My Pretty Thing was fucking safe.
Himeros groaned on the floor, and Ty glanced around as though it were the room itself that had confused him and not the horribly fucked-up situation Himeros had put us through.
“Ty, you’re safe now.”
I took his arms, and he fought against me as though he couldn’t even see me standing right before him, so I kissed him. Just pushed my lips against his. His body resisted for only a moment before he hooked his arms around me, forcing me near him. I could feel the tears rushing against my face, though it was hard to tell who they belonged to.
I positioned us so I could keep my periphery on the psycho who’d done this to my Ty as I held my one and only close.
We really were alive.
“I’ve got you, Ty. I’ve got you,” I said, even though he only let my lips part for a moment before pushing up against me again.
“Don’t…let…me…go,” he pleaded.
“I won’t. I’m never letting you go. Ipromiseyou, Ty,” I assured him as I relived the horror I’d endured when I thought I’d lost the only reason I’d found for really living.
As I wrapped my arms around him and he nestled his face into my chest, my gaze shifted to the still barely conscious Himeros.
“God himself will have to pry you from my grip,” I whispered into Ty’s ear.
And I meant it.
* * *
I ensuredthat Himeros didn’t have any weapons on him before putting him in his own chair and cuffing his other hand. Then Ty and I headed through the place Himeros was keeping us in—an old warehouse, it seemed. We found a nearby room he’d set up with monitors showing the room we’d been trapped in. He’d been recording the whole ordeal. In that same room, we found our cell phones. I used mine to call the IPB, requesting emergency services.
Ty and I waited in that room together, Ty resting on my lap, his arms around me, as I watched Himeros to make sure he didn’t attempt some last-minute escape. When the IPB SWAT arrived, they swept through the place before taking Himeros into custody. While he was transported via helicopter to an IPB medical facility, I requested specifically that Ty and I be taken to another in Atlanta, mainly for Himeros’s safety, since I was certain being near him would only make it more likely for me to hunt him down and kill him for what he’d put Ty through.
Despite attempts at making me submit to treatment, I refused. Ty was the one who needed care, and I must’ve made it damn clear that no one was taking him from me because no one contested me very long. He was the one who’d been hurt the most. Although, after they cleaned him off, it was evident most of the blood on him had been Himeros’s. Because of the blood exchange, there’d need to be blood tests, but mostly, Ty was recovering from shock.
Ty’s nurse offered him a sedative, which I knew was for the best. And while he slept, I sat at his side, keeping watch.
There was no reason to think we were in danger, but I knew all too well from my previous missions how that feeling of uneasiness creeps up after such a traumatic experience. And as long as that nagging feeling of uneasiness remained, I wanted to be there with him.
A few hours passed before I heard the door, and I turned, expecting to see the nurse, but saw Agent Renning standing in the doorway.
“Knock, knock,” she said.
I knew why she was there. The IPB had a massive mess to sort through, now with the added mess of Himeros’s involvement in the leak.
“Mind if we chat for a moment?”
“Can you do it here?” I asked, checking to make sure Ty was still asleep.
She seemed annoyed by my request but approached his bedside anyway, looking to him. “You know, when I first saw the images of Himeros’s injuries, I assumed you were the one who did all that to his face. Then I saw the video.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I assessed my wounded man, the bandage around his wrist where he had strained and cut himself up pummeling the hell out of that monster. “What you got on this Himeros guy?”
“His story checks out. PhD in psychiatry. Adopted son of Ava Himeros. It seems she falsified documents to prevent anyone from tracing his biological mother, but we’re working on it. Considering her involvement in the Body Network, it could be anyone’s guess who the biological parents really are or how she acquired him.”
I suspected whatever the story was, it was as fucked up as the rest of this.
She added, “Himeros confessed to Blackmore the information he pulled from our mainframe with Agent Sparks’s access codes, and how he framed Agent Ryan.”
The thought of Spencer, who had been like me, so guarded and cautious, falling prey to this bastard who had played with his emotions, tore at my soul.
“Apparently, Lez Kross was his contact within the Blackmore Clan, who unwittingly helped him infiltrate it and manipulate them into going after the agents. They fell right into his trap.”
