CHAPTER 40 #2
Declan’s head snapped up. For one split second, alarm flashed across his face, but he quickly shook it off and grinned.
He leaned in close again, the tip of his knife still resting right at the seam of my underwear.
“I guess Jagger wanted to see me kill you up close,” he whispered, his voice thick with glee. “How thoughtful.”
A rush of adrenaline hit me as the gunfire grew louder. It now sounded like the automatic weapons I’d seen in movies, with overlapping bursts and men shouting in confusion and pain.
Declan straightened slowly as his men rushed forward.
The door exploded inward with a deafening crash, and smoke began pouring in, thick and white. A canister clattered across the floor and burst with a hiss, and the room filled instantly with choking clouds that burned my eyes and throat.
Shouts turned to coughs, and coughs turned to panicked curses. Declan’s men were swinging their rifles wildly through the haze. They couldn’t see anything by the door, and neither could I.
Gunfire cracked through the smoke.
One of the men dropped instantly, his body hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
Another burst followed, and a second body fell somewhere to my left.
Declan reacted instantly, fisting my hair and dragging the chair backward as he stepped behind me, hauling me with him so my body blocked his.
The movement nearly tipped the chair, the legs screeching across the concrete before he steadied it.
The gunfire slowed as bodies kept falling, their guns clattering uselessly to the floor.
The smoke was everywhere now, thick and blinding, but whoever was out there moved through it like they could see perfectly.
Every muzzle flash lit up the haze for a split second—red dots dancing, men dropping before they could scream.
One of Declan’s men lunged toward me, and a single shot cracked from the smoke. The man jerked, his head snapping sideways, and collapsed across my lap. Warm blood soaked through my skirt, and I bit back a scream.
Declan’s grip tightened. “Stay still,” he hissed as he released my hair and pushed the body off me in disgust. “They won’t shoot through you.”
The last of his men fell, and then there was silence . . . thick, ringing silence broken only by the low hiss of the dying smoke grenade and my own ragged breathing.
A figure stepped out of the thinning smoke, and I knew immediately it was Jagger.
He had on black tactical gear, and his face was streaked with soot and blood that I was hoping wasn’t his.
Maddox and Lawson flanked him, rifles up, sweeping the room.
Four others fanned out behind them, securing corners.
Declan grabbed my throat, and pressed a knife against my skin until a thin line of blood trickled down my neck. “Stay back,” he called, “or I open her up right here.”
Jagger stopped a few feet away, and his eyes met mine for half a second—fierce and burning and promising—and then shifted to Declan. “Let her go,” he said quietly.
Declan laughed again. “That’s not happening, Thatcher.”
Jagger didn’t answer with words; he simply raised his rifle in one smooth motion. Declan fired first, though, a quick, desperate shot from the hip, and the crack of the gunshot echoed through the room as the round slammed into Jagger’s chest.
I finally screamed.
For one horrifying second I thought he was going to collapse right there in front of me. The impact knocked him back a step, and a rough grunt left his mouth . . . but he didn’t fall. He barely even slowed.
Through the haze of smoke I saw the hard outline beneath his shirt, and my mind scrambled to catch up. A vest. He had to be wearing a bulletproof vest.
Before Declan could fire again, Jagger squeezed the trigger. The shot cracked once, and Declan’s gun flew from his hand and skidded across the floor. Declan hissed in pain but still kept the knife pressed to my throat with his other hand.
Jagger crossed the distance in two strides and grabbed Declan by the collar. One hard yank pulled him off me. Maddox was there instantly, crouching beside me as he sliced through the zip ties at my wrists and ankles.
The moment the last one snapped free, my arms dropped uselessly to my sides. Pins and needles exploded through my hands as blood rushed back into them, and when I tried to stand, my legs buckled beneath me.
Maddox swore under his breath and caught me before I could hit the floor. Then he scooped me up in one easy motion, one arm braced behind my back and the other under my knees as he pulled me against his chest.
“Easy,” he muttered.
My limbs felt like they didn’t belong to me yet, trembling uncontrollably as he carried me away from the chair while the rest of the team secured the room.
I watched over Maddox’s shoulder as Jagger slammed Declan against the wall hard enough that the impact echoed in my ears.
The back of Declan’s head struck the concrete with a sickening crack.
Declan tried to swing at him with his good hand, but Jagger caught the motion easily, twisting his wrist until the bone snapped. Declan screamed.
Jagger pulled a black, serrated knife from his belt with his other hand, and he immediately drove it forward.
The first strike punched through Declan’s throat, and arterial spray jetted out in a bright red arc that painted Jagger’s face and chest. Blood flecked his cheeks, clung to his eyelashes, and dripped from his jaw .
. . and he didn’t even pause. The second strike went into Declan’s chest, the sternum cracking under the serrated edge as blood bloomed across Declan’s shirt and soaked Jagger’s sleeves in seconds.
The third strike opened Declan’s stomach.
The knife sank to the hilt, and Jagger twisted it once before yanking it free in a gush of red that splattered across him.
Each thrust was brutal until Declan’s screams dissolved into wet gurgles, then bubbling gasps, and then silence. But Jagger didn’t stop. He kept stabbing long after Declan’s legs gave out and his weight hung uselessly against the wall.
When Jagger finally stepped back, Declan’s ruined body collapsed to the floor in a heap.
The knife was still dripping in Jagger’s hand as he stared down at the corpse, his chest rising and falling in heavy, uneven breaths. Then he turned and looked at me.
Our eyes met across the smoke-hazed room.
For one flickering moment, something raw and unguarded flashed in his gaze—wariness, almost fear.
Like he was terrified of what he’d find when he finally reached me.
Like he thought I might flinch away from him now, covered in blood and violence, the monster he’d always kept hidden finally laid bare.
Then that wariness hardened.
His jaw locked, and his eyes darkened as the softness vanished like it had never existed.
He stalked forward with long, purposeful strides that ate up the distance between us.
Maddox still had one arm around my waist, steadying me, but Jagger didn’t slow.
He reached us in three steps, grabbed my upper arms, and ripped me out of Maddox’s hold with enough force that I stumbled forward into his chest.
His mouth crashed down on mine, hard and desperate. It tasted of blood and smoke and something fiercer—something that felt like possession and relief and terror all at once.
“You’re not fucking leaving me,” he growled against my lips in a shredded voice. “You hear me? Never.”
I should have pushed him away. I should have recoiled from the blood on his skin, the metallic tang in his kiss, and the way his hands shook even as they gripped me like I might vanish if he let go.
But I didn’t . . . I kissed him back.
My fingers curled into his blood-soaked shirt, fisting the fabric so hard my knuckles ached. My body pressed closer without conscious thought, molding to the hard planes of his chest, and the frantic beat of his heart. Tears burned behind my eyes, but I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t.
Because even now—even covered in death, even shaking with rage and fear—he was still Jagger.
Still mine.
And somehow, in the middle of all this horror, I didn’t want to leave him.
Not even a little.
I kissed him deeper, hungrier, like I could pour everything I felt into his mouth instead of saying it out loud. His hands slid up my back, one tangling in my hair, the other pressing between my shoulder blades and holding me so tight I could barely breathe.
When he finally pulled back, just enough to rest his forehead against mine, his breath came in strangled bursts. “I love you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I love you so fucking much.”
I swallowed hard, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I love you, too,” I breathed. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
He exhaled like the words had punched the air out of him, and then he kissed me again, slower this time, softer, trying to memorize the shape of my mouth.
And in that moment, with blood still wet on his skin and the smell of smoke and death thick around us—I understood something with terrifying clarity.
I was never leaving him.
Not now. Not later. Not ever.
Not even if loving him ruined me.
Despite who he was, despite everything, I loved him.
I guess I’d have to settle with being the cautionary tale I’d always feared after all.