Chapter 7 #2
She shouldn’t be out there. Dammit, she didn’t have on any shoes, either. His shirt. Her coat. Nothing else. The snow swirled around her as she struggled toward him. Light from the house poured down on her. The illumination made her a perfect target.
The shooter was still somewhere out there. In the snow. In the darkness. Armed. Waiting. “Go back!” Victor bellowed at Melody.
She didn’t. If anything, she seemed to surge toward him with even more determination.
Dammit. He thundered toward her, plowing through the snow. It slapped into his face and his head. Not soft snow. More like ice. Brittle. Hard.
She reached out for him.
Yeah, screw that.
He lifted her into his arms. His back was a damn target now, but there was nothing he could do about that fact.
He had to get her into the house. Hadn’t he told the woman to stay put?
He distinctly remembered giving that flat order.
A simple enough order to follow. You just stayed the hell inside when there was a shooter and a snowstorm happening in the darkness beyond your door.
But she hadn’t stayed. And he hadn’t found the shooter. And the rage within him twisted even more when he got back to the house and saw the front door hanging wide open and the eyes peering anxiously out at him.
Sonofabitch.
He stomped inside, still carrying Melody. Still holding the gun. He kicked the door shut.
“What in the hell is happening?” Dario demanded. He wore a black robe. Freaking slippers. His hair seemed a little damp.
“Why are you both running around outside?” Olivia followed up Dario’s question. Also wearing a robe. Not black. Peach. Silky. And matching peach slippers.
“Did I hear fireworks?” Sebastian wanted to know. He hunched near the staircase. One hand gripped a black cane. His black pajamas were monogrammed with a big S, J, and M. Sebastian James Mage.
“No, sir.” Hatterson hovered near Sebastian. No monogrammed pajamas for him. Instead, he wore sweatpants. A sweatshirt. Tennis shoes. “Don’t think it was fireworks at all.” He shared a hard look with Victor. “Saw the broken glass in the study.” A pause. “Did you get him?”
No. “Lost his trail.”
Melody struggled in his arms.
“Not the fuck now,” he rasped at her.
“You’ve been shot!” Melody argued right back at him. “You’re bleeding everywhere. So, yes, the fuck now. Put me down and let me help you!”
And there were lots of dramatic gasps. Hell. He put her down, but mostly so he could just bolt the front door. “Hatterson, we need to board up the windows in the study. You and Dario get material and secure the room, now.”
“Are you ordering me around?” Dario sniffed. “Do I look like the hired help?”
“Yeah, I sure as hell am ordering you. Make yourself useful. Board up the damn windows. Yank some wood down from one of the bookshelves in that room if you need something sturdy. There are nails and hammers in the storage room.”
Dario glared at him, but…nodded.
Hatterson inched closer to Victor. “I was a medic back in the day. Want me to look at that arm?”
Victor didn’t care about his arm. Screw it.
“Barely a graze. We need to get the study secure.” He mentally ran through scenarios.
Fears. “Correction, we need to get the whole house secured. We should make sure all the blinds and curtains are pulled. Every window covered. No one should be able to look inside.” Because that was how the shooter had known when to fire.
The lights had been on in the study, and Melody had made a perfect target.
He’d turned on those lights. He’d been right there when the bullets flew.
I could have lost her when I just got her back.
“You need to get that wound bandaged.” Hatterson was adamant. The deep lines on his face seemed even thicker than normal. “And you need to warm up. Go into the den. The fire is going in there. We’ll take care of everything else.”
Tension held Victor in a tight grip. “Normally, there are at least two guards stationed at the entrance to this property. Why the hell aren’t they on duty this weekend?” Something he’d noticed upon his arrival, but hadn’t questioned, not then.
Hatterson glanced toward Sebastian.
“I gave them the weekend off,” Sebastian’s soft reply. His gaze lingered on Melody. He frowned. Leaned a bit harder on the cane. “Melody, when did you get back?”
And everyone tensed. Because…it was happening again. Sebastian, his memory coming and going as it would. Sometimes, he’d forget years. Sometimes, he’d forget days.
And sometimes, he’d remember everything perfectly.
“I’ve missed you,” Sebastian told her. His words were sad.
Melody, her body shivering, and snow falling from her coat, stepped toward her father.
Sebastian smiled at her as he extended his left hand.
She stumbled for a moment but kept going. She took his hand. Squeezed. “I missed you, too.”
Victor’s blood dripped on the fancy entranceway’s marble flooring. “We need to secure this house.” He gripped the gun. “Now.” Because the shooter was still out there, and he hadn’t succeeded in taking out his target.
Or…fuck…
Victor’s suspicious gaze swept the small circle of people in the foyer.
Dario’s hair is slightly damp. Hatterson is fully dressed. Why the hell is he fully dressed at four in the morning? And as for Sebastian…
Once upon a time, the man had been one hell of a shot. The best hunter that Victor had ever met.
Olivia clutched her silk robe tightly to her even as she watched everyone with a careful mask on her face.
Her gaze dipped toward Victor, only to immediately rush away.
His jaw tightened. The shooter could be outside…
Or the bastard could be standing right in the house with him. A shooter who, Victor was convinced, had been aiming at Melody.
He set the safety on the gun, then tucked it into the waistband of his pants. Victor stalked toward Melody as she leaned close to her father. Shivers racked her body.
Screw this shit.
He reached out, grabbed her, and lifted her over his shoulder.
There were lots of shocked exclamations.
Yeah, whatever. Did it look like he was in the mood for bullshit? “Fucking secure the house.” He spun away, with one arm locked behind Melody’s thighs as she dangled over his back. He was securing Melody. She came first.
He headed toward the den. The curtains had been drawn in that room earlier, he distinctly remembered that shit. So he strode inside, with her over his back and dripping snow, and his gaze immediately went toward the windows.
Still covered.
But even if they hadn’t been, a line of bushes—dead now, but a tall hedge—would have blocked the glass of those windows. The fire crackled and churned in the fireplace, and he wondered just when Hatterson had started the flames.
When I was searching for the killer? What the hell, man?
The fire lit up the room. The big Christmas tree.
The antique couch and leather chairs. He marched toward the leather chair on the left because it was the closest one to the fireplace.
And he plunked Melody down on that chair.
“Stay here,” he ordered before he rose to his full height.
Automatically, he reached for the weapon. Gripped it in his right hand.
She grabbed his hand. Melody looked at the gun, then at him. She shivered again.
So did he. Dammit. He’d been a freaking ice cube outside. Feeling was starting to return to his toes, and they burned.
“You were shot.”
“I was grazed. Big difference.” He wanted to check the house. To search all the rooms. But… “Lock the door when I exit. Do not let anyone but me back inside.”
“What?”
“Oh, you heard me, sweetheart. No one but me, got it? Because I don’t trust anyone else here.”
Her eyes had gone huge. “My father…”
“He isn’t the man you knew.” But then again, if she was telling the truth, Melody didn’t know Sebastian Mage at all.
“Look, he’s just—he’s not the same.” Serious understatement.
And when one of Sebastian’s rages came on him…
“I want you to lock the door. Only let me inside, understand?” Actually, he wanted her the hell out of that house.
Until he could figure out what was happening…
Someone just tried to kill her. That’s what is happening. And I will not allow Melody to be hurt.
“You don’t even have on a shirt,” she muttered.
“That’s because you’re wearing it,” he returned.
“Oh.” She looked down at the shirt. “Your blood is on it. That, uh, seems to happen pretty often with your shirts.”
His fingers slid beneath her chin. He tilted her head back up. “Promise you will lock the door after me. Drag the chair over to secure it if you have to, but do not let anyone but me inside, understand?”
“I’m supposed to trust you?” She swallowed. “You know I don’t remember you.”
“Yeah, got that.” They’d deal with that problem. “But I was also standing right in front of you when the first shot was fired, and you know I didn’t just try to kill you, so there’s that.”
“Th-the shot wasn’t intended for me!”
He stared at her. Just stared. Then, “You stepped back. I reached for you. My arm was in the exact spot you’d just been in seconds before.”
Her breath came harder. Faster.
“I think you have to realize, sweetheart…” Yeah, he kept dropping endearments. So what? “Not everyone is thrilled to have you home.”
She wet her lips.
“But I sure as hell am.” His mouth took hers. Quick. Hard. Possessively. “Lock the fucking door.”
“I fucking will.”
He backed away. Stormed out. Yanked the door closed behind him. He stood there a moment, shivers racking his own body and then…
He heard the grating of a heavy chair being hauled toward the door. A savage smile curled his lips.
He turned away from the den.
Olivia waited a few feet away. She shifted from foot to foot. “Did, ah, did someone really shoot into the study?”
“No, the bullet holes in the wall are just for fun.” He strode past her because he didn’t have time to waste.
She caught his arm. Gripped the damn graze.
He hissed out a breath.
She let go.
“Why the hell does Dario have wet hair?” Victor demanded.
Olivia blinked. Several times. “He…ran outside after Melody. But I was worried, so I pulled him back. It must be wet from the snow.”
Her hair wasn’t wet.
She looked toward the closed den door. “Could have just been a hunter, you know.” A low whisper. “A shot fired by mistake.”
“You don’t shoot five times by mistake.”
She backed up a step.
“Was Dario in bed with you when you heard the first shot?”
A hesitation. A flicker of her lashes. Then, “Of course. Where else would he have been?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Outside. Shooting a fucking gun.”
“He wasn’t. He has no reason to shoot his stepsister!”
His laughter was bitter. “Sure, he does. He has about a few million reasons to kill her.” He hurried down the hallway.
Olivia scrambled after him. “Oh, really?” Loud. Too loud. “And what is your reason to want her back? To keep her alive? I figure you must stand to inherit plenty, too, if Melody stays dead.”
She’s not dead.
“So what’s your reason to want her alive so badly?”
Oh, just the most basic reason…
I fucking love her.
His secret.
His dirty little secret.
Melody belongs to me. And no one will take her away again.