.
“But—” I start, my heart in my throat as he bodily turns me toward the SUV again and urges me into a sprint.
“Vest,” he grunts, pushing my head down again and all but tucking me underneath him as he continues to barrel forward. “Stay low.”
One of the Reapers’ cars suddenly revs to life, gunning toward us and skidding to a halt, creating a barrier between us and the bullets flying through the air. Dante’s behind the wheel, and Maddoc yanks the door open, pushing me into the back seat. He hurriedly fishes the key to the cuffs out of my bra and unlocks them, freeing my wrists.
I try to pull him into the car after me, but before I can, he steps back.
“Go,” he says to Dante, sending my heart into my throat.
Dante nods and immediately throws the vehicle into gear, and I make a grab for Maddoc before he can slam my door closed.
“What the fuck?” I pant. “Get in!”
He shakes his head, his jaw tight. “I have to make sure all my people get out first. Dante, go.”
Neither man gives me another chance to fight them on it. Maddoc slaps the roof of the car, then pulls a gun from under his jacket as Dante peels out.
“Fuck,” I say, pressing my hand against the tinted window as Maddoc races back toward the rest of the Reapers. They’re all retreating toward the other vehicles now, and the shakes suddenly hit me with no warning.
I’m safe.
They got me out.
My hands fly up to my face, frantically scrubbing off the dried remains of spittle and blood that that motherfucker left on me. I may have to live with the bruises he left for a while, but I don’t want a single reminder of his touch left on my body if I can help it.
“Princess?” Dante’s vibrant green eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror, filled with concern. His chocolate brown hair falls over his forehead, and the sight of him makes emotions rise in me so hard and fast that I can’t speak.
This is Dante though, so I don’t need to.
Holding his gaze calms my racing heart, the last vestiges of Austin’s hold on me sloughing off like a bad memory.
Dante’s eyes crinkle at the corners, all I need to see to know that he’s smiling. More than smiling. The look he gives me reflects every one of the emotions swelling in my chest right back at me.
After a moment, he returns his eyes to the road, and the silence cradles me for the rest of the drive back to the house. I can breathe again, for the first time in weeks.
Dante backs the car into the garage when we reach the house, his eyes scanning the street warily.
“Wait,” he says when I move to get out.
I don’t question him. All three of my men have earned my entire trust. I settle back into the seat until the reinforced garage door finally closes completely. Once it does, Dante nods at me, and we both exit the car.
I can tell he wants to hustle me straight into the house so he can get me into the most fortified, protected area they have, but I stop him with a hand on his arm, not even a little bit embarrassed when my fingers tremble against the warmth of his skin. “You came for me.”
Dante looks down at me with an expression so tender it makes my heart ache, cupping my cheek. “We always will, princess.”
My throat closes up. All the feelings I had to make myself numb to while Austin was holding me rush through me in an unstoppable wave.
I can’t speak. All I can do is shake my head.
Dante gets it, though. He’s always understood me. He knows it’s not a denial of what he just said, it’s just that it overwhelms me.
“We spent every fucking minute since that piece of shit took you searching the city,” he says, holding my gaze. “I just…” He presses his lips together, shaking his head too.
“You just what?” I ask, reaching up to cover his hand with mine as I lean into his touch.
“Fuck,” he breathes out, his voice thick with emotion. “We let him have you too long. I just wish we could’ve gotten you sooner.”
“You’ve got me now,” I whisper, wondering if he hears how much I mean that.
The Reapers have me. Not just here at the house, not just away from fucking West Point. I’m theirs.
“Fuck yeah, we do,” Dante says, smiling. But then his eyes drop from mine as he trails his fingers down over my throat, lightly brushing all the places that ache from the beating Austin gave me today.
I must have started bruising by now, and pure rage blazes from Dante’s eyes as he catalogs each hurt painted onto my skin.
“That bastard is going to pay for every one of these, I promise you.”
“Good,” I say, making his eyes snap back up to mine.
He smiles again, slow and so fucking sexy that it awakens a new set of feelings inside me. He knows about the darkness inside me. He knows it, and knows just what to do with it too.
“Princess…” he starts, his voice dropping into a low timbre that shoots straight to my core.
The rumble of additional vehicles pulling in sounds outside before he can finish that thought, and we both go tense for a minute before Dante relaxes with recognition. “That’s the SUV. Madd and Logan are back. Let’s go in.”
We do, and they both come in the front door a moment later, Logan pausing in the entry to arm the security system as Maddoc strides toward us, complicated emotions on his face.
“Logan beefed up security while you were gone,” Dante murmurs, his hand on my lower back. “He added some seriously hardcore shit to the system.”
I nod, but I don’t get a chance to respond before Maddoc is on me.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he demands, the calm veneer he lives behind as leader of the Reapers nowhere to be seen as he grabs my shoulders and shakes me hard. “Don’t ever put yourself in that man’s hands again. Jesus fuck, Riley.”
All the raw feelings I saw as he walked toward me during the exchange, along with that complicated expression he walked in here with, have been wiped out by unadulterated anger.
But instead of shrinking under his protective wrath, I straighten my spine and shoot back, “They were going to kill you!”
“You don’t fucking sacrifice yourself,” he growls, his fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to gift me with a new set of bruises, a welcome set, once we’re done here. “That was beyond stupid. That was—”
“Necessary,” I say, cutting off his furious rant. I shove him in the chest. “It was necessary. Do you seriously think I could just stand there and let West Point take you guys and Chloe down? And you’re one to talk! You just risked yourself for me too.”
He grinds his teeth together, his grip loosening, becoming security instead of punishment as he glares down at me. “That’s different,” he finally mutters.
I flatten my hands on his chest and glare right back. “The fuck it is. If you can do it, so can I. Jesus, Maddoc, I—”
I snap my mouth closed, swallowing back the revealing confession I almost let slip out, and Maddoc’s eyes blaze hot. He still seems furious, and for a second, an answering heat flashes through my body with the visceral memory of the way he belted me the last time he was this pissed off at me.
And for the same reason, too—me jumping in to protect someone who matters to me.
That time, I didn’t think before risking myself at Austin McKenna’s club when we found Chloe dancing there, and he’s got to know me well enough by now to know that’s a character flaw I have no intention of fixing.
If someone I care about is at risk, I’ll do fucking anything to save them.
Anything.
And I’d be lying if I said the idea of him going for his belt again right now doesn’t send a shiver of anticipation through me. This shouting match feels good, but it’s not enough. I’ve got too many emotions I had to keep bottled up when it wasn’t safe to show them, and they need an outlet.
But instead of reaching for his belt, when he breaks, it’s to crush me against him.
“Fuck, Riley,” he mutters in a ragged whisper as he buries his face in my hair and tightens his arms around me. “I was fucking terrified. Two straight weeks of not knowing if we’d lost you or not. Jesus. Just… just don’t. Don’t do it again, butterfly. Please.”
I nod, and he pulls me even closer, breathing out. Then breathing in again. Then out, tension flowing from his body as my breath syncs with his, his chest rising and falling against my aching ribs.
“Good,” he says quietly, pressing a long kiss to my temple. “That’s good.”
I can feel Logan’s eyes on me, watching with the quiet intensity he brings to everything. I can’t not be aware of him, the connection between us thrumming in my blood and beating in my heart. Just like it does for each of them.
Dante is on my other side, his hand still resting low on my back, and when Logan’s hand comes to rest on my hip, all three of my men touching me now as they surround me, something deep inside my soul starts to truly relax for the first time since…
Well, since the night I had sex with all three of them.
They were all worried about me.
They all have some kind of feelings for me.
This is real for all four of us now.
It’s a lot to process, and I’m not in the headspace to really do that… but I also know none of them expect me to. Not right now. Right now, we all need the same thing, and it’s as simple as this moment.
They’re my home.
And I want to stay.
I stop trying to hold any part of myself back and cling to Maddoc, giving in to how badly I need to touch him. He wasn’t the only one terrified that he’d lose someone who mattered today.
We stay like that, all of us, for I don’t know how long. But then the sound of light, rapid footsteps racing toward us causes Maddoc to finally loosen his hold on me, and I’m already half turning to face the door when my sister bursts through it.
“Riley.”
She throws herself into my arms, and just like that, my heart is complete again.