“I have her and she’s safe.”
“Where?”
“I’ll fill you in. Right now, I need you to tell her she’s okay with me.”
“Addi?” Jaxon’s voice, directed at me. It was rough and scary as hell, but God, my name in his terrifying voice was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
“Jax—”
“You’re good. Go with Luca. We’ll be there soon. Okay?”
Tears burned my eyes, wetting them.
I nodded. A sob wrenched my throat, painful. “Okay.”
“Where?” Jaxon barked again.
One word—it was heaven.
“We’re twenty minutes out. Easton will tell you where.”
He hung up then, and my eyes widened. This guy had some serious balls if he’d hang up on Jaxon.
Standing, he held out his hand. “Now will you come with me?”
Slowly stretching my arm and my shoulder for the first time in what felt like days, I lifted my hand and placed it in his.
His warmth suffused my skin and made me shiver. He pulled me to standing, but as soon as I was on my feet, my legs collapsed.
“I got you.” Before I could try standing again, he lifted me into his arms, one at the small of my back, another behind my knees. He cradled me in his grasp, and I clung to his shoulders. “Relax,” he murmured, and it was said so gently it almost scared me as much as his scowl.
Still, it was comforting. “Thank you.” My voice was raspy, and I found myself clinging and burrowing into him. “Thank you.”
He said nothing, but he moved with the ease of a man used to carrying well over a hundred pounds. “Close your eyes.”
He said it to protect me, but still I didn’t. I needed to see the man he’d killed, the man who’d held a gun to my head and yanked my hair until I cried out. I needed to have the reality. I glanced down and saw his booted feet, scuffed and worn black military-looking boots. Black jeans. And then a pool of blood from beneath his hips. His stomach.
Luca had shot him twice.
Both had hit their mark. The cement turned red with the thick blood pouring from him.
“Was he alone?” I asked, pushing through the sting in my throat.
“No. Close your eyes.”
There’d be more. More death.
I didn’t know if it made me evil or soulless, but I tipped my head back and stared at Luca’s chin. Dark scruff lined his jaw up to dark, midnight eyes. Maybe because it was dark in there. He was as dark as everyone else I’d seen, but there was life in him.
“Thank you,” I whispered again, feeling all those emotions tear through me so hard my body trembled in his hold.
“Close your eyes, Addi. We’ll get you safe soon.”
I did what he said, and as my body continued to shiver, his hold on me tightened.
The next thing I knew I was in a black SUV, pulling up to a hotel, around a corner into a back alley.
“The drugs they gave you will make you groggy and sleepy for a while.”
“Where are we?”
“Outside Philadelphia. We’re taking you up to a suite through a private entrance. Shawn and Jaxon should be here soon.”
“Philly?” I gasped. That was hours north of where I’d been in Raleigh. “What the hell am I doing in Philly?”
“My guess? They wouldn’t take you south to Charleston. Too obvious. But if they could get you to New York, no one would have ever gotten you back.” A faint smirk appeared on his lips. “Except for me.”
He opened the door to the vehicle, and behind him were three men in black suits. They matched this man, and now that it was lighter, I could see him clearly. Hard jaw, days’ worth of scruff, wide nose that looked like it’d been broken more than once, and dark brown eyes.
But they weren’t soulless, and they didn’t look evil.
“Promise?”
“I don’t lie.” He stood beside the door, the men behind him some of the burliest and bulkiest I’d ever seen in my life. “I want to get you upstairs, get you in the shower. You’ll feel better once you’re clean and warm, Addi. Your men will be here soon.”
A shower sounded like heaven. If only I could scrub away everything I’d seen in the warehouse and the vision of Charlie on the floor, limp and unconscious.
I slid toward him, and once I reached the edge of the seat, he held out his hand. “I’ll help you up, and if you’re still scared, know I do not regret killing the men who had you. I’ve just started a war between our families in New York that I will have to deal with soon, but for getting rid of the filth, I have no regrets. No woman should ever live through what they do to women and girls.”
I placed my hand in his and almost collapsed as he gently hauled me out of the SUV, carefully and slowly like I was shattered porcelain. Every muscle and joint ached in my body.
I didn’t need a shower. I needed a bath—and a case of wine. Once I was outside, a warm blanket covered my body, draped over my shoulders. I clung to it while Luca wrapped his arm around me and held me to him as the bulky men fanned out around us.
“Does it make me evil if I’m glad you killed them?”
“No more evil than it makes me for enjoying it,” he replied, and his voice was firm, succinct. He didn’t regret it for a single moment.
He’d taken a life. Probably more than that.
And I wanted to hug him for it.
What kind of monster did that make me?
3
Addi
Luca escorted me into an elevator and pressed the button for the top floor, and we rode in silence with one of his men standing in front of us, blocking our view of the doors opening.
“Addi, this is Viktor. He’s my top guard. He and I will stay in the suite with you while you get cleaned up. I’ve called ahead, and there will be clothes for you on the bed. We will not enter that bedroom under any circumstances unless you call for us. Do you understand?”
I didn’t understand a damn thing that had happened.
Still, I’d chosen to trust him. Jaxon had told me I could. My hands were clasped in front of me, and as Luca told me what was going to happen, the mountain-sized man in front of us didn’t move a muscle.
“Where are the other men? The ones who were outside?”
“One is staying outside. The other took the stairs. You won’t see them, but they’re there, along with others.”
We stepped off the elevator and straight into a lavishly made-up hotel suite that looked more like the most elegant living room I’d ever stepped foot in, which was saying a lot.
I cleared my throat, and in a blink, another bottled water was thrust into my hand.
“Drink,” Luca said as I gaped at it. “And then shower. You’ll get the answers you need soon.”
I took the unopened bottle of water from him and twisted off the top while Luca stripped out of his suit coat. Across his shoulders was a brown leather holster, a gun at each side. I froze, the water bottle inches from my mouth.
Guns. People shot. All that blood. A shiver rolled through me that Luca caught as he tossed his coat onto a nearby table.
“Bathroom is that way.” He pointed to the left, around the corner. “I need to make some calls, but from what I know, Jaxon and his men will be here by the time you’re done. I won’t let anything happen to you.”