Chapter Fifteen. Ember #2
He doesn’t seem to need a response from me though. Nodding and giving me a sympathetic glance, he unlocks the cage door and steps inside. Reaching into his front suit pocket, he removes a knife. A second later, the blade flicks free.
“Sorry about this, but we have a plane to catch, and I can’t afford any trouble out of you.
” Bending down, he cuffs my upper arm with the hand free of the knife, and helps me to my feet, steadying me when I pretend to stumble.
Out of my peripheral vision, Michelle glares at us, her hands clenching and releasing in a spasmodic rhythm.
While he’s focused on playing the gentleman, I finger the cap on the syringe off and hold it, needle down, between my fingers, hidden at my side.
“If you come quietly, I won’t have to hurt you again,” he says, guiding me from the cell. “I have clothes for you to—fuck!”
He screams, hand clutching his neck where the syringe protrudes from it. Eyes wide, he snatches it free—oh, but it’s much too late for that. I back away, satisfaction and grim delight burning through me as he falls to his knees, limbs jerking, body convulsing.
“Bitch, what did you do?” Michelle cries, running to her son and falling to her knees beside his body.
She attempts to turn him over, yelling his name, but his eyes roll into the back of his head and he goes unnaturally still.
“What did you do?” she screams again, running her hands over Kareem’s body.
“Botulism toxin. Well, my altered form of it. Instead of hours or days, he’s experiencing paralysis of his body now, in seconds.
And respiratory failure won’t be too long now.
Basically, he’s suffocating in his own body.
But he can still hear you for the next couple of minutes.
So, Kareem”—I tilt my head even though he can’t move to see me—“bye, bitch.”
The labored rattle of his breath signals his imminent death, and I don’t turn to run for the door. I don’t try to escape. I should, but I’m too hungry to witness the death throes, his final, pitiful moments on this earth. Then I want to send his dirty-ass cunt of a mother after him.
Slowly backpedaling, I split my attention between them and searching the room for any item I can use as a weapon.
“I’m going to kill you,” Michelle thickly whispers, running a hand over Kareem’s back. “I’m going to do what I should’ve done the moment your father introduced your ass to me. Put you down like the little whore you are.”
Before I can charge her, Michelle jumps to her feet and darts across the short distance to the credenza against the wall. She snatches open a drawer and pulls a gun out, pointing it at me.
Fuck.
I didn’t think about her having a weapon.
Fear should prickle my skin, flood my nervous system. But it doesn’t. A calm descends on me—calm, and a resolve that this may be it but she won’t be able to get away with murder. Asad won’t let her. And that is more than enough for me.
Asad.
A wave of grief hits me. Grief and regret. Of what could’ve been. Of things left unsaid. Of fears not conquered.
Of love not professed.
“Put it down, Michelle,” the low, midnight voice comes from behind me, and I almost sink to the floor.
Not with relief. Not all of relief. There’s joy. There’s fierce triumph.
There’s an even fiercer, obsessive, all-consuming love.
Asad came for me.
He fucking came for me.
“Prince.” The gun trembles slightly in Michelle’s hand as she rushes toward me.
Cursing, Asad moves at the same time, but she grabs my shoulder and spins me around, jerking me in front of her.
“Wha-what’re you doing here?” Not waiting for his reply, she retreats, tugging me with her.
“She killed your brother, Prince. I have to shoot her. For him. She can’t live, and she killed my baby. ”
“Cut the shit,” Prince growls, moving farther into the room, his own weapon trained on her.
“I know everything. Next time, choose a better partner than my fuckboy brother. He kept everything on his computer—every email, transaction, text. Once I knew where to look, it was all right there. Including the messages between you two.” He shakes his head, and underneath the rage burning in his molten gaze, pain lurks there.
A hurt that causes a corresponding ache in my chest. This is his mother, and his brother lies dead on the floor.
At my hands. “Xavier mentioned family being involved. But I swear, even with how you did my father, I for some reason didn’t conceive you’d do me the same way.
So much for that maternal instinct. It’s over, Michelle.
You’re not walking out of here. Let Ember go. ”
“Ember. Fucking Ember,” she snarls in my ear, her fingernails digging into my bare shoulder.
Hate and fear jumble together. Hatred for this woman who harms everything she touches.
Including her sons. And fear because she’s about to steal one more thing from me.
My future. “That’s all you care about. All you’ve ever cared about.
You think I didn’t notice how you were with her when you were younger?
It’s how I kept you in line. As long as she was around and under my thumb, so were you.
But she’s not your mother, I am. I should have your loyalty.
Your love. Fuck her. Fuck her mother. And fuck you if—”
A shot rings out, and the heat of the bullet sears me. Behind me, Michelle stiffens, her grip reflexively tightening on me, but I jerk away in time to see her body tumble to the floor. A neat bullet hole pierces her forehead, and she stares up at me, sightless, lifeless.
I whip around, and Asad lowers his Glock, his gray gaze fixed on me. Scanning over me.
“I’m fine,” I rasp.
“C’mere.”
“You came for me,” I whisper.
“C’mere, Ember.”
“You chose me.”
His hard expression softens. “Come here, ma.”
On a broken cry, I’m moving before I acknowledge it, and I’m flying across the room. I’m running to my safety. My protector. My home.
Before I reach him, Asad crashes into me, his arms closing around me so tight, my ribs faintly protest, but I shut that down because this is what I need. How I need to be held by him. If I could, I’d crawl inside his skin and pay rent to stay.
He’s mine. Because I’ve chosen him, too.
“I’ll always come for you, Ember. Love won’t let me do anything else.”
“You love me?” I ask, cupping his face, sweeping my thumbs over his stark cheekbones. Aside from Sam and my mother, no one has loved me. Has ever said those words to me.
He shakes his head, gently cradling the back of mine. Making a soft, soothing sound when I wince at the bump there.
“To be a genius, sometimes I question your IQ. Yeah, baby girl, I love you.” He captures my mouth in a filthy kiss that’s all tongue, teeth, and moans. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s pledging his love for me over his mother’s and brother’s dead bodies, and shit, neither do I. “Let me hear it.”
I don’t need to ask what he means, nor do I make him wait.
“I love you, Asad Prince.”