Chapter 18
Sebastian Sterling
Terror clarifies my mind and sharpens my senses as a man with gold grills masking his teeth and gang tattoos covering his face, neck, and arms yanks a black sack over my head.
I hold Penelope tight to my chair, partially afraid I’m crushing her but also grateful they haven’t tried to pry us apart.
When the asshole insists on putting a hood over Penelope’s head, she flinches and tightens her arms and legs around me but lifts her head from my chest. Her hiss lifts the hairs on my nape.
I barely resist the urge to kick the asshole who hurt her, but knowing there’s no room in the van for me to swing or fight back stops me.
For several long, terrifying minutes, we sit on the floor of the van as it swerves in and out of traffic.
No one speaks. Besides the telltale sniffling of a crackhead and the sounds of the vehicle on the road, there are no sounds to orient Penelope and myself to our surroundings.
The adrenaline pumping through my veins tries to lure me into panic, but I dig my fingers into Penelope’s sides and force myself to take deep, regulated breaths.
She follows my lead until our chests rise and fall in unison.
We will get through this together. Somehow.
The van jerks to the side and slams to a halt.
Everyone around us jumps into motion as the door slides open.
A gun muzzle presses between my shoulder blades.
Hands push and pull me in all directions.
I stumble out of the vehicle and struggle to stay upright as they shove and yank me over uneven pavement.
Our footsteps echo off concrete walls as they force me into a building and through a maze of halls. I lose track of how many turns we make, but after three flights of stairs, they shove me through a doorway.
“Separate them,” Michael demands.
Penelope tightens her arms and legs around me. I crush her to me, but without my sight, I can’t predict their movements.
A whistling sound reaches my ears half a second before a bar of white-hot agony slams against my back. Underneath the thud of impact rings the hollow sound of an aluminum bat.
Despite the debilitating pain of seized muscles and bruised bones, I pour my effort into protecting Penelope.
Cruel hands wrench my arms behind my back and close handcuffs around my wrists.
She screams as they peel her limbs off my body and yank her away from me.
My shirt pulls tight across my shoulders and rips when she refuses to let go.
Her cries of fear and frustration accompany the sounds of her struggling.
Steel-toed boots kick the back of my legs until I fall to my knees with a grunt.
“Oh my god, Sebastian.”
I freeze as a familiar voice pierces my eardrums. Confusion spears through me, but I wish they’d burst and bleed so I don’t have to listen to Cathy Barbie, Penelope’s bully from high school and Samuel’s fiancée, spout her nonsense.
“Don’t tell me you actually ended up with this stumpy little freak? ”
Cathy shouldn’t be here. Neither should Michael Carlson. Their presence makes no sense.
She pulls my hood off and cocks her head. When I glare at her, she sighs and spins away.
“After everything I did to keep you apart?” she scolds.
Her high heels click on the floor as she sashays toward Penelope. She whips the hood off my sweet pea’s head and bends down as though talking to a child.
“You really are a stupid whore, aren’t you, Penny?” she says in a saccharine voice.
When she taps her ugly, dark red talon-tipped fingers against Penelope’s cheek with mock concern, an unhinged smile spreads across Penelope’s face.
“I knew it was you since I walked in, you skanky ass bitch.” The harsh words coming from Penelope’s mouth jar me into realizing how she always avoids curse words. “You smell like Michael’s crusty cheese dick,” she says with an exaggerated grimace.
Cathy slaps her so hard her face whips to the side. Red settles over my vision, and I jerk so hard the handcuffs break skin. Blood trickles down my fists and lands on my calves.
Penelope spits a bloody wad onto Cathy’s expensive high heels before lifting eyes made of gold, green, and bronze. The conviction in her entire countenance both terrifies and intrigues me.
She’s a vicious, glorious warrior willing to face hell on earth to protect what’s hers. Not an once of fear shows in her gaze.
“Oh, come on, Cathy. Everyone knows you and Michael have been fucking like rabbits since your freshman year,” she taunts.
“Shut up, runt,” Samuel says from the doorway.
Like a villain in a cheesy action movie, he struts into the storage room as though he’s the biggest, baddest disposable extra in the cast.
Penelope’s laugh sends ice down my spine. Wordless fear grips me. She’s purposefully putting all the attention on her, but I’m not sure if she has a plan or if she’s snapped.
“Are you still that afraid of the truth, brother?” she snarks.
I don’t understand her emphasis on the word, but it hangs in the air like a loaded weapon.
“Truth? Aren’t you the one hiding from the truth?” Samuel says as he drapes an arm around Cathy’s shoulders.
“Not anymore,” Penelope shrugs. “In fact, I think speaking the truth can be quite liberating.” She twists to smile up at Michael.
He tightens his grip on her throat, but she speaks despite the compression of her vocal cords.
“Say, Michael, how does Cathy like my modification? Does she like the big bite I took out of your puny dick? Maybe it’s like those cheap truck-stop condoms with ridges? ”
He yanks her head back by her hair and pulls a knife out of his pocket. Nightmares play across her features, but resolution shines from her pale face by the time he presses the blade to her throat. She doesn’t lift her bound arms even though she could protect herself.
I growl and fight against the hands pushing down on my shoulders, but the throbbing in my back prevents me from escaping.
“I never touched you, circus freak,” Michael snarls.
Penelope doesn’t even rise onto her toes when he increases the pressure of the blade. Deranged humor lifts her brow as a thin line of crimson trails down the side of her throat.
“I have more truths, Samuel. How about the fact I’m smarter and better than you in every single fucking thing? How about the fact I know your worst nightmares have already come true? You’re a failure,” she taunts her brother.
He drops his arm, grabs a pistol from the small of his back, and steps toward Penelope.
“What the fuck are you doing, Samuel?” I growl. “Penelope is your sister. What happened to protecting her?”
Samuel scoffs and turns toward me. Icy rage shivers down my spine.
“She’s not my sister,” he shrugs.
“How can you be such an ass—”
“No, I mean it. She’s not my sister. She’s an orphan. My parents adopted her when they found out they couldn’t have a daughter of their own. They wanted a little girl so bad, they forgot about me. Because of that little runt, I had to share what was rightfully mine.”
“You never shared, Sam. You lost. I won. I made your parents love me more than they could ever love a spineless idiot like you,” Penelope sneers.
Samuel sighs, passes his piece to Cathy, and saunters over to Penelope.
“You can have my worthless parents, pipsqueak.”
Penelope flinches at the nickname. He pinches her chin and leans down until his nose is an inch away from hers.
“You don’t really think they love you, do you, Penny? They only want you for your money. You’re just too desperate for attention to see it.”
Disgust and horror clash within me as he leans impossibly closer and rubs his face over hers.
“You’re an unlovable orphan, so stop with the high and mighty act,” he whispers with his lips brushing over her ear.
He rises and turns to me.
“I tried to love her, but she’s just too pathetic,” he says with a shrug.
Penelope flinches. The flash of hurt in her eyes solidifies Samuel’s destruction.
“If I’m so pathetic, then what does that make you?” she asks.
He quirks a brow and spins back toward her. Before he can berate her, she lifts her chin and answers questions I didn’t even know to ask.
“It took you twelve years to realize it was me sabotaging your shady business deals.” He stalks toward her, but she continues as though he isn’t a threat.
“For twelve years, you hired countless goons and flooded thousands of ghost email accounts with useless death threats.” Cathy grabs Samuel’s shoulder.
“Twelve years of failure because the little girl you turned your back on is now the online powerhouse who steals all your clients just by having a bit of talent and being a decent human being.” Samuel shoves Cathy off him. Rage emanates from his every move.
“The pathetic one is you, Samuel,” Penelope declares.
He lunges for her throat. She throws her head back, slamming her skull into Michael’s nose, and twists to the side.
Michael’s blade sinks into Samuel’s forearm.
I headbutt the guy to my left, burying my skull into his soft middle, and tuck into a roll. My shoulders and bound wrists scream in agony from the concrete floor, but I pop onto my feet and dart toward Penelope.
A gunshot blasts through the room, but I pour on more speed.
In true linebacker style, I duck down, drive my shoulder into Michael’s stomach, lift him off his feet, and send him flying with my momentum.
He lands ass first before the back of his head slams against the floor. Dark crimson pools around his blond hair.
I spin around and stumble at the sight before me but screech to a halt and find my balance.
Penelope straddles Samuel’s chest with Michael’s knife pressed against his throat.
The only reason his head is still attached to his body is because she isn’t pressing her weight down onto it. Yet.
With her eyes locked on the muzzle of the gun Cathy has trained on her, she ignores her adoptive brother’s screaming and writhing.
My heart pounds in my throat and roars in my ears. Every cell in my body demands I attack Cathy, but I don’t dare move for fear of hurting Penelope.
“Look around, Cathy. This isn’t high school. Your posse bailed the moment shit hit the fan,” Penelope taunts.
She’s right. Not a single thug stayed behind.
Cathy’s eyes widen as she looks around the room.
Penelope throws the knife with unexpected swiftness.
The gun retorts.
My shout echoes within the blast. I dart forward. Cathy’s screams are a dull counterpoint.
I dive behind Penelope, buffering her from the concrete with my body. Between Samuel’s knees and her momentum, the air whooshes from my lungs. My diaphragm seizes.
By the time I suck in a breath and shimmy around onto my back, Penelope’s blood coats my torso.
“Fuck, sweet pea, where are you hurt?”
I need to free my wrists but dare not wriggle out from under her.
She sits up on her own and grimaces. Dark red stains her shoulder.
“I’m okay. Phone. Need police.”
She checks Samuel’s pocket, dials nine-one-one on his phone, puts it on speaker, and continues searching him.
Her hands shake so badly she drops the keys as she pulls them out of his other pocket, but she responds to the operator with relative calm.
Her voice cracks several times from yelling to be heard over Samuel and Cathy’s screams, but she doesn’t miss a beat.
When she tries to crawl around me, I growl and rise onto my knees so she can reach my wrists with as little movement as possible.
The moment she frees my first wrist, I pull my arms in front of me, hissing at the pain in my shoulders, and tug her into my lap.
Leaving the cuffs dangling from my wrist, I pull my shirt off over my head and use it to stanch her bleeding.
She hisses, inhales, and breaks down into gut-wrenching sobs.
I rock back and forth but hold pressure on her shoulder as I murmur words of praise, adoration, and comfort. By the time the paramedics arrive, she collects herself and leans her head on my arm.
“I’m sorry. That was terrifying,” she murmurs.
Although she’s pale, I take solace in her alertness.
“Don’t apologize, sweet pea. You saved me. Again. I owe you my life.”
“Good. You can start repaying me by giving me a kiss,” she mumbles.
“You’re just trying to distract me from applying pressure, aren’t you?” I joke.
A tired smile flits across her face.
“I can’t get anything over your head even though you’re, like, two feet taller than me,” she says.
I temper my chuckle when she winces from the movement.
“So, knife throwing, huh? Is there a certification for that?” I ask.
“Only if you want to become a certified coach,” she responds.
“Let me guess, you took the class and got certified even though you had no intention of using it.”
“Precisely.”
“Fucking hell, sweet pea, is there anything you can’t do?”
“Yes. I can’t live without you. I need and love you, Sebastian.”
Joy overflows my heart and seeps down my face in the form of tears. As the paramedics take over compression, I frame her face in my hands and pour my sincerity into my words.
“I love you, too, Penelope. I’ll be by your side for the rest of your life. I need you, too. Understand?”
She nods. I steal a quick kiss and run beside her stretcher as they rush her toward the ambulance.
Almost two days later, with all the police reports filed and medical adventures sorted, I lead her into my family’s home and marvel at my ma and Nana’s warm welcome.
They fret over us both for a while. I allow them to take Penelope away for a few minutes for a quick sponge bath but grumble to relay my grumpiness at missing her when they return.
She cuddles in beside me on the couch, but I lift her onto my lap and ensure she’s as comfortable as she can be with the wound on her shoulder.
With my sweet pea in my arms and the familiar, happy sounds of my nana and Ma moving around the apartment, I slip into the deep, restorative sleep my body so desperately craves.
I found my muse. I saved my pipsqueak.
My sweet pea saved me. She owns me, now and forever.
I can’t wait to marry her.
She’s mine and I’m hers.
No matter what we face in the future, we’ll do it together. Side by side. Arm in arm. In each other’s hearts and minds.
Penelope Miles will soon be Penelope Sterling. She’s mine. My future wife. My sweet pea. My love.
Mine.
Always.