Page 17 of Healed

I raced over, applying pressure to her injury. And it was at that moment that my right-hand man made his appearance, his voice appearing from behind me.

“Well, shit. What have I walked in on?” Dante asked. “Did the party start without me?”

I glanced over my shoulder to see him looking down at the still gargling Rider, nudging him onto his back with the toes of his boot. “Hi, old friend,” he grinned down at him. And then he pulled the knife from the Rider’s face and slit his throat in one smooth movement.

“You remember Dante,” I said, by way of instruction.

“I remember. He’s grown to be even more psychotic than you are,” Michelle whispered to me.

I laughed despite myself. “You have no idea.”

Blood seeped between our fingers, and I could feel her grip weakening beneath my hands.

“Mrs Rider—”

“Don’t,” she said, her entire body trembling. “Don’t lie to me, Luke. I know what this is.”

“You’re not dying in this basement,” I said, because it was the only thing I could think to say.

Her eyes softened. “Sweetheart, I think we both know I am.”

“Michelle, with all due respect—”

“I don’t want the final words I hear to be from you, Disciple,” she spat in Dante’s direction, interrupting his sentence.

Dante rolled his eyes and looked away, his jaw clenching so tightly I could hear his teeth grinding together. “I was just going to say—”

“Forget it. You murdered my husband.”

This time she did spit. She used the last of her strength, spitting directly on Dante’s boots.

“Mrs Rider—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Luke.”

“He’s trying to help.”

“No he isn’t. He never fucking did.”

“I give up,” Dante said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Die in here for all I care. My old lady is safe and sound upstairs, so it makes no difference to my life where the wife of my enemy dies.”

Michelle glared daggers at him.

“We can get you out of here,” I told her, bringing her attention back to me.

“To where?” she asked gently. “A hospital? With Nico’s men everywhere and police crawling all over this mess by morning? Your clubhouse?” she laughed then, which was quickly followed by a pained cough. “Vienna, don’t delude yourself. I wouldn’t be seen dead at your clubhouse, and half your men would rather spit on me than let me through the gates.”

“I—”

“Besides, I wouldn’t make it that far, and we both know it.”

“Who knows it?” I snapped. “I don’t know it. You certainly don’t.”

“I do.” Her fingers found my wrist, weak but certain. “And so do you.”

I shook my head because I couldn’t agree with her. Not with this. Not when Gabriella was somewhere out there, alive and terrified and probably waiting for me to bring her mother back. Not when that girl had spent ten years bleeding herself dry to keep this woman breathing. “Gabriella would kill me if she found out I was even contemplating leaving you here.”

Michelle smiled then, and it broke something in me. “No, she won’t. She’ll hate you for a while, maybe. She’ll hate herself more, because that’s what my girl does. She takes every awful thing and finds a way to make it her fault. But you listen to me, Luke. You listen to me properly for once in your ridiculous life. I cannot be the reason she stays trapped. Not anymore. She has been hurt again and again because of me. She stayed because of me. She let that monster put his hands on her because of me. She made herself smaller, colder, harder, because she thought if she could just survive a little longer, she could save me too.”