Bang!
Aspen’s dad slumps off me, and I gasp a breath I thought I wouldn’t get. I rip his hands away from my neck and scramble backward. For a split second, I thought I was going to die. My throat burns, my body aches. Like I went through a pulverizer. My face is hot, pulsing with pain.
But then I see what happened to him. He’s gaping like a fish out of water, struggling to breathe. Blood flecks his lips, and there’s blood soaking his shirt. It’s hard to see where it’s coming from with his leather jacket.
“Oh, god,” Aspen moans.
I look at her.
The gun in her hand.
She just fucking saved my life—by shooting her own father.
She drops to her knees, setting the gun down by her side. Her gaze is locked on her dad. He hasn’t made any move to get up, but his attention is on her, too. Even as he gasps for air, and his breath whistles.
They’re in a staring contest.
I will not lose her to him.
I crawl across the floor to her, blocking her view of him. I grip her cheeks and force her to focus on me. It takes me a second to realize my hands are bloody, and it now paints her skin, too. Her wide-eyed stare bores into me.
“You’re okay,” I tell her.
It hurts to talk. To breathe, really.
She shakes her head. “I killed him. I-I killed him, Steele, he was going to kill you, and I just picked up the gun and pulled the trigger—”
I drag her into me. All the worry and fear eases when our lips touch. She sags against me, gripping my shoulders. She needs me to save her.
I know that now.
So when I pick up the gun, I don’t hesitate. I leave her kneeling on the floor and push myself up, going back to her father. He looks up at me, then at the gun. And he fucking smiles.
“She picked a winner,” he says, his words gurgled.
I’d bet anything that she nicked his lung. And I’d love to see him drown in his own blood, but it’ll take too long. The paramedics, the police—everyone will be here soon. Already, the sirens are drawing closer.
I will.
I aim at his chest and squeeze the trigger. It kicks in my hand, but it lands true. I do it again, just to make sure. And again. Until the gun is only dry-firing, out of bullets, and utterly fucking useless. I toss it away from us and go back to Aspen. I’ll deal with it after, if I need to clean it, or… whatever you’re supposed to do with a deadly weapon that belongs to a career criminal.
“Your dad,” she whispers. “He—”
Oh, fuck.
I pick her up. Because I’m not leaving her to stare at her dead father while I go see about mine. She winds her arms around my shoulders and buries her face in my neck.
“I don’t want to see.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” I murmur. I stroke her hair. “It’s okay.”
I go into the front room. There’s just an armchair in here, nothing else. A wide row of windows, similar to Aspen’s living room, but without any curtains or blinds. The overhead light is harsh, illuminating my father on the floor.
He’s got his suit jacket off and balled up, holding it to his left leg. He used his tie as a makeshift tourniquet just above it. There’s a puddle of blood under his thigh, and his face is white with pain.
But the relief that comes across his expression—and then the fear when he latches on to Aspen.
“Is she—”
“She’s okay.” I drum my fingers against her arm. “And so is he. Look, sweetheart.”
She lifts her head and stares at my dad. Then the blood.
But maybe it’s too much for her. Or everything just catches up, because her eyes lose focus. They roll back, and she goes completely limp in my arms.
My phone buzzes. I set her down in the armchair and scan the text.
MILES
Police and EMT are pulling up now. They’ll be up in a minute.
I relay that message to my dad, then send one final text to Greyson.
He nods, then glances at Aspen. “Is her father…?”
“Dead,” I confirm. “I’d be fucking surprised if he wasn’t.”
“Listen to me, Steele. You’re not to say a word to the police. Go to the hospital with Aspen and get checked out, but if they try to question you, give them our lawyer’s number and do not speak without him present. Same with Aspen. You’ve got to protect her.”
I grit my teeth. “Of course I’m going to protect her.” I love her.
He nods.
The apartment door opens, the police sweeping into the room. We go still and let them finish their check, and then the paramedics arrive. I spot one checking Aspen’s father’s pulse, and she glances up at one of the officers and shakes her head.
Two more come to us, checking first my dad, then Aspen.
Things seem to pass in a blur after that. They load up Aspen, still unconscious, onto a stretcher. And my dad on another. I follow them downstairs, ignoring the police. Knox, Miles, and Jacob are standing on the other side of police tape that’s stretched across the sidewalk and street.
I’m glad they didn’t come up with me. What if they had been hurt?
What if Aspen’s dad had heard us enter and just shot us on sight?
I climb into the ambulance with Aspen and hold her hand. It’s cool and limp in my grasp, but the monitor they hooked her up to shows her steady pulse. There’s a police officer sitting beside me, his expression carefully blank.
But all that matters is that she’s alive.
“Your sister?” the paramedic asks.
My lip curls before I can stop it. “Soon-to-be wife,” I reply.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Your father—”
“It’s complicated,” I mumble.
Aspen wakes up as we’re pulling into the hospital bay. She tries to jackknife upright, but the straps around her chest and legs hold her fast to the stretcher. It only serves to panic her, though, and she fights it blindly.
“Hey, hey,” I call, squeezing her hand. “You’re okay. Breathe.”
She finds me and goes still.
I lean forward and press a kiss to her temple. She’s got my bloody handprints on her cheeks like a goddamn warrior. Her breath catches when my lips brush her skin, and the heart monitor over her head increases tempo.
“We’re at the hospital to get you checked out,” I tell her.
Her cheeks redden further.
The doors open, and there’s more flurry of activity as they unload her. I hop out and follow her inside the emergency department. She gets her own bed with curtains for walls. The police officer explains that they need to collect our clothes and swab for gunshot residue. All of which Aspen and I don’t fight.
They suspect us of the murder, of course.
A nurse returns with fresh clothes for both of us, as one of the officers disappeared with ours. There’s another posted just outside of the curtained off area around Aspen’s bed.
I shrug into the scrubs and hold Aspen’s hand until they return. They take care of Aspen first and foremost—as they should. But eventually, once the testing is done, the nurse eyes me like she wants to say something. Her brows are furrowed.
“What?” I snap.
“Let me check out your hands. And your face.”
I glance down at the hands in question. My knuckles have seen better days… the fight at the hockey game didn’t help either. But my face feels terrible. My left eye is swelling a bit, and every time I swallow, I taste blood. My lip is split, the insides of my cheeks shredded.
Sighing, I let her examine them. She nods to herself and disappears around the corner, coming back with a tray and wheeling stool a second later.
I sit on the edge of Aspen’s bed and let the nurse clean out my knuckles and wrap them.
When she’s done, she looks to Aspen. “The doctor will be over to check you in a few minutes. Your father’s been taken into surgery.”
Aspen’s face goes white.
“You mean my father,” I interrupt, squeezing her hand again. “The gunshot wound in the leg?”
She dips her head. “Yes, of course.”
“Thanks,” Aspen whispers to me.
Detectives arrive, as does our lawyer. We all agree to give statements here, as opposed to going to the police station. I get the sense that it’s not exactly normal, but it’s the middle of the night. We’re exhausted. And by some stroke of luck, the security team notified police of both Aspen and my father’s disappearance.
It’s all on record.
The detectives make each of us run through it a few times separately, sitting in a cramped conference room with a camera trained on me. Being apart from her eats at my insides, but the lawyer, a sturdy looking man who takes no shit from the detectives, gives me a look. It translates to, keep calm or else.
Can’t help but agree with that.
So we follow the police directions, and what feels like hours later, we’re cleared to leave the ED by both doctors and detectives.
I’m a strange mix of wired and exhausted, and I know Aspen feels the same. We’re in foreign clothes, with blood still in our hair and on our skin. The feel of the gun going off in my hand seems ingrained in my muscles.
Aspen’s mom and sisters are safe and sound at a hotel nearby. Dad got out of surgery about an hour ago, and while Aspen’s mom got to see him briefly, she didn’t want to leave the girls alone with the security team for too long.
My friends wait for us outside, under the floodlights of the hospital. My friends hug me, patting my back. Jacob shakes his head at me, his eyes saying I’m a stupid fuck—but he would’ve done the same freaking thing if he could get his professor back.
We all would for our girls… even the lost ones.
Greyson catches my eye and nods, reading my mind. He opens the back door for us.
I hoist her into the backseat, then join her. I wrap my arm around her shoulders, not willing to be separated from her for even a moment. She sits between Jacob and me, trembling like a leaf. The other guys will ride back with Willow and Thalia, so Greyson doesn’t even worry about waiting. He takes off away from the hospital, flying through the quiet, dark streets of Crown Point.
The clock on the dash reads 3:05 a.m.
Greyson parks at the hockey house. Jacob hops out and gives us a wave before heading straight to his vehicle. I toss a nod at Greyson and Violet, too, before shepherding Aspen inside. They’re going to head home. And soon enough, Knox and Miles will be returning here.
For now, though, it’s quiet. Empty.
We go up to my room, and I close us in. She stands in the middle of it with her arms wrapped around her middle. The scrubs the nurse gave her are loose and baggy, but at least they’re free of blood. One of the nurses in the emergency department helped clean the blood off her face, and cleaned up my face, too. I can feel it in my hair, on my neck.
All in all, a fucking traumatic night.
I go to her and run my fingers through her hair. Stroking it away from her temple. She has a bruise forming on her cheekbone, just a shadow under her skin. But my chest tightens all the same.
If I hadn’t killed the bastard, I would want to now.
“He’s gone,” I assure her. “No more demons haunting your step.”
