Chapter 9
CINDER
Iwish to all that is holy in this world my eyes could actually shoot daggers.
“Suck it up?” I repeat, fury boiling over and sending my blood pressure to dangerous levels. I want to drive my fist into this infuriating man’s face, but I have a feeling he would only tell me my form is all wrong.
"Would you prefer I leave you here with the man who wants your blood?"
“No. But I'd prefer to be asked.”
In my fantasies, the knight in shining armor swoops in, throws me over his horse and gallops into the sunset while I swoon in his arms.
There are never bullets flying at my head in those fantasies.
The last of Edgar's enforcers are still firing blind from deep in the hallway when Samuel hooks one arm under my knees and bands the other around my back, hauling me against his chest. My world lurches sideways.
His heartbeat pounds against my shoulder and his stride eats up the foyer at a pace that has my teeth clacking together.
Gunpowder and copper flood my nostrils with every breath I pull in and the acrid sting makes my eyes water.
I shove against his chest. Solid muscle absorbs the blow and he doesn't break stride. My palm connects with his collarbone and I push harder, twisting in his grip.
"You can't do this." I grab a fistful of his shirt and yank. "You don't understand. I can't leave."
I finally have the Beretta, but the safe upstairs holds more. Documents. Financial records. The paper trail I've been after for five months is just out of reach. All of it is sitting behind a mahogany panel in my father's study while this stubborn, infuriating criminal carries me away from it.
"You don't owe this man a damn thing." Samuel's voice rumbles through his chest and vibrates against my ribs. "If he wants money, too bad. He'll be dead in a minute anyway."
"It's not that easy. I need more evidence."
He rounds a corner and the gilded hallway stretches ahead of us, crystal sconces throwing fractured light across the walls.
An enforcer steps out of a doorway ahead, weapon up, barrel sweeping toward us. Samuel doesn't slow. His boot connects with the man's kneecap and the joint buckles sideways with a wet crack. The enforcer drops, his gun skidding across the hardwood, and Samuel steps over him.
I shove against his chest again. "Put me down. I can run."
"You can run when we're outside."
Another hallway. More stairs. The staircase to the ground level is narrow, a servants' passage I used to play hide and seek in before Francesca moved in. Samuel's shoulders brush both walls as he descends, his grip on my legs tight enough to leave bruises.
A shadow shifts at the bottom of the stairwell.
I open my mouth to warn him, but Samuel is already turning, his free arm moving with a speed that contradicts his size.
He sets me on my feet on the step behind him, and his gun clears the holster in the same fluid motion.
One shot. The muzzle flash burns white in the narrow space and the percussion rattles through my eardrums.
Cole Vane's body hits the floor. The enforcer's dead eyes stare at the ceiling and the gun he drew hangs limp from his trigger finger. Blood spreads under him in a dark, creeping pool.
Nasty fucker was always too handsy with the catering staff. With me. I watched him corner a young server in the kitchen two hours ago and shove his hand up her skirt while she froze. I am not sorry to watch the light leave his eyes.
Samuel grabs my wrist and pulls me past the body. Warm blood soaks into the sole of my shoe and my heel slides on the hardwood. His fingers tighten, steadying me, and we push through the library doors.
The library opens onto the back of the mansion through French doors. My father's book collection lines the walls, leather spines and gold lettering, and the grief punches through me so fast my stride falters. Samuel's arm bands around my waist.
“Keep moving, princess.”
Cool night air slaps my face as we clear the doors. The grounds stretch into darkness, my father's overgrown garden swallowed by shadow, and the smell of wet earth and untended lavender replaces the cigar smoke and blood.
Blood? The scent hits me and this time it’s from Samuel. I grab his forearm.
"Wait. You're hit."
A dark stain spreads across his left bicep, soaking through the white fabric of his shirt. His jaw tightens a fraction but his stride doesn't change.
"It's nothing. We need to keep moving. You’re not safe here."
Gravel crunches under our feet as we round the east side of the mansion. Every footstep announces our position and my pulse spikes, but the grounds are empty. Edgar's men are inside, dealing with the damage four men left in their wake.
"I know this is a shitshow of epic proportions and nothing about tonight came out as planned, but we leave and then what? Do you have a plan to keep this from flowing into the streets?"
Samuel's hand finds the small of my back, guiding me forward.
"You’re right. We’re winging it all the way. Tonight was about keeping the peace, not measuring dicks and bullets."
My hand presses flat against my belly and I stop walking.
Samuel does the same, probably thinking I need to slow for the baby.
He’s not wrong. “I just need a second.” I look back over my shoulder at the dark silhouette of my father's mansion against the Chicago skyline.
Every light is still on. Every window glowing with the mess we left behind.
Five months of planning, three months of rehearsing every step across those floors, and I'm leaving with one gun and zero guarantees that I'll ever get back inside.
"Fuck me."
His lip twitches. "I agree. Follow me."
“No, follow me.” I know this property better than he does.
I grab his hand and take the path through the garden gate, past the stone bench where my father used to sit with his morning coffee, past the wrought iron trellis strangled by dead roses no one tends.
The gravel gives way to the paved service road that circles to the front driveway.
Three cars idle near the entrance, engines running, headlights cutting through the dark.
Oliver is already sliding into the driver's seat of a matte black sedan.
Bastian jogs toward a second vehicle, his loosened tie swinging against his chest, and Valerian folds his massive frame into the third with a fresh cigar still clamped between his teeth. Smoke trails behind him.
My lungs burn from breathing too fast and too shallow, and when I try to slow down, my body refuses. It wants more air.
I press my palm against the hood of the nearest car. The metal vibrates under my fingers, warm from the engine, and I grip it until the trembling in my hand transfers into the steel. My knees threaten to buckle. I lock them and swallow against the bile climbing the back of my throat.
"Your friends okay?"
"They can handle themselves."
Samuel steers me toward a low sports car parked at the end of the line. He opens the passenger door, lifts me by the waist, and drops me into the leather seat before I can protest. The door closes. He rounds the hood and folds in behind the wheel. The engine roars and tires bite into the pavement.
I press my spine into the seat and grip the console.
Chicago blurs past the windows, streetlights smearing into golden streaks as Samuel pushes the car through intersections without touching the brakes.
I take out the Beretta and hold it in my hands, earning me a side-eye from Samuel. I put it in the console between us.
I yank off the heels and toss them into the footwell. My arches scream with relief. Five hours in cheap stilettos designed for looking pretty, not running for your life.
“The police reports describe a specific gun tied to my father's murder." I stab a finger at the Beretta. "That's it.”
Samuel reaches out and looks like he’s reaching for the gun, but he wraps his fingers around mine instead. “We’ll take care of Edgar.”
In mobster terms that means whack him and give him a shallow grave somewhere. “I want more than him just dead. I want him stripped of everything and forced to live behind bars where they will use him like he used my father.”
I take comfort in the darkness surrounding us and use it to mask the true pain eating away at my heart.
Samuel tightens his hold on my hand just as the baby moves. A slow roll low in my belly before our baby settles. My hand goes to the curve and stays there, my thumb stroking the taut skin through the halter top.
For you. Everything I do is for you.
Samuel's gaze drops to my hand. Without a word, he spreads his fingers over the curve of my bump.
Warm. Gentle. His scarred knuckles press against my belly with a reverence that doesn't match the blood still drying on his skin.
The baby kicks against his palm, a sharp little jab, and his hand goes still.
His eyes find mine. The streetlights streak past, painting his face in quick flashes of gold, and in the half-second between one flash and the next I catch it.
The raw, unguarded crack in his composure.
His jaw works, the muscle in his cheek flexing, and his dark eyes go glassy before he blinks it away and returns his focus to the road.
His knuckles on the steering wheel are split and swollen, Edgar's blood drying in the grooves of his skin. But the hand on my belly stays.
Neither of us speaks. The city rushes past and I count the blocks by the rhythm of streetlights flickering over the car's interior. The adrenaline recedes, leaving a bone-deep exhaustion that settles into my muscles and makes my eyelids heavy.
The iron gates grind open with a mechanical whir that carries across the grounds. All three cars enter the compound in formation and the gates close behind us with a heavy, final clang.