Something even more dangerous than before.
Gone are her girlish looks, replaced with curves that could kill a man, lips that are meant for nothing but sin.
Something I should not touch.
But just like everyone else in this van, even I’m not above lust.
Desire.
I pull myself away from the thoughts that consume me, trying to get my fucking head on straight. To banish thoughts of how those curves would feel under my command. What noises those lips would make. What she would taste like. Feel like.
Those thoughts have no place in my goddamn mind, because they’re dangerous. Grace represents exactly what I don’t need right now.
Weakness.
Focus, Hale. Focus.
I assess her injuries, scanning her body for the source of her wounds. Her ivory dress is stained with blood in multiple places. She’s either bleeding to death underneath the layers of fabric, or she’s covered in someone else’s blood.
Maybe both.
The wound at her side is still pulsing little rivulets of blood in time to the beat of her heart, and I wasn’t kidding about the possibility of her bleeding out. At least now that she’s unconscious, I can take care of her wound without her fighting me.
I reach for a handful of her dress, ripping it from her bodice straight to her waist.
Fuck.
Lust and regret wash over me simultaneously as I realize what a fucking mistake that action was. Of course she’s wearing a fucking set of bridal lingerie, picked out especially for that asshole of a cop she was about to marry.
I try not to look, I really do.
But once I start, I can’t stop.
Straps of ivory frame her waist and hip bones, resting flush against her skin, leaving little to the imagination. Her breasts are no better. Flowers made of delicate lace cover the soft, rosy buds of her nipples, hiding them from view just enough to make my cock twitch.
Unconsciously I brush my thumb over her hip, plunging it under one of those little straps at her waist, marveling at the softness of her skin.
“You could’ve just unzipped her dress,” Ciro says mildly from the front seat.
“Fuck off.”
Focus, focus, focus.
The church was a fucking nightmare, and it’s a fucking miracle she doesn’t have any more wounds than she got. Most of the blood on her dress has started drying, showing me that it’s someone else's blood—most likely her father’s.
I follow a fresh stream of blood, thick and clotting, up to her waist.
“She’s been shot. Just one bullet, as far as I can see.” I’m careful not to touch her again as I observe the wound. “It’s just grazed her side, no shattered bones. Entered and exited.”
Without commenting, Ciro pops open the glove compartment and pulls out a box of medical supplies we keep for quick fixes, tossing it back to me. Even though I know I need to keep my hands away from her for my own goddamn sanity, I put pressure on her wound as I pop open the box, shuffling through bandages, antiseptics, needles, and thread.
You don’t grow up in the mafia without dealing with this kind of shit from time to time, so we all know the basics of fixing up wounds. Ciro’s better at injury assessment than I am, but he’s busy looking over digital notes, probably trying to figure out what we’re all wondering—what the hell went wrong today?
“You’ll probably have to do stitches when we get back, Ciro.” A bullet wound, especially one where the bullet isn’t embedded in her, is an easy fix, but stitches aren’t my specialty. “I’ll do what I can for now.”
A thud from the back of the van pulls my attention away from Grace. I look up just as Lucas speaks.
“Yeah. This fucker’ll live too. At least for now.” He wipes his bloody hands on his pants, stepping toward the front row of seats.
We’ve modified the back of the van, taken out the seats to leave an empty space back there. It’s useful for transporting prisoners or cargo, and it gives us more options in a pinch. Right now, a man’s body is slumped on the floor, his hands bound in shackles that connect to a bar on the side wall of the van.
Not that this asshole is going anywhere anytime soon. Our captive looks almost dead, although if Lucas says he’ll live, I believe him.
“Who the hell is he?” Zaid asks, glancing into the review mirror to catch his brother’s eye.
Even Ciro glances back at Lucas. We were all so focused on getting the hell out of that church before the cops showed up that we haven’t even dealt with the most important question—who the hell was the second group that crashed the goddamn wedding?
It was supposed to be an easy job.
Get in, grab Samuel Weston—or Samuel Taylor, as he’d started going by—and get the fuck out.
We weren’t supposed to take Grace.
And we weren’t supposed to get shot at by another group of gunmen who were obviously well trained and well organized.
When everything started to go to shit, I gave the evacuation order, aborting the mission. Our target was gone anyway. I saw Samuel get shot, and I know he didn’t fucking survive that.
Grace would’ve died too, if I hadn’t killed the man who was about to take her down.
As for why I took her with me?
Well, I’ll tell my father it’s because I wasn’t leaving the church without at least one member of the Weston family… even if I’m not entirely sure that’s the only reason I threw her over my shoulder.
“I dunno who the fuck he is.” Lucas jerks his head toward the man in the back. While I was busy chucking Grace into the van, he and Ciro grabbed a downed soldier from the other group and threw him in the back. “He’s barely conscious, and I didn’t want to rough him up too bad and risk killing him.”
It’s a good call. If we can keep him alive until we reach the safe house, we can patch him up a little and then let Ciro have a go at him. Interrogation is my second-in-command’s specialty, and he approaches each job with a methodical precision that’s both impressive and slightly stomach-turning to watch.
“Fuck. Bullet grazed me.” Lucas swipes his hands on his pants again before poking at a small wound on his arm. He glances over at me. “Toss me some of those bandages.”
I throw him a roll, and he begins to patch himself up one-handed, his gaze snagging on Grace as he does. He stills, and I can practically read the thoughts in his head—see his body flood with the same awareness I felt when I first looked at her. A sudden flare of jealousy tears through my chest. It’s been a long time since we’ve all seen Grace, but I hate the annoyance and possessiveness that rises inside me like a beast as I watch him watch her.
She’s not mine to possess.
She never fucking was.
And she never should be.
Reaching for the antiseptic, I pop it open, trying to focus back on my task and not on the thoughts clearly written on the lines of Lucas’s face. Or in my head.
“This is going to hurt, sweetheart,” I murmur, even though I know she’s dead to the fucking world. Then I pour the liquid onto her wound to clean it.
Lucas and I cringe as her body immediately tenses in pain despite her unconsciousness, curling into herself. Her eyes flutter and her mouth falls open slightly, her back arching against the pain.
Swallowing, a sudden mad desire consumes me to see her do that again—not in pain, but in pleasure. My gaze tracks a path from the column of her throat to the swell of her breasts, my heart thudding in my chest. The pretty little gag around her pale lips makes me imagine all sorts of fucked up situations, all sorts of ways I want to fuck her.