I was crouched there, my arm bleeding, trying to get my cousin to incriminate himself in front of the old judge, and Dirk thinks that he can just waltz in here and start throwing around tables?
My heart fluttered at him. He looked like a hero, his perfect rugged physique covered in the tuxedo like a second skin. As far as my heart went, he could do whatever he wanted.
“Dirk Prescott? Are you two married?” the old man asked, shock warring with more focused anger as he scowled at theman on the floor. “What do you mean, you killed his sister?” He grabbed Philippe’s shirt and ripped it open, revealing a very high-quality bullet-proof vest beneath. He gasped in outrage. “You knew that there would be an assassination attempt. Why did you try to kill her?”
“Get your hands off me,” Philippe snarled, shoving the old man away, but he didn’t go as far as you’d expect. “I would never hurt my precious cousin.”
The older gentleman was back, but he didn’t touch Philippe that time, only scowled at him. “Your precious cousin? The one who will inherit everything if something happens to you? The one who so recently interfered with the merger I was so unhappy about, the one that Philippe Haversham had his hands all over? So this was a revenge killing.”
Philippe went very still at that point, looking past the old man to study me with a thoughtful expression I’d only seen once or twice. “Excellently played, cousin, but there are no jails that can hold me. You belong to me and always will.”
Dirk put his arm around my shoulder. “She doesn’t belong to anyone. You killed my sister and tried to kill my wife. A man who attacks another man’s women is the worst kind of coward, don’t you think?” His face was also slightly bruised, but Philippe had definitely taken the worst of the fight. When had they fought? Philippe could have killed Dirk! It wasn’t cowardice that kept Philippe from attacking Dirk directly but a desire to hurt Dirk in a way that would take much longer to recover from.
The police came in the next few seconds, full suits and shields as they came to clear out the restaurant, followed by paramedics.
“Let me get that,” a man in a white coat said, ducking down behind the overturned table to examine my arm. I knew those unreal eyes, the perfect symmetry, the diabolical glee as he stabbed my arm with a needle. “You should probably avoid being shot,” he said with a perfectly straight face. It was the guy, Dirk’ssadistic doctor friend. Apparently he’d called in the calvary, all the most sadistic members of it.
“What do you mean, he killed Prescott’s sister?” the older man said, frowning intently at Philippe, like we weren’t in the middle of a careening horde of police officers and medics not to mention panicking upper crust. “Do you have proof?”
“He confessed it to his cousin, my wife,” Dirk said, his eyes on me with the warmest expression imaginable. I couldn’t let that distract me, particularly when he was only looking like that to make Philippe feel worse and more unbalanced.
My heart didn’t buy it. Dirk was looking at me with his heart in his eyes because he loved me. And nothing would ever be unhappy again.
My mind whirled with questions. How had the police officers gotten here so fast? Had Minx managed to get out of her sniper nest before they found her? I needed to call Jezebel, but she didn’t want me to contact her until everything settled down. I had things to do, but I didn’t move while Dirk stayed on one side of me and the doctor worked on the other.
He was just so handsome playing the hero.
“Will she witness against family?” the old man asked, bushy brows coming together in a severe frown as he studied me.
Dirk’s frown had a tinge of cold justice to it. “She doesn’t have to. New evidence has come to light tying this person to several instances of assault and sabotage resulting in death.” He nodded at Philippe, a hint of distaste to his curled lip.
Philippe shook off the old man’s grasp and moved so fast, I could barely see him, grabbing me and pressing a gun to my chin.
“If I go down, you fall with me,” he murmured and then pulled the trigger.
I braced myself for the pain, for the end as a bullet took both of our lives, wishing that I could just kiss Dirk one more time. A second drew out then two, and I realized that I wasn’t dead.
“Were you looking for these?” Toni drawled, tossing bullets that had been in Philippe’s gun. Where had she come from? I ran over the last few minutes and realized that she’d been the waiter, but it hadn’t registered. She’d emptied out his gun? How diabolically twisted and brilliant.
I beamed at her then bashed Philippe’s face with the back of my head. Ow. He had such a hard face.
Four men jumped on Philippe, dragging him away from me, cuffing him and pulling him towards the door while he kept his eyes on me, his nose running red.
“I will always come for you, Ma Cherie. You’ll never be free of me.”
I smiled at him. He was the one who wouldn’t ever be free again.
“Hey, Vil. Are you okay?” Toni asked, her voice low, still tossing those bullets. “Sorry for the whole gun threat, but I knew it wouldn’t bother you. I figured it would be better if he was caught trying to kill you, you know, another layer of unquestionable proof.”
Dirk growled, a feral sound that sent a shiver through me. “I told you to disarm him, not empty the gun and put it back in his pocket.”
She rolled her eyes. “My way was better.”
“If you’d missed a bullet, my wife would be dead.” He put his arms around me and kissed my hair, my cheek, then the side of my neck, moving lower, down to my shoulder, my arm, where the fresh bandage was over the newest bullet wound. “You’re feeling terribly delicate. I’m afraid that I have no choice but to carry you away.” He picked me up in his strong arms while I tried to look helpless and pale, so the witnesses could testify ofthe situation clearly, if there were any witnesses that Dirk didn’t bring. There probably weren’t. He was the kind of hero who brought his own witnesses. Which definitely made him a villain. My villain. My hero.
We walked through the crowd of police, followed by Toni and the ridiculously handsome sadistic doctor.
The elevator was a bit crowded, but Dirk didn’t put me down, and I didn’t do more than kick twice. My head was pounding and my whole body was coming more and more alive as adrenaline hit me. Philippe was in custody of a very incorruptible judge, who would take personal interest in the case considering his ties to Dirk’s family. His son, Trevor, had been engaged to Dirk’s sister before Philippe started playing his devastating games.
