Chapter 43
Grace
My stomach is in knots as I stand in the small bathroom in the back of the Butterfly Effect. We’re due to open the doors in ten minutes, and there’s already a line down the sidewalk. How is this my real life?
I’m sad that Lili isn’t here. I really hoped she would be, but I understand why she’s taking some time.
I touch up my lipstick, smooth my hands down the purple dress I’m wearing, and step out of the bathroom.
Then I drop my phone.
“Lili!”
She’s standing there in front of Victor with a tender smile on her face as she opens her arms.
“Come here, lover,” she whispers as I run toward her, not bothering to pick up the phone.
I wrap my arms around her, and lay my head on her shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Vic called and said you really wanted me here, so I got on a plane.”
“Are you staying?” I ask tentatively. Then I stop myself and look at her. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that yet.”
Lili smiles and kisses my forehead. “I want to. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
That’s good enough for me.
“It’s time, sweetheart,” Victor says. “Are your employees ready to go?”
I nod. “Yes, Sir. We went over everything one more time before I came back here to breath.” I throw my arms around him after Lili lets me go. “Thank you so much for getting her here. It means so much to have both of you with me for this.”
I go into the store proper, and stand behind the table I’ve set up for being able to sign my own books.
It feels a little self-indulgent to be signing my own books on opening day, but everyone insisted it was fine.
I pick up the top copy of my book, and thumb through the pages one more time.
It’s still so hard to believe that I wrote and published this, and I did it almost entirely on my own.
Lili stands in front of the table and waits for the door to be unlocked. As people stream in, and staff directs them to where they want to be, Lili picks up a book and then reaches into a small bag and pulls out a gift wrapped box. “I’d like your first signed copy please,” she tells me.
I start to pick up a pen from the table, but she stops me. “Open the gift first.”
I pull off the wrapping paper and open the small, rectangular box. Inside is a beautiful silver pen with delicate butterflies on the clip. I lift it out and read the inscription.
Your words = The Butterfly Effect
“Lili, it’s gorgeous,” I whisper.
“It felt appropriate.”
I twist the pen so the tip appears, and open it to the page I plan to sign. My eyes start to well with tears as I write a note to her then close it and hand it back. “Read it later,” I say, trying to keep my composure.
Lili seems to sense that I don’t want to fall apart, so she nods and steps out of the way.
For the next two hours, I sign books and chat with readers. Trinity and her team did such a wonderful job publicizing not only the bookstore, but the book I wrote and published. But I’m still shocked by the number of customers coming through the doors.
Everyone comments on how cozy and comfortable the shop is, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m really living my dream.
Before a catered buffet of finger foods arrives, I use the loudspeaker system to give a brief speech thanking everyone for coming, and then the conversation resumes.
Near the end of the shift, I’ve made three times what I projected to earn on day one, and I’m thrilled with the outcome.
There are only a handful of customers left in the shop when the door opens again, the bell above it tinkling to announce the arrival of another customer.
“I’ll be right with you,” I say as I finish ringing up a woman and her teenage daughter who just bought an entire series of spicy romance to read together.
“Take your time, Gracie. I’m not going anywhere until I get what I came for.”
The sound of the familiar voice sends a chill down my spine. I swallow and smile at the customer in front of me as I hand her the receipt.
“I’m not sure we have what you’re looking for in stock,” I say, glancing around looking for Victor, Lili, or one of the security guards. But they all seem to have disappeared into the back room. I consider screaming, but part of me wants to hear what she has to say.
My phone is face up on the sales counter though, so I tap Victor’s name in the contacts in case I need to call him.
Kara flips the lock on the door behind the mother and daughter, then slowly strolls toward me.
It’s then that I notice the gun.
“Kara, what are you doing?” I ask, tapping the call icon next to Victor’s name, praying she doesn’t notice.
“Making you pay for taking my Sampson away from me.”
“I didn’t make him kill himself, Kara. That was a choice he made for himself. I’m really sorry he mentioned me in that note. That was a cruel thing to do to you, but I promise I didn’t have anything to do with his death.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Kara shouts. I glance down at the phone as subtly as I can to see if Victor has answered.
“This is the gun he did it with, you know that?”
“Police gave it back to me after the investigation because it was registered in my name, but it was always Sampson’s.”
I exhale slowly, waiting for someone, anyone to burst through the door and put a stop to this madness.
“Kara, that’s terrible. I’m really sorry.”
“I said shut the fuck up,” she snaps again, brandishing the weapon. “Your bookstore is going to be a short lived success considering that you won’t be alive tomorrow to run it.”
Fuck. She plans to kill me for real. Where the fuck is Victor?
Victor
My fists clench with rage as I listen quietly to the call Grace started. I’m typing texts to Owen, Luke, Matteo, and Samuel Carter who is still in town visiting Hunter, letting them know I need backup.
I tell Lili to stay put in the back room, along with the lone employee still on the clock.
Lili tries to argue, and my hand finds her throat. “Now is not the time to argue with me, Spitfire. Grace is in danger. Sit your ass down and stay put, or you’ll regret it when this is all over.”
That seems to silence her protests, and she drops onto a pallet of books that haven’t been put on the shelves yet.
When I hear Kara say that Grace won’t be alive tomorrow, I curse under my breath. This is going down now, whether I have backup or not.
I burst into the shop with my own weapon drawn and aimed directly at Kara.
“Drop the fucking gun,” I snarl as I stalk toward her, not bothering to hide my rage.
“Victor, be careful,” Grace says in a high pitched voice. “That’s the gun Sampson used on himself. I think she’s serious.”
Shit. This girl really is unhinged isn’t she?
I keep the weapon trained on Kara, but I don’t threaten her any further. Instead, I inch closer, keeping an eye on her body language.
I’ve startled her, which is going to work to my advantage.
When I’m behind the counter, I shove Grace behind me. “Go in the back,” I order, keeping the gun trained on Kara so she knows her life is over if she pulls her own trigger.
Grace is still for a minute before she obeys. When Kara and I are alone, I step back slightly.
“You have two choices.”
“How do you figure?” she asks, her voice deceptively calm despite her trembling hand.
“You can hand me the gun and wait for the police, or I can shoot you in the head and call it an act of self defense.”
She lets out a sharp laugh and raises her own weapon higher. Before she can do anything with it, glass breaking behind her causes her to drop her hand. I grab her wrist and force her to let go of the gun as Matteo and Luke burst through the door they broke down.
“Great. We’ve been open one day and already we have to replace a window,” I say sarcastically as I tuck Kara’s gun in my waistband and capture both of her wrists behind her back.
“Are the cops on their way?” Luke asks.
I nod. “Should be here any minute now.”
Grace comes running out and looks around. “What the hell happened?”
“Luke broke your door,” I say with a wink as Kara tries to wrestle away from me.
Lili is only a few seconds behind Grace and looks like she’s going to drag her back to safety, which makes me smile.
“Well, that was a hell of a way to end your first day, lover.”
Grace lets out a nervous laugh. “Seriously. How far away are the cops?”
As if on cue, sirens fill the parking lot, and Matteo steps into spokesman mode to explain what went down. Luke has Owen on the phone so that he can tell the officers the evidence we have against Kara.
“Wish all of our cases came with this much evidence,” one of the officers mutters as he secures Kara with handcuffs. He launches into reading her rights and then escorts her out the broken door.
By the time the last officer takes our statements and Matteo finishes arranging for someone to board up the broken door until morning, the adrenaline that’s been running my blood for the better part of an hour has nowhere left to go.
I find Grace and Lili in the back room, sitting on the pallet of unshelved books, Grace’s head on Lili’s shoulder and Lili’s arms wrapped tight around her.
“Hey.” My voice scrapes on the way out.
Grace looks up, and the relief on her face nearly buckles my knees. “She’s really gone? For good?”
“She’s not walking away from this one, sweetheart. Not with a signed confession’s worth of evidence sitting in Owen’s files.”
Grace lets out a shaky breath and buries her face back against Lili’s shoulder. Lili meets my eyes over the top of her head, and she’s carrying the same thing I am. Fear, still working its way out of our systems. Relief chasing right behind it.
“Take us home, Vic,” Lili says quietly. “All of us.”
I don’t argue.
The house is dark and quiet when we get there, and none of us bother with the lights. Grace is the first one to break, spinning to face me the second the door shuts, her hands fisting in my shirt hard enough to stretch the seams.
“I was so fucking scared,” she whispers.
“I know, butterfly.” I cup her face in both hands. “I’ve got you. Both of you.”
Lili steps up behind Grace, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck, and I watch the shudder that runs through Grace’s whole body.
“Bedroom. Now.”
They go without argument. They need this as badly as I do.
By the time I follow them in, Grace already has her dress half off, and Lili’s fingers are working the zipper the rest of the way down her spine.
I strip out of my shirt and watch them for a moment, two women I nearly lost tonight in two very different ways, both of them alive, both of them watching me.
“On the bed. Both of you.”
They comply, Grace on her back and Lili beside her, already reaching for each other the way they do when the day has been too much.
I climb over Grace first, kissing a line down her throat, her collarbone, the curve of her breast. “You did so well today,” I murmur against her skin. “My brave, brilliant girl, running her own shop and holding a killer off with nothing but her voice until I got there.”
“I was terrified,” she admits, arching under my mouth.
“Terrified and magnificent. Both things can be true.”
I slide two fingers into her pussy, and she’s already soaked, already trembling from adrenaline that hasn’t finished leaving her body.
Lili shifts down the bed and takes Grace’s mouth in a kiss that has her moaning into it, and I take my time working Grace open while I watch the two of them lose themselves in each other.
“Vic.” Grace’s voice breaks around my name. “Please.”
I don’t make her wait tonight. Not after everything.
I settle between her thighs and push my cock into her in one slow, deep stroke that has both of us groaning. Lili straddles Grace’s face, and the sound Grace makes against her, muffled and desperate, goes straight to my spine.
“Fuck, look at you both.” I set a rhythm, one hand gripping Grace’s hip hard enough to bruise, the other reaching up to fist in Lili’s hair and guide her exactly where I want her rocking. “Two of the strongest women I’ve ever known, and you’re both mine.”
Lili’s head falls back, and she rides Grace’s mouth with a moan that fills the room, her hand finding mine where it’s still tangled in her hair.
I feel Grace start to shake beneath me, her whole body coiling tight, and I lean down to bite the curve of her shoulder, right where I know it’ll push her over.
“Come for me, sweetheart. Let me feel it.”
She does, crying out against Lili, and the sound drags Lili over seconds behind her. They shudder through it together. I keep moving inside Grace until my own release catches up to me, hard enough that I have to brace a hand on the headboard to keep from crushing either of them.
I collapse to the side, and for a long moment, none of us say anything. Just the sound of three people breathing, slower and slower, until none of us are afraid anymore.
“We’re safe,” Lili says eventually, more statement than question, her fingers finding mine over Grace’s stomach.
“We’re safe,” I agree.
Grace turns her head to look at both of us, tears and laughter tangled up in her voice when she finally speaks. “I signed my first book and had a gun pointed at me, all in the same twelve hours. And I got both of you back. I think I need a vacation.”
“Give it a few months,” I tell her, kissing her temple. “I know exactly where I’m taking you.”
She doesn’t know I mean that literally. Not yet.