Chapter 17
The snow had picked up, and the temperature had dropped while I was drowning my sorrows under Risky’s sexy body.
I stood, shivering in front of a scene that looked like something out of a movie. I could see the flames eating away at the interior of the hand-built building. Thick black smoke colored the night air as a blanket of fresh snow protected the surrounding foliage and structures.
I heard the murmurs from the staff who had been woken up by the shrill fire alarm. A few of the neighbors I shared the mountainside with had driven over to see what was going on. It was a small crowd, all struck motionless and unable to help as the destruction unfolded in front of their eyes.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Dex with his cell phone lifted. I couldn’t tell if he was taking pictures or filming to document the moment. Both felt incredibly cruel. I’d yet to form a coherent thought or sentence, so I didn’t bother to reprimand him. I was frozen in place, wearing one of Risky’s flannel shirts and his heavy Carhartt jacket. I was numb. Not on account of the cold. Because I’d run out of emotions where the burning resort was concerned.
There was no way to save it.
There was no hope.
Everyone watched the fire grow, staring helplessly as the crackle and pop of the flames got louder. Several calls had gone into emergency services, but the weather was nasty, and traveling up the pass on a clear day took quite a while. By the time the fire department showed up, the main house would be incinerated.
The calls from the security company and Risky’s tech friend didn’t help either. I heard Risky snapping frustrated questions into his phone.
He kept saying, “How could this happen?”
I didn’t know what the person on the other end of the call answered, but I could tell him without a doubt that this had happened because of me. From the beginning, I’d been too ambitious. Too arrogant to think my hard work and dedication could battle against my endless misfortune. Everything I loved befell my tortuous luck.
I glanced at Risky, resolutely deciding I needed to stop whatever had started between us. I couldn’t bear the thought of him ending up as a pile of ash, like my beloved lodge. Since I’d realized I cared about him, I had to let him go before he got hurt because he was doing his best to protect me.
If I’d had any tears left, they would’ve fallen. I felt familiar icicles forming around my newly thawed heart. My frozen fingers curled into fists that hung at my sides. I turned my back on the destruction.
What’s done is done.
I’d seen enough to know I wasn’t someone who had the luxury of having a dream to chase. I just ended up running in circles.
“Declan.” The moment felt like it called for a name more serious than Risky.
He turned his head to look at me, the frown on his face deepening as he stared at something behind me. I got annoyed he wouldn’t meet my gaze when I had something serious to tell him. So I reached out to grab him, but the sleeves of his coat were too long, and my fingers were too cold to cooperate.
Before I could nudge him and pull his attention back to me, he stepped around me and took off at a sprint for the burning building. The entire group of people surrounding us audibly gasped, and several called his name. My body moved involuntarily to follow him, but my arm was caught by Nico, the snowboarder, as Dex’s mother planted herself in front of me. Her eyes were enormous. I could see the orange and red glow from the fire reflected within the dark center.
She shook her head and told me, “You can’t go in there. The fire department is on the way. That man must have a death wish.”
I knew she was just trying to be a good neighbor. That didn’t stop me from wanting to knock her over and chase after Risky. I couldn’t fathom what he had seen that was worth him running into a burning building, but I knew it was important enough for him to risk life and limb.
He definitely didn’t have a death wish. Declan Risk enjoyed living more than anyone I’d ever met. Who else would walk away from a life littered with the rich and famous, as well as those with unlimited power and influence to play Mr. Fix-it at a small mountain resort because of nostalgia?
I gently disengaged from her hold. “I’m not going to follow him. I need to go around to the other side of the house to see if the deck is still safe to use.”
Now that he’d kicked in the front door, the flames were licking through the entranceway like a starving beast. I couldn’t guess why he had gone in, but I needed to make sure he had a way out.
The snowboarder tried to follow me, but I refused to let him. I couldn’t explain why, but I had a feeling deep down in my bones that Risky’s past had just caught up to us both, and dragging anyone else into the silent war being waged wasn’t a smart idea.
I slipped on the snow and lost my footing as I jogged around the huge structure. I could feel the heat from the fire on my skin. My muddled brain was having a difficult time reasoning through being more worried about Risky than I was the lodge. One had been in my life for only a handful of months; the other was the core of who I always believed I was. It was frightening to think that he had taken up so much real estate within me in such a short amount of time.
I rounded the corner and saw that all the big windows that faced the valley were blown out. There was glass everywhere, and flames licked at the deck, but the new iron reinforcements were holding strong. The snow was piled up to mid-shin, and wind was blowing toward the house, whipping my hair into my face and keeping the fire from crawling down into the river basin. So far, the heavy deck hung out over the massive drop with minimal damage. I moved to run up the long flight of stairs, my steps pausing when I heard two deep voices fighting to be heard over the intermittent gusts.
“What are you going to do, Risk?”
A low laugh with no humor drifted down to where I slid around the side of the house, hoping I wasn’t noticed as I blatantly listened to the conversation Risky had felt was worth running through fire to have.
“Put a bullet in my head and dump me in the river, like you did the first guy the boss had sent after you?”
“Charley Booker was never my boss. I worked for her mother. I thought I’d made that abundantly clear to everyone when I quit.”
The other man laughed. I couldn’t see his face; only his dark pants, leather coat, and black beanie were visible. If my property hadn’t been in the middle of burning to the ground, he would’ve melted seamlessly into the night.
“There’s a noncompete clause expected in our industry. It’s not the sort of job you get to walk away from and forget about. All those secrets you dug up from the depths of hell, all the lives you ruined and the ones you took—you remain accountable for all of that.”
It felt like icy fingers grabbed my spine and forced me upright. I blinked away the snow and frost gathering on my lashes and stared at the deck in contemplation. Risky had never spoken in depth about his previous employment, but he’d left enough breadcrumbs for me to follow, so I knew it wasn’t the type of work one did and kept their hands clean. I’d figured he had been into some really shady stuff, but I never imagined murder might be on the list.
I thought back to the night of the storm when I saw someone down by the river. It took Risky forever to get the generator going, and after he finally did, he showed up, covered in mud and drenched from the rain outside. It never occurred to me that he might’ve been the suspicious person I had watched through the windows.
My racing heart slowed, to the point that I could be declared dead. A whoosh filled my ears as the bottom dropped out of my stomach.
Risky never claimed to be a hero. He’d even hinted that he was more familiar with villainy. I’d thought he was giving a playful warning, not confessing to his criminality.
“If the Bookers were worried about me leaking company secrets, they never would’ve let me leave. If Charley keeps sending you guys after me and my new boss, I’m going to send all of you back to her in pieces. I don’t owe her a damn thing.”
I heard a scuffle, and the man in the leather coat was pressed against the railing of the deck. There was a loud crack and realized the part of the deck closest to the house was burning. When the fire reached the bar, it was going to go off like a bomb.
I wanted to shout a warning to Risky, but the struggling man laughed again and taunted, “Maybe stop sleeping with your bosses in the future, and you can avoid trouble following you when you move on to the next job.”
There was a heavy grunt and a pop that I recognized from the day I had been shot at on the hiking trail. Someone up in the scuffle on the deck had just fired a gun. I couldn’t tell who it was. I couldn’t deny that I hoped that Risky was all right.
The sound of sirens grew closer, indicating the fire department had finally made it up the mountain. There was no time to puzzle through all the new information I’d learned about Risky or worry about his reasons for sleeping with me. Honestly, if he simply had an authority kink, it would make walking away from him so much easier.
“Don’t tell me that all of this has been about Charley’s ego? She’s upset I found a new job and a kind woman after walking away from my previous obligations? This nonsense is overly dramatic, even for her.”
There was another pop, followed by a lot of swearing.
The sirens were right on top of the lodge. I heard the gathered crowd speaking with eager voices. That and the still-rushing wind drowned out the sound of a large man being kicked over the railing and tumbling hundreds of feet into the steep, icy valley below. He didn’t scream or call for help as he fell. He just dropped, like a dead weight, disappearing out of sight as the fire creeped farther onto the deck.
Moments later, steady footsteps came down the stairs. I watched as Risky lifted the tail of his flannel shirt and tucked something into the waistband of his jeans. His movements were practiced and calm, like the world wasn’t in flames around him. He was clearly no stranger to stashing a recently fired gun out of sight and acting like he hadn’t just shot some guy and then punted him to his death without breaking a sweat. He had to reach out and grab the handrails when the deck began to shift away from the house with a crack . The fire was growing in intensity. We needed to get away from the building before things collapsed and we got trapped by the wreckage.
Risky came around the corner and stopped, still as a statue, when he caught sight of me. I saw a flash of concern cross his face. He had ash in his hair and soot smeared across his cheek. He smelled like smoke, and the back of his hands were burned and starting to blister. We stared at each other in a tense silence, neither of us knowing if we should move forward or take a step backward.
Risky looked behind me. The flashing lights from the fire engine cast his skin in an eerie red glow. He looked like a demon.
“They set your house on fire. They tried to run you off the road. They wanted you to be the one who fell off the deck. And they shot at you.” Risky shook his head. “The original guy they’d sent didn’t get a chance to do anything to you because I found him first. These aren’t the sort of people who deserve a second chance, Lucky. It’s you or them, and I’m going to pick you every time.”
I let the words sink in and asked in a rough voice, “Are they going to keep coming?”
I didn’t have anything left to lose. If his former employer kept attacking me, the only thing remaining for her to take was my life.
Risky shook his head. I flinched when he reached for my elbow. I saw his expression stiffen, but he didn’t pull away. His fingers wrapped around my arm, and he started to drag me back toward the front of the building. I stumbled behind him, my eyes locked on the slight bulge at the back of his waist.
“I’m going to make them stop.” There was no hesitation in his tone.
“Did you know it was your ex-girlfriend doing all of this to me from the beginning?”
If the answer was yes, that might be an even bigger betrayal than what Banner had put me through.
He shot me a look over his shoulder and moved faster. The roof of the lodge started to cave in, and the crash sounded like the end of the world.
“She was never my girlfriend. She’s my boss’s daughter. She’s someone who makes life easier if you keep her happy instead of putting up a fight. That family and the business they’re in?” He shook his head. “You don’t want to end up on the wrong side of either. I was the best at what I did. I knew Charley didn’t want me to quit when she took over. But I was done with it. Done with her. Done with being indebted when I’d never asked for my life to be saved. I was confused as to why she had sent my previous competitors after you rather than trying to take me out directly. She never struck me as the jealous type.”
“She set the lodge on fire because she didn’t want you to have a new job?” I was so baffled by that type of logic.
I’d thought I was well versed in the worst sort of humans, thanks to Baker and my parents. Apparently, I was too shortsighted, and those I’d encountered weren’t all that bad. Well, at least not as awful as the people who moved within Risky’s world.
“She had it burned because she doesn’t want me to be happy. And because she’s cruel and ruthless. Charley Booker got all the hardest parts of both her parents. I’m going to get her to leave you alone and make her pay for everything she’s taken away from you, Lucky. Trust me.”
I would’ve trusted him blindly a handful of minutes ago.
Now, I didn’t know how to feel.
I’d joked about bringing him home despite not knowing if he was a serial killer or not. With irrefutable proof that he could indeed take a life without a second thought, it wasn’t funny anymore.
When we rejoined the crowd, Risky had to hastily explain why he had gone running into the fire. He made up a lame excuse that he’d thought he saw a staff member trapped inside and felt compelled to go in and make sure everyone had gotten out of the blaze safely. Some made a fuss and called him brave and fearless while others looked at him like he had a screw loose. I kept my mouth shut. Now that the fire was starting to burn itself out and die under the watchful eye of the fire department and the situation was mostly under control, all the feelings I’d brutally suppressed broke free.
Anger.
Fear.
Sadness.
Relief.
Acceptance.
Each of those feelings assaulted me, right alongside a wicked coughing fit. I noticed that Risky was doubled over and hacking up a lung as well. We had flown too close to the flames for too long, and now we had to pay the price.
I lowered myself to the ground. The wet and slushy surface immediately seeped through my jeans and left me chilled to the bone. I might’ve started crying, but the tears didn’t make it far before they were whisked away by the wind.
Everything I held dear had slipped through my fingers. There was nothing left to fight for.
What was the point of anything anymore?
“Oh my God, Lucky!”
I heard my name being screamed over the sound of everything. I turned my head and saw Banner shoving through the small crowd. She rushed to my side, squatting down so she could rub my back as I continued to cough and choke. I saw Risky give her a sharp look, but he wasn’t in much better shape than I was. A paramedic started to make his way over. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was the same one who had picked me up after the truck nearly ran off the road.
“How did this happen?” Banner sounded honestly distraught. I wanted to say it was just my luck, but she didn’t let me. “This has nothing to do with bad luck! This is dangerous, Lucky.”
“I know.” It hurt to talk. Or maybe it was too painful to simply exist at the moment.
Banner turned into a mother hen, making sure I got looked at by the paramedic and ordering me to let her take me home with her. The cabins were untouched by the fire and empty, thanks to her creative cooking in my kitchen. If I hadn’t witnessed Risky’s ruthlessness, no doubt I would’ve crawled back to him and ignored all my mounting problems.
He stared at me with cold eyes when I nodded and agreed to go with Banner.
I didn’t know if she was the lesser of two evils. But she definitely didn’t have a gun hidden at the small of her back, and if it came down to a fight when I confronted her about her lies and deceit, I knew I could take her.
I needed a win in the worst way.
Risky and all that I’d lost would just have to wait.