Chapter 24
24
The crack of wood splintering was immediately followed by the pounding of footsteps and shouts from a dozen people pointing flashlights and guns at Nina.
“Freeze! Hands up. Drop the gun!”
Nina took a step back and let the gun fall to the floor. Hands grabbed her, shoving her to the wall. A man pressed against her back, his hands sliding over her body.
Panic gripped her throat. Tears filled her gaze. She wanted to fight, to push back against the man feeling her up, but she couldn’t. She was done. She might as well be the one with a bullet in her, dead on the floor.
“What the hell happened here?”
Nina knew that voice. “Lorelei?”
“Nina. What’s going on? Let her go,” Lorelei commanded.
“She’s clean, ma’am,” the man said, letting Nina up. “No more weapons.”
Nina sagged with relief, falling to her knees.
“Nina, what happened? Why did you come here?”
“Monty said you couldn’t come until tomorrow. I didn’t want her to get away.”
Lorelei’s gaze landed on Gwendolyn and hung there.
Nina watched the other woman, knowing Lorelei would feel the same about Gwendolyn being dead. Relieved. At peace. Safe.
“Did you kill her?” Lorelei asked.
Nina nodded. “I did.” Nina stood, using the wall for support. She walked to Lorelei with her hands together. “I know you have to arrest me.”
Lorelei looked around the room, and Nina remembered the rest of the night.
“Monty. Zeke! They were shot. They need help.” Nina tried to rush to them, but she was stopped. “No. Please. Let me see them!”
“I’m fine, Nina,” Monty said. “Barely grazed me.”
“You need to go to hospital,” the woman with Monty said. “Stitches at least.”
“I’m good.”
“You’re going to the hospital,” Lorelei said. “No choice. How’s Zeke?”
“In and out of consciousness, ma’am.”
“Where’s the ambulance?” Lorelei barked.
“Here!” Two men rushed in, one Nina recognized.
“Holden?”
Holden stopped and looked at Nina, then nodded to Lorelei and hurried to Zeke.
Lorelei stepped up next to Nina. “Was this self-defense?”
Nina nodded. “Monty and I came. I wanted to come. She knew we were here. Fernando knocked Monty out and tied him up. She… We talked. She wanted me to leave with her or she was going to kill Monty.”
“Obviously, things changed.”
Nina nodded and stared at Holden as he worked on Zeke. The rip of bandages seemed loud in the otherwise quiet house. The tinge of blood in the air was bigger than everything else.
“Zeke saved me. I don’t know how he knew we were here, but he wouldn’t let her take me. Fernando shot Monty, Zeke shot Fernando, then Gwendolyn tried to shoot me. Zeke jumped in front of her bullet, and I shot her.”
“She still had a gun on you?”
“Yes.”
Lorelei drew a breath as Zeke was lifted onto a stretcher. He groaned, then cursed when he was moved.
“Zeke!”
“Nina.” Zeke swore again.
“I’m coming.”
“You’re under arrest,” a man said.
“She can go,” Lorelei said. “She’s not going to go anywhere else. Montgomery will be in the next ambulance. Call the ME for the other two.”
“But—”
“I’m in charge. She can go. You’re welcome to follow in your car and stay with her, but Captain Patrick is aware of the situation and he will be there to meet the ambulance.”
“Captain Patrick?” the officer asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh. Okay.” The officer backed off.
“Go ahead, Nina.” Lorelei pointed for Nina to leave behind Zeke, and Nina didn’t hesitate to follow.
“Thank you,” she said as she raced out the door, calling to Holden to wait for her.
Holden rode in the back of the ambulance with her, working on Zeke the whole time.
A mask was over his face, giving him oxygen. Blood oozed through the bandage on his side. His shirt was gone, cut off and left behind in the house. His skin had a red tint to it from all the blood that spilled when Gwendolyn shot him.
Nina sat still and tried not to cry.
Zeke reached for her hand.
“Can I touch him?” Nina asked.
“Yeah, just don’t pull any wires or bandages off,” Holden said.
Nina nodded and grabbed Zeke’s hand. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I couldn’t let her kill you. When Mont texted me and said you were going to confront her, I couldn’t let you go alone. I couldn’t risk something happening to you and never seeing you again. And when she pulled that trigger, saving you was all that mattered.”
“But you might die.”
“I’d die a thousand times to save your life,” Zeke said.
“Don’t say things like that.”
Zeke pulled the mask off his face and squeezed her hand. “I love you, Nina Rose. Not like a sister. Not like a friend. I’m in love with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And if that doesn’t last longer than this ambulance ride, I’m happy you’re here. I love you, Nina.”
“Zeke,” she breathed. Tears poured down her cheeks. She smiled at him and kissed his hand. “I?—”
The machine behind Zeke’s head screeched. One thing beeped loudly, then another.
Nina stared at the machines for a second, then looked down at Zeke. “Zeke!”
His head fell back on the bed, mouth open. His eyes were closed, his hand limp in hers.
“Zeke!”
“Nina, sit back. Let go of his hand. I need to shock him.” Holden pushed her out of the way, breaking her connection to him.
Nina put her hands over her face. She couldn’t watch him die, but she couldn’t hide herself from it.
Holden put the mask back over Zeke’s face, then grabbed a package of something else from a cabinet next to him. He unwrapped it, letting the garbage fly. He stuck one pad to Zeke’s upper chest, the other on his opposite side. Holden pressed a button on a machine and snapped cords onto the pads.
“Clear!” Holden called. He pushed a button, and Zeke’s body jerked.
“What are you doing to him?” Nina screamed, trying to grab for Zeke.
“I’m saving him, Nina. This machine is going to start his heart again.”
“His heart’s not beating?”
Holden shook his head. “Clear.” He checked that Nina wasn’t touching Zeke, then pressed the button again.
The screeching noises stopped and a rhythmic beeping started up again.
“He’s back. But I need to intubate him. I’m going to put a tube down his throat so he doesn’t have to work so hard to breathe. The hospital knows we’re coming. They’re going to take him right back into surgery.”
“Surgery?”
Holden nodded and positioned himself at Zeke’s head. A few seconds later, a tube stuck out from Zeke’s mouth. Holden attached a hose to it and squeezed the balloon on the other end.
The ambulance stopped, and the doors opened. People asked questions, and Holden answered all of them, racing with the people in scrubs.
Nina followed behind them until she heard her name.
“Nina!”
Nina glanced back and saw Frannie chasing after her.
“Nina, wait!”
“They’re taking him away,” Nina called.
Frannie didn’t stop, just hurried after Nina until someone stepped in Nina’s way.
“We are taking him to the OR. As soon as we can, we will let you know how he’s doing, but you can’t come past here,” a young man said, pointing to the red line on the floor.
Nina read HOSPITAL PERSONNEL ONLY on the floor and stopped.
“I’ll be with her. We all will be, Doctor. Thank you,” Frannie said, putting her arm around Nina and holding her up while the doors slid closed in front of her, and Zeke disappeared.
“He saved me,” Nina breathed.
“And now they’re going to save him. Let’s go back to the waiting room, Nina. Come on.”
Nina nodded and let Frannie guide her away from the door. Nina couldn’t have found her way back if someone paid her, but Frannie didn’t hesitate.
The waiting room was full. The crowd made Nina stop until she realized she recognized most of the faces.
“Lorelei called Marcus, and we all came,” Frannie said.
“Everyone?” Nina asked.
Frannie nodded and moved Nina into the center of the room. Raina moved her handbag from the seat next to her and reached for Nina. Karli sat on Nina’s other side. Stacey and Frannie sat across from her, with Jessica and Dawn next to them. Edie sat next to Raina.
The rest of the room pressed in around them. The men from Rose were all there. Kyra and Liam sat nearby with another group of men.
“Mackenzie is at work. She got the nine-one-one call and sent Holden to you. Lorelei called Marcus, and we started calling everyone else,” Frannie said. “Everyone is here for you and Zeke.”
Nina burst into tears, her fear and gratitude blending together. “Thank you.”
“Montgomery should be here any second, but he’s refusing treatment. Saying he’s fine,” Frannie said. “Lorelei is keeping me updated on everything. Including what she knows about what happened.”
Nina sucked in a breath. She met Frannie’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“What in the world for?”
“I know you cared about her.”
Frannie shook her head and dropped to her knees in front of Nina. “The woman I thought I knew was a fabrication. She didn’t exist. My friend, Gwennie, wasn’t the real person. Gwendolyn Lennox was cruel and evil and hurt so many people. I’m sorry you had to go through what you did. I’m sorry you had to pull that trigger.”
“She said she was proud of me,” Nina admitted.
“For what?” Frannie asked.
Nina looked into Frannie’s eyes. “For shooting her. Said I’m just like my father and brother and her. That I’m a killer like she always knew I would be.”
“Even in her last moments, she manipulated you. She lied to you and tried to control you. None of that is true,” Frannie said.
“It is, though. I did kill her. I shot her. She’s dead because of me.”
“She’s dead because of herself. Because she tried to kill all three of you tonight, and you were defending yourself. You didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done in the same situation.”
All the women nodded in agreement.
“But—”
“I’ve done it,” Raina said. “I would do it again.”
“I wanted to,” Stacey confessed. “I thought about it so many times.”
“Me, too,” Karli and Jessica said together.
“It’s not easy to take a life. To feel responsible for ending someone’s time on earth. But you didn’t get to that point the same way Gwendolyn did. You didn’t kill her for fun.” Frannie squeezed Nina’s hand.
“I wanted her dead. I thought about it for a long time. The night I left…” Nina rubbed her throat. “I would have killed her that night if I’d had the chance.”
“But you didn’t. Even if you had, she wasn’t a good person. The things you’ve been through…” Stacey shook her head. “You are strong, Nina. So strong. For getting away, for building a life with Zeke, for facing Gwendolyn again. Don’t let her take anything else from you.”
“Zeke,” Nina whispered. “She might have taken him.”
“The doctors are going to do everything possible to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Raina rubbed Nina’s back and hugged her side.
“He said he loved me,” Nina confessed.
The women all smiled and congratulated her.
“Then he stopped breathing. I didn’t have a chance to say it back. He just…”
“You will tell him as soon as he wakes up,” Frannie said. “And he’s going to wake up. We are sending him all the positive energy and prayers we have. Everyone is.”
Nina looked around the room at all the people waiting for news about Zeke. Heads were bowed in prayer. Hands clasped together in groups. Soft voices spoke to each other.
Love filled her for all the people in the room. People she didn’t know, but who showed up for the man she loved. People who were there for them, no matter what.
She looked at the women around her, and she knew they were the same. The Curvy Vigilantes had supported her since they met. They’d welcomed her in and gotten to know her and fought right along with her, even if they didn’t all know each other the whole time.
Nina reached for Raina and Karli’s hands. Both women held her hand tightly and reached to hold another woman’s hand. They circled around Nina, giving her their strength.
For the first time since the gun went off, Nina believed Zeke would be okay. She believed everything would be okay. Because Gwendolyn was dead, and she would never hurt anyone else again. And Nina was not alone. She had her brother, and Zeke, and her new friends.
“Is it Zeke?” Monty asked, his voice low and scared.
“You’re here,” Nina said, jumping up and rushing to Monty.
“Is he dead?” Monty hugged her tight, wincing when she squeezed back.
“What? Why would you say that?” Nina asked.
“You’re all sitting here and holding hands. You’re crying. What am I supposed to think?”
“We haven’t heard,” Frannie answered, joining Nina and Monty. “Come sit. Did you get stitches?”
“I’m fine,” Monty said, brushing off Frannie’s concern. “I don’t want to miss any updates on Zeke.”
“I’ll be right back,” Dawn said, walking to the desk.
“We haven’t heard anything,” Frannie said. “They took him back to surgery as soon as we got here.”
“Fuck,” Monty breathed, rocking back on his heels and pinching the bridge of his nose. “He can’t die. He fucking can’t.”
“The doctors are going to do everything possible,” Stacey said.
Monty nodded, but he didn’t take his hand away from his face.
Nina leaned her head on Monty’s good shoulder.
“I’m going to check out your arm right here,” Dawn said, joining the group again. “Since basically everyone here is for Zeke, I asked them to give me a stitch kit.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Monty asked.
“I’m a nurse. I worked in a nursing home, but I can stitch up a stubborn man’s arm.” Dawn pursed her lips at Monty and raised one eyebrow.
Monty breathed and nodded, moving to the side of the waiting room where Dawn directed him.
Nina hovered nearby, not willing to go far from her brother. They both loved Zeke, and losing him would destroy Monty as much as it would destroy Nina.
Dawn spoke softly to Monty while she worked. First an injection that made him wince, then a minute of waiting while she poked around and looked at the wound.
It wasn’t bad, like he said, but Nina was happy he was letting Dawn take care of it. His face was already bruising, but bruises would heal.
Dawn stitched Monty’s arm up quickly, giving him eight stitches before she gently pressed a bandage over the wound and said he was good.
Monty sat in a chair and rested his head against the wall. The Rose Protection Agency team surrounded Monty, keeping his spirits up and making him laugh with stories about Zeke.
Nina walked away, unable to think about all the time she missed and all the things they would never do if he didn’t make it. She found herself in front of a vending machine, staring at the options without seeing any of them.
“Anything look good?” Frannie asked.
Nina jumped, smiling at Frannie and shaking her head. “I keep seeing her.”
“Gwennie? Gwendolyn?”
Nina nodded. “She was so happy when I shot her. Am I like her?”
“No,” Frannie turned Nina to face her, hands on both shoulders. “You are nothing like her. I know I don’t know you well, but I know that. You are kind, Nina. You care about people. You were willing to sacrifice yourself for your brother and Zeke. Your first instinct when you heard some of the women were out was to go see them. She would never have done any of that.”
“They were afraid of me. They said I was just like her, too.”
“We do whatever we have to do to survive. Sometimes those things don’t make sense to anyone else. Sometimes they don’t even make sense to us. Everything that happened when you were with her was survival.”
“I still killed her.”
“And the fact that you’re worried that you’re a bad person tells me you’re not. She never questioned it. She would kill without remorse. Good people do bad things and regret them. Bad people do bad things and then do more.”
Nina inhaled a sharp breath and nodded.
“You have to forgive yourself for all of it, Nina. It’s not easy, but the only one you have to forgive is yourself. I know you cared about her. I know what you went through today couldn’t have been easy. But I also know you had no choice. Stacey can help with therapy, if you want, or we can help you find someone else, but you need to forgive yourself. And know you are nothing like her.”
“Thank you, Frannie.”
Frannie nodded. She slid two dollars into the machine and punched a few buttons, waiting as two candy bars dropped to the bottom. She offered one to Nina.
Nina smiled and took it, letting Frannie lead her back to the waiting room.
They sat and opened the candy just as the door opened from the operating room.
“Zeke Donovan’s family?” the man asked.
Everyone in the room stood.
The doctor blanched. “All of you?”
“I’m his brother,” Monty said, stepping forward. “All these people are loved ones here to find out how he is.”
“We should speak in private,” the doctor said.
Monty shook his head and reached for Nina’s hand.
Nina looked up at the doctor. “I’m going to marry Zeke. And all these people care about him. Tell us how he is. Is he alive?”