38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter thirty-eight
N ick had been frantic to see Aria after Javier tried to kidnap her. If he’d gotten her out of the bar… Well, he didn’t want to think about what would have happened.
The thought of losing Aria scared him to death. Without her, the rest of his life looked bleak. He didn’t even want to contemplate it.
“Nick, honey, you’re squeezing my hand too tightly.”
He eased off and took his eyes from the road for a brief second. “Sorry, baby. I just…” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence. He just couldn’t live without her. He couldn’t believe how incredible she was. He couldn’t love her any more than he did right now.
“It’s okay.” She squeezed his hand. “I know how you feel. If he’d hurt me… If I couldn’t get back to you… I can’t.” A tear slid down her cheek. She hadn’t cried after she’d been attacked, but thinking of not being with him anymore, that brought her to tears.
Nick brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “I love you. Nothing is going to happen to you. I won’t let it.”
“You’re not sending me away like Mason did with Lyric tonight.”
“If you went with her, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“It’s not your fault. And who’s to say he wouldn’t have followed us.”
“Hard to follow a helicopter out of here.”
Aria sighed out her frustration. “I’m not leaving you. Not when I just got you back. Not when we are finally doing this.”
So fierce. So resolute about being with him.
“We can’t do anything if you’re dead.” He stared ahead at the dark road, his hand clenched on the wheel, his thoughts as dark as the night.
“I can protect myself. I did tonight.”
She sure did. He was so damn proud of her. “If he’d simply pulled a gun and shot you before running from the bar, he’d have gotten exactly what he wanted and I’d be even more of a wreck than I am right now.”
“I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want to be away from you. I know the risk. I accept it, because it’s worth being with you.”
He shook his head. “It’s not.” Didn’t she understand? He couldn’t live without her.
“I say it is, but I understand that you can’t concentrate and do what you need to do to stop Lopez with me here.”
“Are you saying you’ll join your sister until he’s caught?”
She kissed the back of his hand. “Yes. I’ll go first thing in the morning. Tonight, I want to be with you.”
Relief washed through him. “I should get you out of here as soon as possible.”
She shook her head. “You should start thinking about how good it’s going to feel when I get you home and into our bed and make you forget everything that happened tonight. Because I need you to do that for me, too.”
Nick brought her hand to his chest, right over his heart. “Whatever you need.”
She smiled and it eased his heart if not his worries. They could talk more in the morning before he sent her away to safety. Tonight, they both needed each other to block out the world and this trouble dogging them.
He pulled into the driveway. The FBI agents following them parked along the side of the house on the left. They’d sweep the property and make sure nothing was out of the ordinary, while he checked the house.
Nick climbed out of the car and met Aria at the front. He took her hand and they walked up to the house together. The motion light on the porch lit the way to the front door. He hadn’t gotten any notifications about anyone coming near the front of the house from the doorbell camera, but that didn’t mean they were in the clear.
He couldn’t wait for the guys to come the day after next to install the security system. Right now, he had two agents covering the house, so he let his guard down a little, even though he still flicked on the lights inside the entry and surveyed the space, looking for anything out of place.
“Relax.” Aria kissed him softly. “We’re home.” She released his hand. “I’m going to get a glass of water before bed. Want anything?”
“No. I’m good. Meet me back there when you’re done.” He’d check out the rest of the house, make sure everything was secure.
She kissed him one more time, this one a little longer, deeper, a prelude to what was to come.
He reluctantly left her after she ended the kiss and gave him a look that said everything about what she wanted. Him.
He checked out each of the empty rooms as he made his way to the primary suite. He was just about to pull off his shirt when he noticed the draft coming from the window that looked out to the backyard. The window Lopez had probably used to spy on him and Aria in bed together.
Just then, one of the agents appeared, staring down at the ground with a flashlight. His head snapped up and their gazes locked through the broken window.
Nick whispered, “He’s probably got her in the kitchen.”
The agent pulled his gun at the same time Nick pulled his.
The agent walked forward to go to the sliding glass door that opened into the dining area next to the kitchen.
Nick headed for the hallway, calling out, “Aria, what’s taking you so long?”
She didn’t answer him.
The second he stepped into the hallway, he spotted her. Javier had one arm banded around her neck, her head right next to his face, her body shielding his as he stood with his back to the wall, the dining area to his left, the living space on his right.
His right arm was covered in blood. He’d cut his sleeve off and used it as a bandage over his bicep where Aria had stabbed him earlier.
Nick stayed as calm as could be expected and fell back on his training. “Let her go and put your hands up. This doesn’t have to end the way it will if you so much as flinch.”
Javier raised the gun in his hand and pointed it at Aria’s head.
She didn’t even balk. Her gaze held steady on him.
“Don’t move, sweetheart. He’s not going to hurt you.” Nick’s heart pounded against his ribs. Sweat broke out on his brow.
Javier’s face contorted into disdain and rage. “I’m going to fucking put a bullet in her like you did to Julia.”
Nick shook his head. “She hasn’t done anything to you. You want to shoot someone, shoot me.”
“No!” Aria went limp in Javier’s hold, taking him by surprise and pulling him forward as her knees bent and her weight dropped toward the floor.
Everything seemed to happen at once.
In his peripheral vision, he caught one of the agents coming in through the front door, gun drawn.
Aria reached down to her cowboy boot and extracted a knife, the blade gleaming, right before she palmed it and shifted sideways to break the hold Javier had on her neck.
The second agent on duty lined up a shot at Javier just outside the sliding glass door.
Aria used her free hand to push the gun in Javier’s hand away from her as she stabbed him in the same arm, pinning it to the wall. She scrambled back and fell to the floor, giving him and the agents a perfect shot.
Javier wailed in pain and lost his grip on the gun. It dropped to the floor with a thunk and it skittered across the floor toward Aria. She left it where it landed.
Nick rushed forward, his gun leveled at Javier’s head. “Don’t fucking move.”
“What the fuck is with her and fucking knives?” Javier grimaced as he looked at his arm, blood trickling down his skin and dripping onto the floor.
Nick loved that she wasn’t afraid to defend herself.
Javier hissed some more. “It fucking hurts. Get it out.”
Aria stood up beside Nick. “My brother gave me that one before I left the bar, so I’d like it back.”
The agent who came in the front door holstered his gun, pulled out cuffs, and approached Javier. He hooked up his free hand first, then raised a brow about how he was going to free Javier from the wall.
Aria looked at him. “You shouldn’t pull the knife out of his arm. Not until he gets to the hospital where they can stop the bleeding. Shall I?”
Nick couldn’t believe how well she was handling this. “Go for it.”
She approached Javier. Pain etched lines in his face and filled his eyes, but he still remained a threat. And he took advantage of Aria’s proximity and tried to headbutt her. She clocked him, right in the eye with her fist, busting open a cut at the corner of his eyebrow. “That’s for Stacy. You want some more? Because I’d be happy to make you bleed all night.”
The agent holding his cuffed hand took hold of Javier’s injured bicep where Aria had stabbed him earlier and squeezed. Fresh blood soaked Javier’s shirt and arm as he yelled and bared his teeth. “Fuck you.”
Aria wiggled the knife in his arm up and down, slowly easing the knife out of the wall, but also adding to Javier’s pain. “Your fingertips are starting to look a little blue. You don’t get that looked at soon, you might lose your hand.” She pulled his hand toward his other one and the agent cuffed him. The one-and-a-half-inch blade was about six inches long with a deer antler handle. The tip of the blade was sticking out the back of Javier’s arm about two inches.
Nick shook his head in awe. “Damn, sweetheart, you amaze me.”
“I have Jax to thank for making sure I had the means to defend myself.”
“You had me, too. I would have shot him in the head if he hurt you again.” He didn’t like the bruises that were darkening on her throat from earlier when Javier had wrapped his hand around her neck at the bar.
Aria looked right into Javier’s cold eyes. “You are a piece of shit human being. You deserve everything that is coming to you and more. Now get out of my house.”
The agent carried out her order and pushed Javier through the living room and out the door, where their backup was just pulling in along with an ambulance.
Nick cupped Aria’s face and looked deep into her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“I am now that he’s going to prison for the rest of his life.”
Adrenaline was still riding her hard. She’d crash later. What she’d done, what she’d been through would hit her all at once. He’d be there to help her through the crash and rush of emotions.
Him, too. Right now, all he wanted was to hold her close and thank his lucky stars that she was okay. They were both alive. And finally, they could start their lives together, get married, and start a family.