My heartbeat roars in my ears. He did this. He put her through this, and he’s going to pay because it’ll belikely that he took her life. My life. My reason for being, for breathing. Without her, I’m that dark man I’d become. I’m nothing with her dead. But him? I’ll make his body pay for it in this life, and when I’m old and dead? I’ll make him pay for it then too, by holding his face in the fires of hell.
Just before I nearly pull the trigger, a hand lands on my shoulder. My gun begins to shake, and for the first time, the agony I feel inside cracks across my face. “Let me do it,” I demand low and deep.
“It wouldn’t solve anything,” Noll whispers. “If it would, if I had known what he’d done to her, I would have let you kill him. Hell, I would have killed him myself. But right now? He’s dead. There is no more he can pay for besides taking your job.”
“My job might be the only thing I have left, but my job can go to fucking hell. It was my position here that –”
He squeezes my shoulder. “If you hadn’t been here, if you hadn’t been undercover, you never would have found her. You never would have fallen for her. And you sure as shit wouldn’t have saved her. No one would have.”
I grind my teeth, but I keep my gun poised for Nathan’s skull. “She may already be dead. You don’t know if I saved jack shit.”
Grabbing my shoulder tighter, he turns me with all of his strength. My gun lowers a bit as I take in his features, open and honest as always. “The only way you’ll know that is if you go to the hospital, Feenix. Don’t let her be another Megan. Don’t let her be another victim of this business. Be there for her, even if she takes her last breath. Be by her side. Get the fuck out of here, and tell her what she means to you, just in case it might be too late later.”
My gun lowers to my side as his words take a punch to my gut. Reality comes crashing back and, with it, the reminder that Charlie has no idea how I feel about her. Noidea because I couldn’t drop my wall long enough to tell her a damn thing.
“You both deserve to have this talk,” Noll whispers before letting me go. “I don’t know if you’ll be too late. No one but God knows that. But if you stay here, if you shoot up a corpse, you’ll be rotting in jail, and you’ll never get to tell her anything.”
A stream of curses leaves my lips, but I don’t look down at Nathan’s body for fear that I might actually follow through. Instead, I give Noll the gun and stride past him and off the dock. As soon as my feet hit land, I’m running.
Chapter Forty-Three
Charlotte Mitchell
“Mama,” is the first thing I hear. It’s muffled like I’m listening to it from underwater, but then something touches my cheek, a warm hand against my cold skin. “Mama, open your eyes.”
I take a few breaths as I listen to my surroundings. The beeping of machines is almost too loud for my ears, and somewhere close by, a phone rings. Footsteps, many footsteps, echo somewhere around me.
“Mama,” the voice whispers close to my ear, and it’s enough to open my eyes. The first thing that comes into view is a pair of blue irises. And then the face leans away, and Nix comes into full view. His brows are pinched together, and he’s searching my face as I fully come out of whatever kind of sleep I’ve been in.
“Where am I?” I croak as I get a look around. My room’s walls consist of curtains, and machines sit all around me, some hooked up to my body and others leftuseless. I flex my fingers and look down when I find nothing but pain. My wrists are bound in white bandages, and an IV pokes out of the back of my hand.
“The hospital,” he whispers before grabbing something beside me. In the next moment, I have a straw to my lips. “Do you remember what happened?”
I take a few gulps before nodding. What happened to me is something I’ll not soon forget. “How am I alive?”
“They gave you a lot of blood.” His tone is apathetic, and I get the feeling it sounds that way because he’s trying to shut down all the feelings reeling inside him.
The realization that my heart is still beating does nothing to settle the pit in my stomach. “Nathan? He’s alive. Did you find him?”
His lips twitch. “You don’t have to worry about him.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he’s dead. He’s gone. For real this time.”
I relax back into my pillow because the irrational part of me thought he’d try to come back for his property. There’s no way I’d survive another encounter with him, not weaponless and certainly not in my weak condition.
Nix pushes the hair from my clammy forehead. “Miles and Anya were found near the border an hour ago. They’ve both been arrested, as well as everyone found on Nathan’s laptop that had to do with the business. I don’t know what will happen to Anya since she’s not a US citizen, but I do know that Miles and the others won’t see the light of day for a long, long time.”
I know the business goes further than what’s on Nathan’s laptop, but it’s a start.
I look at Nix’s suit. There’s blood all over it. My blood, I realize. “I never suspected – I mean – he was like a father to me.”
“I know,” he murmurs and then presses a soft kiss tomy forehead. His breath fans my skin as he lingers there. “People do terrible things. They’re not always who we think they are.”
When he pulls away, I raise my gaze to his. “Like you?”
He nods slowly. “Like me. Or, at least, before you came along.”
