Chapter 19 #2
“Leo!” She grabs my arms. “What’s happening? Is that—is my father here? Is he back?”
“Yes,” I say bluntly, because there’s no point in lying to her. My hands go to her shoulders, checking her over quickly. No blood. No visible injuries. Thank god. “He brought at least fifty men. They’re hitting the estate from three sides.”
Emma’s face pales further but her jaw sets. “Then I need to help,” she says firmly. “I can talk to him.”
“No.” I take her hand and start pulling her down the hallway.
“Leo, wait—” Emma digs her heels in, resisting. “If I talk to him and tell him I’m okay, maybe he’ll—”
“He’ll kill me and take you,” I say flatly, still pulling her. “That’s what he’ll do.”
“You don’t know that!” Emma yanks her hand free and I have to stop and turn to face her. “He’s my father! If I tell him I’m safe and I want to stay—”
I run a hand over my face. What the fuck isn’t she getting? “Emma.”
“Let me talk to him!” she says desperately, her green eyes so impossibly large. “Let me try! Maybe I can end this without anyone else dying!”
“Absolutely not,” I say, reaching for her again. “You’re going somewhere safe.”
Emma backs away from me, her eyes flashing. “Safe? While you and my father kill each other? While your men die? I won’t just hide!”
I shake my head. “You don’t have a choice.”
“I do have a choice!” Emma shouts, and she’s backing further down the hallway, keeping distance between us. “This is my father! This is my life! You don’t get to lock me away like—like some damsel in a fucking tower!”
“Emma, please.” I take a step toward her and she takes two steps back.
“No! Listen to me!” Her hands are up now, like she’s physically trying to hold me off. “I can end this. If I go down there and tell him I’m choosing to stay and this is my decision, maybe he’ll listen!”
“He won’t listen.” I lunge for her, my hand encircling her wrist. “Connor doesn’t care about your choices. He cares about getting you back and punishing me.”
“You don’t know that!” Emma’s voice cracks. “You don’t know what he’ll do if I—”
“I know exactly what he’ll do,” I interrupt, and I redouble my grip on her wrist. “Now come on.”
Emma wrenches her arm, trying to break free. “Let me go!”
I growl in frustration. “Emma, just fucking do as I tell you to do.”
“No! I’m not a child!” she shouts, and she’s fighting me in earnest now, pulling against my grip. “I’m not some helpless thing you need to protect! I can make my own decisions and I’m deciding to—”
“You’re deciding to hide,” I say firmly, pulling her toward the second study. “Because I need to know you’re safe.”
“And I need to stop this!” Emma plants her feet, making me drag her. “Leo, people are dying! Your people! If there’s any chance I can stop it—”
“There isn’t,” I say, and we’re at the study now. I kick the door open with my foot.
“You don’t know that!” Emma twists, trying to slip out of my grip and I grunt at how hard I have to try to keep her nearby. “Let me try! Let me at least try!”
“No.”
“Why?” Emma demands, and she grabs onto the doorframe, holding on. “Why won’t you let me try to save lives?”
“Because I can’t lose you!” The words explode out of me, raw and desperate.
“If something happens to you while you’re trying to talk to your father, if one of his men shoots you or if Connor decides you’re better off dead than with me—Emma, I can’t.
I can’t think if I’m worried about you. I can’t fight if part of my brain is always wondering where you are, whether you’re hurt, or—”
“And I can’t sit here while you die!” Emma shouts back, and there are tears on her face now. “What if he kills you, Leo? What if you go down there and he shoots you and I’m locked away and I can’t—I can’t—”
Her voice breaks and I use that moment to pull her away from the doorframe and into the study.
The bookshelf is on the far wall. Third shelf from the top, specific sequence.
“Leo, don’t you dare—” Emma sees where we’re going and understanding floods her face. “No! No, I won’t—you can’t make me—”
“I can and I am,” I say, triggering the mechanism.
The bookshelf swings outward with a mechanical hiss, revealing the steel door of the panic room beyond.
Emma’s eyes go wild. She wrenches against my grip with everything she has, and I almost lose her. “I won’t do it!” she screams. “Leo, I won’t!”
She’s fighting me like a cornered animal now. Her free hand claws at my wrist, her nails drawing blood. She tries to stomp on my foot and throw her weight backward; she tries everything she can think of to break free.
It reminds me of the first time I took her. The way she fought, kicked and screamed and refused to submit. The wildness in her eyes, the absolute refusal to give in.
Funny how things have and have not changed. Emma’s become as indispensable to me as breathing.
“I need to help!” Emma gasps out between struggles. “He’s my father! Let me—”
“No,” I say, and I hate how cold I sound. I really do hate that I’m doing this to her. But I wrap my arms around her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides.
Emma bucks and thrashes, nearly breaking free. “This is exactly like before!” she shouts. “You’re doing exactly what you did when you took me! You’re not listening, you’re not giving me a choice, you’re just—”
“I’m keeping you alive,” I grit out, half-carrying, half-dragging her toward the panic room door. She’s kicking at my shins, trying to hook her foot around the doorframe, fighting with everything she has.
“I can help!” Emma’s voice is raw now from all her screaming. “Leo, please, I can stop this! I can save you!”
“You’ll get yourself killed,” I tell her, and we’re at the door now. “And I won’t—I can’t—Emma, please—”
“Then let me fight with you!” Emma twists in my arms, managing to face me. Her eyes are streaming with tears, her face flushed with exertion and fear. “Don’t lock me away! Let me stand with you! Let me—”
“I love you,” I interrupt, and my voice is shaking. “That’s why I’m doing this. Because I love you more than anything and I need to know you’re safe.”
“If you loved me you would let me face him with you! Leo, please—please—”
She’s clawing at me now, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer even as I’m pushing her through the doorway. “Don’t do this,” she begs. “Don’t leave me in here. What if you don’t come back? What if you die and I’m locked in here and I never get to—”
“I’ll come back for you,” I promise, and I mean it with every fiber of my being. My hands cup her face, forcing her to look at me. “When this is over, I’ll come back for you. I swear it, Emma. I swear.”
Her hands come up to cover mine, her eyes desperate. “Take me with you,” she pleads. “Let me stay with you. I don’t care if it’s dangerous, I don’t care if—”
“I care,” I say roughly, and then I tell her, “forgive me” as I shove her backward. She stumbles back, giving me enough time to step back and slam the door shut.
The sound of steel meeting steel is the worst noise I’ve ever heard.
Emma throws herself against it immediately, pounding on the steel. “Leo! Don’t do this! Leo!”
I can hear her screaming and the sound of her fists hitting the door, and it takes everything I have not to open it again.
But I can’t.
Instead I key in the lock code—eight digits that only Dante and I know—and the steel bolts slide home with a final, terrible click.
It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
It’s harder than burying my brother or falling in love with her despite knowing it was the worst possible decision I could make.
But at least she’s safe.
I press my palm against the steel door for just a second, wishing I could feel her on the other side.
I should have told her everything I thought this morning when we were in bed.
God, that feels like a lifetime ago. That she’s everything to me.
That loving her has changed me in ways I’m still discovering.
That if I don’t make it through this, she should know that she was the best thing that ever happened to me.
But there’s no time.
Connor Brennan is at my gates with fifty armed men, and I have a war to fight.
I force myself to turn away from the door, away from Emma’s muffled screaming, and head back downstairs.
Dante’s waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his face grim. “East door is holding but barely. And Connor just showed up himself—he’s at the front gates with about a dozen men. He’s asking to talk to you.”
“Tell him to go fuck himself,” I say, checking my weapons. Two guns, extra magazines, a knife strapped to my ankle. I push Emma from my mind now that I know Connor can’t get to her. “We don’t negotiate with people who attack our home.”
“Leo,” Dante says carefully, “he has fifty men. We have maybe forty left after the initial assault. The odds aren’t good.”
“I don’t care about the odds,” I say harshly. “Connor Brennan wants his daughter back? He can try to take her. But he’s going to have to go through me first.”
Dante looks at me for a long moment, then nods slowly. “Where do you want me?”
“East door,” I say. “Keep them from breaching. I’m taking the front.”
“The front?” Dante’s eyes widen slightly behind his dirty glasses. “Where Connor is?”
“Where Connor is,” I confirm.
Because this ends one way or another. Either Connor takes Emma over my dead body, or I make sure he never threatens her again.
I head toward the front entrance, my footsteps echoing in the hallway, and my thoughts immediately go to Emma. She’s going to hate me forever, but at least I know she’s safe.
I’m coming back for you, I promise silently. No matter what it takes.
But first, I have to face her father.
And only one of us is walking away from this.