Page 25 of Healed

“Still handsome, though. Aren’t I, Dante?”

“No.”

“See?” I said smugly to Rachel. “Told you so.”

And then I saw her.

Gabriella.

She was standing beside Dante’s car, one hand braced against the open driver’s door, her hair loose around her face, and her eyes fixed on the house. She looked pale beneath the harsh wash of headlights. She looked scared. Hurt.

But alive.

My feet stopped working.

Dante cursed under his breath as my weight dropped suddenly against him, and Rachel reached for my other arm before I could embarrass myself further by face-planting in front of the woman I loved.

But I couldn’t move.

She was alive, and she was here, and she was looking at me as though I was something she had dragged out of the deepest part of a nightmare and wasn’t sure whether to touch in case I disappeared.

Her eyes moved over me, taking in the swelling, the blood, the way Dante was pretending not to hold me up. Her mouth trembled.

“Luke,” she whispered.

That one word nearly undid me.

I wanted to go to her. I wanted to take her face in my hands and prove to myself she was solid and breathing. I wanted to apologise for every single second she had spent in this place without me. I wanted to tell her I was sorry about Michelle before someone else did, before the truth became a blade in her hands and she had to decide whether to use it on me.

Instead, like the brave, noble, emotionally stable man I was, I swayed.

“Alright,” Dante snapped, tightening his grip. “That’s enough standing around looking traumatised. We’re leaving.”

Rachel moved immediately toward the car. “I’ll drive.”

“No, you won’t,” Dante said.

She turned slowly. “Excuse me?”

“You’re not driving the car.”

“Dante King, I have just led half your men through Rider territory, punched three men in the face, shot another two, and saved at least one of your idiots from bleeding out. I think I can manage driving a car.”

“You brought the bike here—my bike, might I add—and you’re taking the bike back.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not leaving Vienna.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not leaving my fucking bike!”

“Here’s a solution—you ride the bastard bike.”