Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 133321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 667(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 667(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
“I’ll kill you, Ri,” I promise. Mia’s hand goes to my waist as if she just needs to touch me. I want to comfort her. I want to pull her into my arms, but I don’t dare look away from Ri.
His eyes narrow on mine and I have a really fucking bad feeling he’s about to pull the trigger, just to spite me, just to finally hurt me. “I love you, Grayson,” Mia whispers, because yes, she feels his readiness too, but that’s not the right thing for him to hear right now.
Fuck it, I’m going to kill him. My finger twitches on the trigger but a shot rings out before I shoot. Ri jolts backward and blood splatters all over my face and Mia’s. I grab Mia and pull her to me. “What happened?” she asks. “What happened?!”
“Easy, baby,” I say, looking over her shoulder at Ri lying across the floor, with a bullet between his eyes and blood pooling around him, thick and wide.
Blake appears by my side and takes my gun, “Thank me later. He was going to shoot and I wasn’t letting you answer for that. Get her out of here.” He kneels beside Ri and checks for a pulse as Adam charges in the door, “Get me an ambulance and the police,” Blake shouts at him.
I cup Mia’s face and tilt her eyes to mine. “You’re okay?”
“He’s dead, right?”
“No pulse!” Blake shouts before I can answer. “Hurry the fuck up, Adam!”
“I called. They’re on the way.” Adam eyes me. “Get her out of here.” He opens the door as I scoop up Mia and carry her past Adam, into the garage, and then to the van where I set her on the edge of the interior.
Sirens sound in the distance and Kara runs to our side. “Is she okay?” she asks and then to Mia. “Are you okay?”
“I’m alive,” Mia says, burying her head in my stomach and clinging to my waist. I cradle her head, my gaze finding Kara’s. “She’s shaken. Give us a few.” Kara nods and hurries away while I tilt Mia’s face and ease her stare to mine. “You’re okay, baby. I got you. You know that, right?”
“You could have been killed. I caused this. I didn’t listen to you. He knew about us and I felt like it was now or never.”
“I heard everything. You were right to just get out and while I’d have preferred you never see him again, you got him to admit everything on the audio. You did good.”
“He’s dead.” Her voice cracks. “I didn’t do good. He’s dead.”
“You did what he forced you to do and you tried to get out of his path.” Sirens grow louder, now in the garage, closing in on us. “He was armed, Mia. Had we not called him to the garage, what happened in the stairwell might have happened in his office and we might not have gotten to you in time.”
The ambulance pulls up just behind us, followed by at least one police car, and Mia grabs my shirt in reaction. “Oh God. The world knows now. The news will be blasting everywhere. My father is going to find out. Call him, please. I can’t talk to him. I’ll cry and he’ll freak out.”
I pull my phone from my pocket and kneel beside her, punching in her father’s autodial that I never deleted. “Mac,” I say. “It’s Grayson.”
“Grayson? How the hell are you?”
“Listen, sir. Mia is with me and safe, but there’s been an incident at her office. She’s shaken but unharmed.”
“What incident? I need to talk to her. Tell her I need to talk to her.”
“Sir—”
“Grayson, damn it.”
I cover the phone and look at Mia. “Baby. He needs to hear your voice.”
She nods and takes the phone. “Hey, dad. Yes. No. My boss. He’s crazy or he was. He’s dead. No. I’m fine. Just—meet us at the apartment.” She looks at me. “Grayson’s apartment, that’s my apartment again. I hadn’t had time to tell you.”
“He’s still on the security list,” I say. “I’ll have the building let him in.”
She repeats my words and then hangs up right as Blake reappears. “The police are going to want to talk to you both. Just tell the truth.” He looks at Mia. “You okay?”
“No, I’m not, but thank you. Grayson would have shot him, and I know what you did in that stairwell not only saved him trouble but you saved my life, Blake.”
“I’m just glad I pulled the trigger before Grayson, who clearly knows how to handle a gun a little too well for my sanity today.”
“My father insisted that a man with money had to know how to protect himself,” I say. “And so, I do but thank you. I know you saved me a lot of grief. I would have killed him.”