Chapter 16
Tessa
I can’t stop shaking.
Even with a warm blanket wrapped around my shoulders, my body continues to tremble. I can still feel those hands wrapped around my throat. I can still feel the weight of his body as he pressed me into the wall, holding me there as he choked the life from me.
Red and blue lights cut through the darkness, and my gaze lands on the black body bag being carried off Zane’s boat by two men wearing coroner’s office jackets.
Dead.
“Depending on who you ask, so are we.” Weston’s words, when I’d said these men are killers, echo through my mind now, and my gaze lands on where Zane is standing with Officer Leopold. Weston, Ryker, Garrison, and Sawyer are here, too, though they’re talking to another officer over to the side.
Garrison glances up at me, then excuses himself and crosses over to take a seat on the marina bench beside me. “How you holding up?” he asks.
“Not great,” I admit. We’d gone to sleep after Zane read more of the Bible to me. I’d had a peace that I haven’t had in quite some time, only to have it robbed from me in the middle of the night.
“Zane!” A shrill feminine voice cuts through the night, and Anastasia sprints down the marina dock toward him.
“I’m okay,” I hear him tell her as she wraps her arms around him and squeezes.
My throat constricts.
“Hey, this isn’t your fault,” Garrison says, as though he can read my thoughts.
I can’t even find the words to argue.
Anastasia releases Zane and turns toward me. As she crosses over, I prepare myself for her anger. She’s never quick to it, but when that temper is released, the entire world shakes.
Garrison offers me a quick smile, then gets up so Anastasia can sit.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I nod.
“I saw the lights when I came downstairs to open the bakery.” She runs her hands over her face. “I’m so glad you guys are okay.”
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”
“It is not your fault,” Anastasia counters.
“I know that you’re worried I’m going to cause him to get hurt. And you’re right. He keeps getting pulled into it because of me.”
Anastasia studies me for a moment. “You overheard our conversation. Of course you did. I wasn’t exactly quiet.
I’m sorry.” She sighs. “I am worried about him—he’s my brother.
But you aren’t the one getting him into these situations.
He’s been getting himself into life-or-death instances long before you came back. ”
“He killed someone,” I whisper.
“From what I hear, it was that or your life. Tessa, he’ll always choose you.”
My eyes fill. “I left so he wouldn’t kill my dad and throw his life away, yet here he is, doing it anyway. Eighteen years later.”
Anastasia wraps an arm around my shoulders. “This pity party you keep throwing for yourself has to stop. It’s not doing you any favors, and it’ll only keep you rooted in the past. Zane killed a man who was going to kill you both. It was self-defense.”
Pity party. Didn’t I just tell myself that same thing last night? That it was time to stop throwing one for myself?
Before I can respond, a black SUV pulls into the parking lot. Two men in suits climb out before one opens the back door, and a leggy brunette in a pencil skirt climbs out of the back.
Her gaze travels over the scene before her until it lands on Zane.
“Uh-oh,” Anastasia grumbles.
“What? Who is that?”
“Zane’s boss. I’ve only met her once, and it was by accident, but she’s a walking nightmare.”
Approaching on heels so high it should be impossible to glide the way she is, she moves toward Zane. Officer Leopold offers him a wave, then walks away, and Zane crosses his arms. They have a heated exchange before he turns and walks back toward me, leaving her behind him.
“We’re going to go stay at Anastasia’s,” he tells me. “She has a guest room available.”
“I’m not done speaking to you, Knox,” the woman demands, her tone sharp, as she stops right behind him.
He takes a deep breath and whirls on her. “We are done because I say we are.”
“Do you really think I wouldn’t find out? Two incidents requiring police presence. Both of them with you as the headliner. I expect an explanation. You’re supposed to be flying under the radar, not setting it off.”
“As I said, they were misunderstandings.”
“Misunderstandings.” Her gaze shifts from him to me, and she pins me with an ice-cold glare. “This have something to do with your new houseguest?”
“Hey, watch it.” Anastasia stands and crosses her arms. “You don’t get to talk to him that way.”
“I’ll do whatever I need to do,” she replies.
Zane takes a step in front of his sister. “You do not address her. Period. My family has always been off-limits.”
Weston, Ryker, Garrison, and Sawyer all flank us, with Sawyer pulling Anastasia behind him.
The woman looks from them back to Zane. “I expect an explanation, Knox. I can’t have you distracted.” She glares at me. “Something you clearly are.”
“Like I told you. Unless you have orders for us, we have nothing to talk about.” Zane turns toward me. “Come on, Tessa.” He reaches out, so I take his hand. The blanket slips from my shoulders, but Weston grabs it before it can hit the ground.
He offers me a soft, understanding smile, and I can’t help but wonder if tonight somehow changed his outlook on me. I’m not sure why it would have, given his friend nearly died—again, but I’m grateful for it.
Zane scoops me into his arms and carries me the rest of the way to his truck, while Anastasia and the rest of the team follow.
I want to argue. Want to insist that I can walk.
But when that woman’s gaze pins me again, I’m grateful for the speedy retreat.
We reach Zane’s truck, and he helps me into the passenger seat. Anastasia climbs in, too, so I scoot over to the middle of the bench seat as Zane climbs behind the wheel.
My thigh brushes against Zane’s, and despite everything that’s happened tonight, the contact sends a wave of warmth through me.
Less than two minutes after we leave the marina, we’re pulling around the back of an old house on Main Street. Zane climbs out first, then reaches back in for me. Instead of going out the passenger side, I scoot beneath the steering wheel and let him help me out on the driver’s side.
The rumbling of a motorcycle has me turning toward the left as Weston pulls in, a truck right behind him. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like the black SUV is anywhere to be seen.
Weston turns off the bike and climbs off, setting his helmet to the side as the rest of the guys get out of the truck Ryker was driving.
“I need to get things going this morning, but I’ll bring up coffee as soon as I can.” Anastasia groans. “Karly picked the perfect day to start her vacation.”
“I can help,” Sawyer offers, clapping his hands together. “Put me in, coach.”
Anastasia grins at him. “No offense, but I don’t even think the apron will fit you.”
He smiles. “You saying you like my muscles?”
“Before we all get nauseated, how about we get inside?” Ryker comments with a roll of his eyes.
“Yeah, we need to get off the street.” Zane glances around, his head on a swivel, body between me and the building. It makes me sick to think that someone wouldn’t hesitate to take him out—to take them all out—just to get their shot at me.
Who did I anger? Why is someone trying so hard to kill me?
Zane’s hand goes to my lower back, and he guides me toward the building while Anastasia moves ahead and unlocks the back door. We all file in behind her, but instead of following her and Sawyer into the front, Zane leads me toward a staircase.
It’s not until we get to the top that I realize we’re alone and the others remained downstairs.
He closes the door behind us and leads me toward the couch where I take a seat. Without a word, he moves into a small kitchen and fills a glass with water before bringing it back over to me.
I can’t even focus on the room around me. Not while my mind is running a million miles a minute.
Zane takes a seat beside me. “Talk to me.”
“You—”
“Tessa.”
“You killed him.”
“Because, if I hadn’t, he was going to kill you.”
Aside from the time he punched my dad, I’d never seen Zane fight before. Not until earlier when I watched him take on two masked assailants and walk away with only a cut on his arm.
I’ve always felt safe with Zane. But after tonight? There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll still be standing when this is over. The question is…will I?
“I’m sorry.” My eyes fill with tears, and the adrenaline that’s been with me since I woke to the sounds of fighting flatlines. My teeth begin to chatter as my body trembles uncontrollably.
Zane reaches over and pulls me into his lap. I rest my head against his chest, the steady beat of his heart easing the panic in mine. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I don’t understand why this is happening. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”
“You didn’t do anything. And we’ll figure it out.”
“Before or after we’re killed?”
Zane cups my cheek and tilts my face up to look into his eyes. “What about this morning made you think it’s going to be easy to kill me?”
“Nothing,” I reply without hesitation. “But that doesn’t make you bulletproof. Or immune to bleeding out.”
His smile falters. “I was terrified tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared.”
I snort. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Don’t.” He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “You could have died.”
My breath catches.
“When I saw him grab you—there was a moment there where I wondered if that was it. If you were going to be taken from me again.”
Again.
“I won’t leave without saying goodbye this time around.” It’s meant to be a light-hearted comment, but the weight behind it wipes the emotion from Zane’s face.
Right as someone knocks on the door. Zane sets me aside and crosses over to open it. Weston, Ryker, and Garrison are on the other side, all of them with paper cups of coffee in their hands. Ryker offers Zane a cup, then Weston hands me one.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He turns to Zane. “So, Cap, what’s the plan?”
“We hope Leopold can ID the guy they took from the boat. And that he will lead us to the rest of them. Then, we take them out.”
“Take them out?” I nearly choke on it. Surely he doesn’t mean—
Zane turns toward me. “You wanted to know what I do? This is it, Tessa.”
“You kill people?”
“Not if I can help it,” he replies. “But I put a stop to violence.”
“These guys,” Ryker starts, “whoever they are, aren’t going to stop until you’re dead. We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
I swallow hard. I’m living in another warzone. Where every day is a fight for my life. And now I have five new people in the line of fire.
My gaze lands on Zane.
There was never a doubt in my mind that he loved me before. That he wouldn’t risk everything for me if he had to. Which is exactly why I had to leave before. And now, we’re here doing the same thing.
Different fight.
Different enemy.
Same possible outcome.
It was self-defense, but what if they come for him for the death of that man? What if they decide it can’t go unpunished?
How can I live with myself if my freedom costs him his?