Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
He jerked her to standing.
Piper winced in pain.
He kept behind her. Using her as a shield like the pathetic motherfucker he was.
I itched, hungry to get my hands around his neck.
To squeeze until he was on the brink of death before I brought him back then did it again. Over and over until he didn’t know if he was alive or in hell.
Then it’d be my pleasure to send him there.
He gritted his teeth. “I’m gonna walk out that door with her so she can lead me to what’s mine, and you’re gonna let me.”
“Yeah, you should know that’s not going to happen.”
My finger twitched on the trigger of my gun, prepared for when I could get in a clean shot.
A terrified whine came out of Piper. Her fear patent, though there was something so ferocious on her face.
My insides howled. I wanted to erase it. Keep the promise that I would never let this bastard get to her.
“Theo…just go. It’s okay,” she wheezed through the torment.
She pled it with those blue, blue eyes. So warm and brave and beautiful.
Willing to give it all for those she loved.
Another shot and shouts, and an Owl suddenly burst through the door. Otto was on his tail, shouting, “On your knees or you die.”
It was enough that it caught Toga by surprise.
Enough that he let his guard down for a fraction of a second.
Loosening his hold on Piper as his attention snapped that way.
“Piper, get down!” I shouted.
She let go of all her weight and dropped to the ground.
Toga swung his gun at me at the same second as I began to fire.
A barrage of gunshots rang out in the small room.
The bastard flailed and jerked as the bullets hit him one by one, sending him stumbling back until he toppled backward to the floor.
While I stood there gasping.
My ears rang and my head spun.
A blur of confusion.
The only thing I could see was Piper. Piper who climbed to her knees. Tears streamed down her face, and that thing that raged between us since the moment we met billowed between us.
A connection unlike either of us could fathom.
A bond that went far beyond the blue horizon.
One that I knew stretched out into eternity.
It was the only thing that mattered. That she and her son were going to have the life that they deserved.
Freedom.
Safety.
My fingers moved to the wound low on my stomach and pulled them away to the blood that coated them.
The pain was disorienting.
Pulling me toward the nothingness that throbbed around me like a dream.
And I just hoped as I crumpled to my knees that she knew what I felt for her was more than base duty.
More than the penance I’d served.
This woman who was the one who’d shown me this fractured heart could love.
That I was worthy of it.
And Piper had every bit of it.
FIFTY-FOUR
PIPER
“Theo. Oh, God, Theo.” I scrambled for him where he’d fallen facedown on the floor.
Blood poured from his side.
“No, no, no,” I begged as I reached for him.
A commotion happened around me as my spirit wailed in agony.
Otto shouting at the other man who’d come through the door to get onto his stomach and put his hands behind his head.
While panic assailed every one of my senses.
This man who’d become everything. The one who’d found me when I’d been trapped.
When I’d been a prisoner to my mistakes, and he showed me that I didn’t have to be.
“I’m right here. I’m right here,” I mumbled frantically. I struggled to roll him over onto his back, then a gasp tore from the depths of me when I saw the huge wet spot on his shirt where his jacket draped open.
The wound was low on his side.
I set my hand against it, and warm blood seeped out against my palm.
Dread spiraled through me, and I got up high on my knees so I could apply pressure to it with both hands. I put my weight on it as I muttered, “Theo, listen to me, just hold on. Help is on its way. You’re going to be okay. You have to be. You aren’t leaving me. You aren’t.”
There was no response, just the faint wheezing of shallow, haggard breaths.
Tears poured down my face as I leaned over him. “Just hang on. Hang on.”
Cash crashed through the door.
“Fuck,” he hissed as he found the scene, and I could tell he was talking to Otto when he said, “Colt is here. This was a kidnapping that we stumbled on. Cut and dry.”
“Yup,” Otto said, though his voice was low and heavy with implication. Could feel the weight of their eyes sweep to us.
Heavy footsteps clomped our way, and Cash dropped down to his knee at my side. He pressed his fingers to Theo’s neck. “He has a pulse but it’s weak.”
He slugged out of his jacket and pulled his shirt over his head. He balled it and shoved it under my hands. “Keep the pressure as firm as you can. You can’t hurt him any worse than he already is.”