Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Guns out, we moved swiftly into the trees and followed the smaller footprints. Soon we heard a male voice and … Sloane.
I picked up the pace until I saw her.
Standing over Andros with a gun in her hands while he clutched his bleeding thigh.
Relief and pride rushed through me.
“Sloane,” I said quietly, trying not to startle her.
She glanced sharply over her shoulder without moving her gun off Andros. As soon as our eyes met, she burst into tears.
My gut knotted, and I moved to her side as I murmured, “You can lower your gun, baby.”
Jamie stood over Andros, gun trained on him, while he called for an ambulance and the police.
Sloane lowered her gun, slumping into me. “Callie?”
“She’s fine. She’s safe. Are you injured?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
I wrapped an arm around her as she rested her cheek on my chest. Her body trembled like she was in shock.
“Is he going to die?”
Looking down at Andros, I noted he’d passed out. Blood saturated his leg, and I realized he had a second gunshot wound in his shoulder. Sharing a glance with Jamie, I waited as Jamie kneeled on his haunches and checked Andros’s pulse. He looked up at me grimly. “Pulse is faint.”
“I think I hit an artery,” Sloane observed flatly and repeated, “Is he going to die?”
“I don’t know.” I held her tighter as Jamie took off his tie and made a tourniquet around Andros’s thigh to stop the blood flow.
“Is Callie all right?”
Her trembling wouldn’t desist and between that and her repeating herself, I was worried she was definitely in shock. “Callie’s fine.” I slipped my gun back into its holster and drew off my jacket to cover Sloane. I rubbed her arms as she stood impassively against me, cheeks chalk white, eyes too big. “Jamie, go flag down that ambulance,” I ordered, not taking my attention off Sloane. “We’ll be fine. Andros isn’t going anywhere.”
Once Jamie left, I cupped Sloane’s face and forced her to meet my gaze. “Sloane, stay with me, baby, okay?”
She nodded, but her eyes were glazed. “I think I killed him. What will happen to me?”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I vowed fiercely. “Do you understand me? It was self-defense.”
“Self-defense,” Sloane murmured.
I crushed her to me, holding tight, trying to keep her warm. But really, the embrace was for me too. How many times had I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to her? I’d failed her by not protecting her from Andros’s attack, and if he died at her hands, I’d have failed to protect her from the trauma of taking someone else’s life.
As I looked down at an unconscious Andros, I didn’t know what the better outcome would be: him, gone from their lives for good, but leaving Sloane with the weight of his death on her shoulders; or him surviving and posing a threat to her peace of mind for the rest of her life.
Neither seemed right.
It should have been me. That bullet in his thigh should have come from me.
I’d failed her.
Twenty-Eight
WALKER
“You canceled our last session,” Rich said without preamble as soon as his face appeared on my laptop screen.
Agitated, I scrubbed a hand over my beard. “Didn’t feel like talking.”
My therapist frowned. “Has something happened, Walker?”
Aye, something had happened. Two weeks. It had been two fucking weeks since Andros kidnapped Callie and then Sloane and almost bloody killed her.
Two weeks since I failed to protect her like I’d vowed.
“Walker?”
“Something happened the day before our last session was scheduled. It was still a bit raw,” I admitted. “I needed time before we talked.”
“Do you feel like telling me what happened now?”
No. But it was eating away at me, so I knew I should. Over the next few minutes, I relayed the story about Andros.
“Sloane sounds like a very strong and capable woman.”
I nodded, my throat thick with the strain of mixed emotions.
“How is she coping?”
“I don’t know.” Guilt twisted in my chest, and I shifted uncomfortably on my couch. “I’ve been keeping my distance.”
Rich’s shrewd gaze narrowed. “Why?”
“I … I promised her that bastard wouldn’t hurt her or Callie, and now Callie is traumatized, and Sloane almost killed Andros to protect herself. I broke my promise.” I huffed in self-directed disgust. “You know, when this shit was all starting, I actually told her there was no one better equipped to protect her than me. What a fucking joke.”
“How so?” Rich frowned. “You’ve dedicated the last few months to Sloane and Callie’s safety. You were the first on the scene.”
“Callie should never have been taken in the first place.”
“Circumstances were such that it was out of your hands, Walker. Just as Sloane deciding to go after Callie and her ex alone was. You did what you could. You tried.”
“I failed.”
“Sloane and Callie are both alive and the perpetrator is in prison. How is that failing?”