by Vi Keeland
Oh boy. My chest tightened. “I’ve known Carter all my life.” I couldn’t help it.
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
Theresa rounded to me. “Really?”
A hand curved around my hip at that moment and I was pulled into Carter’s side. He was warm and embracing. My body molded to his, fitting perfectly, as he said, “I was best friends with her brother. Their couch was my second bedroom.”
“I didn’t know you had a best friend, Carter.” Noah joined the conversation.
“I did.” He dropped a soft kiss to my shoulder. “And with that little tidbit, Emma and I should be getting home.”
Brianna’s eyebrows shot up, as did Theresa’s. Noah frowned.
Carter led me out by the hand. I glanced over my shoulder. Theresa mouthed to me, “Home?” I gave her a brief smile before we were out the door and hurrying down the darkened hallway. The guards fell into step around us, surrounding us, and we made our way through the club’s maze. The few times I had been there told me that we weren’t going to the usual side exit. However, I didn’t ask where we were headed as Carter dragged me behind him at a fast speed. The men sensed his urgency and grew tense as we stepped through the tunnel that connected the club with the hotel behind it. I remembered the penthouse, but as we stepped out of the plush hallway, lined with red velvet carpet, we went to the side stairs and hurried downstairs instead.
We stopped at the door that opened to the basement parking garage. The men swept through, but Carter held me back. For a second, we were alone. “What’s going on?”
His hand tightened around mine. “We need to get you to safety.”
“Carter.” Alarm slithered down my back. “What’s going on?”
He didn’t respond, only withdrew his gun and tightened his hold on my hand. The door opened and one of the guards gave him a nod. “It’s clear, sir.”
Carter went first but held my arm tight. When we crossed the few feet for the car, he stepped to the side and guided me inside with a hand over my head. He slid in next. I expected more guards to follow. There was room for three more, but was surprised when he shut the door. It was only the two of us. It wasn’t long until we started moving.
It didn’t seem like we had gone far when the car jerked to a stop.
My heart flew into my chest. Not again.
Unlike last time, he didn’t wait to hear any information from the front. As soon as the car braked, Carter reacted. He had been sitting next to me. I had taken a relaxing breath. A few of the knots in my stomach had just loosened when he flew out of the car before I could even comprehend what was happening.
As soon as I had, the air outside was filled with screams, gunshots, and shouts.
“Gun!” someone yelled.
Another screamed, “Run!”
The next second, I heard a stampede. People ran past the car. The thud of people being shoved came next. “Get out of here.”
Someone barked out, “Move away from there! Now!”
“Ahh!” a girl cried out. Another thud came and her scream cut off.
That was all it took. I scrambled out of the car. I didn’t want innocent people to get hurt because of me. When I opened the door, more people were running past. A guy almost ran into me. He caught himself, bounced off the car, and rotated in a circle around me. He kept running.
“Get in the car!”
I looked around. Some of the guards were positioned around me, but half of them were gone. I saw Mike in the distance. He was fighting someone. Where was Carter? Panic started to rise when I couldn’t see him. Then I yelled out, “Carter!”
“Move it—” someone cursed. A strangled sound came from him next and I whirled to see that one of the guards had grabbed his throat. The guy was lifted off the ground and tossed aside. “Hey!”
“Get going.” The guard pointed down the opposite direction. “Now.”
The guy stood, ready to argue, but saw the other two guards. He ran where he was told to go.
“Emma!”
I craned my neck. Theresa stood inside a doorway, not far from where the car had stopped. Noah was in front of her with a restraining hand across her stomach. He was scowling as he watched the herd of people in the streets.
Bang! Bang!
“Emma! Get over here.” Theresa waved me over frantically.
“No.” The guard closest to me grabbed my arm and started to push me back into the car. “Get inside, Miss Emma. Mr. Reed is coming back.”
“But,” I looked to my friends.
“It’s safer.” His hand tightened.
“Emma!”
I recognized the voice. Everything in me tightened with tension. Carter. He was there, running back to me and waving me to the side. When he saw I wasn’t doing what he wanted, he yelled next, “Matthew, get her inside now!”
A woman screamed behind me.
“Carter!” Noah stepped out from their doorway. “Our car took off.”
He waved them over. “Get in the car. Matthew, get her inside NOW!”
The grip on my arm doubled and I was lifted in the air. As I watched, Noah and Theresa started to cross towards us, but then I saw something else. Horror rose in my throat and my eyes bulged out. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t do anything.
Carter was covering the distance at a breakneck speed, but someone stepped out of another doorway. He was too far away for the guards to grab him, and not close enough for Carter to tackle him.
Scott Graham lifted the gun in his hand. It was small, but he lifted it with ease. He had done it many times before. Instead of the flashy Casanova impression he had given me before, a cold mask gripped his features. He was like Carter, a killer. Then he turned the gun towards me.
Everything stopped.
My heart stopped beating. I stopped breathing.
“EMMA!” Theresa yelled. A bloodcurdling scream ripped from her throat next.
He saw me, aimed, and his eyes narrowed. It was coming. It was a matter of seconds.
I readied myself. I stared at him, dead in the eyes, and waited. I was going to die. I knew it in that moment, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
The guard whirled around in that moment, but Scott could still see me. He moved his gun to the side and steadied his hand once more.
All the sudden, Carter was there. He snaked a hand around his neck. Scott stiffened, but it was too late. Carter grabbed a hold of the back of his neck and twisted. It was a clean movement, lethal. His neck snapped and he let go of the body. It dropped at his feet. Carter didn’t pause. He sprinted over it and was next to me seconds later. He took me from the guard. Before I was shoved inside, I looked over again. Two guards had followed Carter. They swooped down and each grabbed one end of the body. Scott was thrown in a car before us, and it raced off.
Theresa and Noah were already inside the car, waiting for us.
“Where’s your sister?” My heart was pounding in my eardrums.
“Employee exit. She’s safe.”
As we had talked, Carter slammed his door shut and our car took off again. The sister wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Carter wasn’t waiting. From the sudden speed of the car, I was thrown backwards. He still held me around my waist and pulled me to his lap. I sat there, huddled over him, as I couldn’t close my eyes anymore. I almost died. I should’ve felt something, fear, shock, something, but I felt nothing.
TWENTY-ONE
I assumed we would take Theresa home, but was surprised when we stopped outside a remote cabin-like home. It was huge. When I climbed out of the car, I glanced over and saw two large wrought iron gates closing behind us. It locked and a bolt of electricity sounded. No one was getting in.
“Where are we?”
Noah answered Theresa’s question, “We’re somewhere safe. Don’t worry. We’re only here for the night.” He frowned at Carter. “Right?”
There was no answer. Carter took my hand and led the way. When we stepped inside a spacious foyer, he pulled me into a back ro
om and closed the door. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“Why are we here? Why aren’t we home?”
He stepped close and dropped his voice, “That’s part of the favor I need from you. I don’t trust your friend. I can’t let her go on her own and I couldn’t bring them to our home, so this was the next best choice. Everyone’s on lockdown for the next twenty-four hours. There’s no cell phone or internet connection here. I have one television, but that’s it.” He turned my shoulders so that I faced him squarely. “Emma, I need you to watch your friend for me.”
“Theresa?” Alarm rose in me. “Why?”
“I killed a man. She was already in the car, but she could’ve seen. I need to know what she saw and what she’s thinking about it.”
“You mean if she’ll report you?” No, she wouldn’t. I frowned. She couldn’t, this was Carter. My Carter. “She knows you’re friends with Noah and she knows about us.”
“You said yourself that she’s never approved of my connections and she doesn’t like my friendship with Noah.” He frowned a little and touched my hip to pull me closer. His head dropped to my neck, his favorite spot. His lips brushed against my skin as he murmured, “I killed a man in front of her. I know she considered him a friend. I’d kill him again.”
Shivers coursed through me, but they weren’t the bad kind. They should’ve been, but they weren’t. I held my breath, closing my eyes as his hand explored under my shirt. It traveled up, nearing my breasts. It stopped underneath my breasts. His fingers slid under my bra and rested there. My chest rose as I wanted him to continue touching me.
He grinned against my neck and moved back to meet my gaze. His eyes were lidded, heavy with desire. “I would do it again in a heartbeat. He was sent to kill you, Emma.”
The image of him holding his gun flashed in my mind. A heavy feeling rested over my chest. “Why? He worked for you, didn’t he?”
He hesitated, removing his hand and stepped back.
I was cold without his touch. “Carter.”
He grimaced. “I forgot he was friends with Noah and Theresa. I had hoped to keep him away from you.” He paused for a beat. “He was selling information to Franco.”
“What? Why would you—how long have you known that?”
“It’s why he was working for me. We were watching him and Octave was the best place for him to work. All of my businesses are legit, but he didn’t know that.”
“Wait. You stuck him at Octave so that he could give information to Franco?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “No, we stuck him there because there was no information to give. Anywhere else and he would’ve been suspicious, but Octave doesn’t strike people as being vanilla. That’s what it is, though.” His grin fell flat. “He’s the one who told Franco where you were. He’s why we were attacked the first time.”
“But…” That meant that they had been looking for me…not Jeremy’s body anymore…
“Yeah,” he sighed. “They knew, Emma. They knew it was you.”
Ben gave me enough money.
Ice ran through my veins. My mouth fell open as my breathing slowed.
He looked happy last week. He thought he was hot stuff.
I stopped breathing. It couldn’t be, but it had to be. No way. I felt gutted. Someone had taken a knife and slid it across my throat before they reared back for one deep thrust. A sick sensation started to fill me and I began to tremble.
“Emma?”
I shook my head. It couldn’t be, but he said it himself.
“Emma!” His hand grasped the back of my head. He forced me to look at him. “What’s going on?”
“You,” I gasped out. I couldn’t talk.
“Me?”
“You said—it was Ben. Ben told them.” Ben gave me enough money. Oh god. I closed my eyes. A raging headache had started. It was going to split me open. Mallory and Ben are gone. Panic overwhelmed me and I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth to draw in oxygen, but none came. My lungs stopped worked. I pounded on my chest, blinded, feeling more and more panic suffocating me. It was taking over me. I couldn’t see.
Carter cursed and lifted me in his arms. He was taking me somewhere. My mouth was gaping open as I desperately tried to draw in oxygen. Nothing. I started to thrash around. Oh god. Oh god.
Then water hit me. It was freezing, but it dosed the storm inside of me. Screaming, I lunged away from it, but Carter held me in place. He bent to change the temperature with his arms around me. His body trapped me in place and I tried crawling over him to get away. A second later the water warmed and my chest rose up and down at a steadier rate. I was calming down.
“What’s wrong with her?” Theresa asked from a distance.
Mallory and Ben are gone.
I shook my head. I couldn’t get Amanda’s voice out of my head. It was him. He had sold me out.
Ben gave me enough money.
He gave her money to take care of my things.
My feet gave way as I realized what that meant. He knew—he wanted my things put away. He paid for my things, mine and Mallory’s, to be stored away. Did he know what they were going to do? He had to know.
“Emma?” Carter held me now.
I looked up at the concern in his voice. He was gazing down at me, his eyes already knowing. What did he know?
“Emma? Are you okay?” Theresa stood at the shower door. She was pale and her bottom lip was quivering. She held onto the door handle, but her hand was shaking.
I spoke, raw of emotion, “You told me he would sell me out.”
Carter closed his eyes. His shoulders dropped and a breath left him. He knew.
He’d been right. I had even hoped for it, but knowing it happened—feeling it now. It was different. I couldn’t have been prepared for the betrayal.
“Who sold you out?” Her hand started to rattle the shower door know. “What’s going on?”
I held Carter’s gaze. The world fell away underneath my feet. I didn’t feel the water anymore. “He told them, didn’t he?”
He nodded.
Reaching for him, my hands held onto his shoulders and he lifted me from the shower. He walked us both out and into a bedroom. Setting me back on my feet, he walked into the bathroom. Theresa touched my hand, her eyes grew wide when she felt my coldness.
She whispered, “What’s going on, Emma?”
Carter came back with towels. He handed one to me as he took a second to wrap around my body. Then he started drying off himself as he went back out the door.
“Emma?”
Ben sold me out. He was paid to sell me out, but what about Mallory? They were gone. Where had they gone? Was she okay?
Theresa inched closer and dropped her voice, “I know he killed Scott. Don’t worry, Emma. I’m going to call the police. I know you’re infatuated with him, but he’s not good for you. I’m going to take care of it. I’m going to get you away from him.”
I looked at her, but felt detached from myself. It was like I was watching us from a safe distance, outside of my body. I watched as I said to her, “He was going to kill me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I won’t let him. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“Scott Graham was going to kill me. Carter saved my life.”
Her eyes widened. Then narrowed. “You’re in shock. I can see that. You don’t know what happened—”
My hand latched onto her arm and held it in a death grip.
She cried out and then tried to pry my fingers off her arm, one at a time. She glanced to my face and back again to her arm, back and forth, back and forth. Her eyebrows furrowed together and she bit her lip. “Emma, you don’t know what you’re saying. You think you’re in love with him, but you’re not. You’re blinded by his looks and his power. He’s dangerous, Emma. He’s very dangerous.”
“He’s my family.”
She got three of my fingers off, but they latched back on. She sighed. “Okay. Okay, Emma. I can see this is going to take longer tha
n I thought. Don’t say anything to him. He’s going to come back any moment—”
“I killed someone.”
My words silenced her. Her arm dropped to her side and she staggered back a step. “Wha—what did you say?”
“I’m protecting her.”
She whirled around to see Carter in the doorway. A grim expression was on his face and he held dry clothes in his arms. Then he walked around me and peered close. “Her eyes are glazed over.”
“She’s in shock. She thinks she killed someone.”
“She did,” he snapped at her and tossed the clothes on the bed. “Leave and I’ll take care of her.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. You might be buddies with Noah and you might’ve known Emma in a previous life, but I’m not leaving you alone with her. Not one second—”
“Noah.” Carter turned to the doorway.
“What?!” she squeaked as she was lifted in the air. Noah had been waiting in the background. He stepped forward, grabbed Theresa, and left the room with her. Carter called after them, “She can’t leave. Not yet.”
“I know,” Noah’s voice lashed out at him, over his shoulder.
The door was slammed shut a second later, and I turned towards Carter. I was still detached from my body, but he lifted his hand to my face. He cupped the side of it and ran his thumb over my cheek before he murmured, softly, “Come back to me.”
I shook my head. It was safer where I was.
“Come back to me.” He moved closer. His voice was a sensual caress against my skin. “Come back to me.”
I shook my head. It was better not to feel. There was no fear. No one betrayed me when I was like this.
Then he rested his forehead against mine and breathed out, “Please, Emma. I need you with me. I love you.”
I closed my eyes and the hurt seeped back into me. Everything hurt at once. It was too much, but I opened them again and I saw the relief in his. His hand closed around mine, and he tucked some of my hair behind my ear. I couldn’t handle it, not all of it, and I felt myself numbing again. Then I stepped back. I couldn’t do this if he was touching me. And I knew that I needed to hear it all. “Tell me what’s going on.”