by Ashley Hall
She nodded frantically, and for a moment, guilt lanced through me at the fear in her expression. I never meant to bring her into this. Taking her out of the city had been my way of keeping her from the danger I was in.
But now all that bullshit had come to me.
I left her only reluctantly, gearing up for a fight. And why not? This one had been a long time coming. I still remembered the look on Vlad’s face as he stared down at his brother’s body. He wanted blood, but he wasn’t going to get mine.
Not if I could fucking help it.
I passed out of the living room and into the main hallway, where the sound of hateful laughter reached my ears. They were breaking things, but I cared little about things. I just wanted them away from Sadie.
Though there was little, if any light, I had no trouble recognizing the two men who had broken into my house. Vlad and Pytra—huge as gorillas and with half the intelligence.
“Come out here, Webb.” Vlad might have been laughing, but the fury in his tone was evident. He picked up a vase I was sure must have cost a few thousand and hurled it against the nearest wall cruelly. “I crush you. Slowly.”
Somehow, I doubted he wanted to get into actual hand-to-hand with me. More like he had a gun and was waiting for the right opportunity to blow my brains out. Either way, I knew how to handle him and Pytra both.
I stayed out of sight, listening to them ruining my furniture as they made their way further and further into the interior of the house. If Vlad was waiting for an opening, then so was I. He was slightly ahead of Pytra, so if I took the other man out and then got to Vlad’s gun, that was all I would need.
After about two minutes, they were both getting a little too close to the living room for my comfort. I had to act then or risk putting Sadie in more danger than she was already. Taking a deep breath, I popped out from behind the kitchen partition and put Pytra in a headlock from behind, choking off his air supply quickly and efficiently. He didn’t even have time to reach for his weapon.
Unfortunately, as he began to run out of air, he also panicked, and his choking sounds alerted Vlad.
The larger man whirled, withdrawing his weapon and shooting. The sound was deafening in the high-ceilinged hallway and I cursed, knocking Pytra out with a quick roundhouse kick before I went for Vlad. It was good for me that the bastard was a horrible shot. I managed to knock the gun from his hand with a quick strike to his wrist, and then it was the hand-to-hand that he hadn’t wanted.
The man’s face was a grimace of determination and fury as he tried to get me on the ground, throwing punches left and right. “Ivan wants his money, Webb!” He got me good once—and only once—and I tasted blood as I hit the opposite wall with enough force to knock the wind from me. “And I want my revenge.”
What was it with Russians and revenge?
“Ivan’s not getting one red cent from me.” I spat out a mouthful of blood as we circled one another carefully. “And your brother deserved what he got.”
That did it.
With a roar, Vlad came at me. I ducked out of the way at the last second, sending him crashing into the wall. The damage would cost me thousands, but it would be worth it every time I remembered the idiot’s face crashing into the drywall. What I didn’t expect was for a blade to whip out and catch me across the side.
“Shit!” The pain was swift and intense, even if the wound was relatively shallow. Blood almost immediately darkened my side and I growled in displeasure as I glanced around to give Vlad the punishment he deserved. I found the man had somehow crawled across the room and gotten hold of his gun, which he pointed at me from only a few yards away.
I had to count on his atrocious sense of aim, and when he fired, I dodged. When he saw me coming at him full on, Vlad panicked, firing wildly—five shots before I finally got the gun away from him.
A piercing scream of pain colored the air and I felt it like a needle of ice straight through the chest.
“Sadie!” I’d only got one good punch in on Vlad before I whirled, heading back into the living room with my heart in my throat. That scream. That fucking scream.
She was right where I’d left her, but now Sadie was sprawled out on the floor, unmoving. There was a horrible, dark stain spreading out from behind the couch that looked sickeningly like blood, and I felt something within me twist.
Snap.
I forgot how to breathe, how to think, and only saw red.
Sadie. My Sadie.
I was on top of Vlad before he could even register what was happening—only this time, I wasn’t going to just rough him up.
My second punch was hard enough to break his jaw, the third enough to cave in one of his eye sockets. He screamed, a horrible, bubbling, choking sound, as his face turned to a pile of mush and blood as I hit him again and again. With every bone that broke, my rage burned hotter and hotter.
Sadie. He shot Sadie.
I was still punching long after Vlad had stopped moving. My knuckles were a mess of my blood and his and there was no way he was ever getting up again. My face was wet with what I thought was gore, but the moment I snapped from my rage-filled haze, I realized the hot moisture wasn’t blood.
“Sadie,” I whispered, as if in a daze. “Sadie.”
I finally left Vlad where he lay, rushing back to the living room to shove the couch aside. Sadie lay there, perfectly still, and I dropped to my knees, afraid to breathe. “Sadie…Jesus Christ, Sadie…”
She moaned.
Fucking moaned.
She was alive!
I could have sagged to the carpet in relief. Taking her into my arms, I groaned when my fingertips came away wet with blood. Where was she hit? Was it bad?
I reached into the back pocket of my jeans to yank out my phone and called 911 without hesitation. I could give two shits about what trouble I was in; I needed someone to help my Sadie.
And I needed them yesterday.
Sadie
My head hurt. And it didn’t just hurt, it was pounding.
I was in complete darkness, and I had no idea what on earth had happened. When I tried to speak I could only form a faint croak, and my body felt completely boneless.
I tried to focus on breathing as I struggled to remember what had happened before the massive headache.
Griffin and I…he took me on a trip. We went to the coast, to his beach house. We’d been enjoying his particular brand of relaxation when something had happened…someone broke in!
At the memory, my eyes popped open and I was immediately blinding by bright while hospital fluorescents. For a full minute, I got so dizzy that I was pretty certain I was going to be sick—and that was when the word decided to right itself. The room swam into focus, and sitting right next to me was none other than Griffin.
At the sight of him, a plethora of emotions washed over me. Principal among them was relief. The last time I’d seen him, he’d gone after whomever it was who’d broken in and I had no idea if I’d ever see him again. He was safe, and that had been my primary concern. The second thing I felt was anger.
Griffin lied to me.
I blatantly asked him on the way to the beach house if he was in any kind of danger and he told me no. But he obviously knew whoever it was who’d come to the beach house. He described them perfectly without me saying a word, and he’d gone after them like hell on wheels. I doubted that would have happened if these had been run-of-the-mill home invaders.
No, these men had been after Griffin specifically—and he hadn’t told me.
What else, I wondered, had he lied about? The man asked me to trust him, and then he kept all the secrets in the world from me. He told me he had feelings for me but neglected to be honest. How was I supposed to take that?
The third emotion that rolled over me was a need so powerful it made my toes curl beneath the thin hospital sheet. He had no right to sit there, looking so absolutely delectable in his white t-shirt and jeans as he stared down at me raptly. His hair was damp, as if he’d rece
ntly showered, and though his features were just as enrapturing as ever, there was a haunted look to them, a tortured edge that made my chest tighten.
When he saw I was awake, he leapt from the chair to take my hand tightly, bending over me to swathe me in his presence and his scent. “Sadie…thank God you’re awake.”
“What…” I was embarrassed to find my throat dry and hoarse, and when I attempted to clear it, Griffin all but lunged for the bedside table to grab the glass of water there and hand it to me. After a few swallows, my throat felt better. I tried again. “What happened?”
At my question, Griffin flushed—the first time I’d ever seen him do so in anything other than anger. The guilt all but radiated off him, and he hesitated before he answered. “Bullet grazed your arm…you fainted. I freaked out. I thought you were…they had…” His jaw locked tight into place as he stopped speaking.
I stared up at him, shocked to see Griffin’s eyes wet with something that looked suspiciously like tears.
He was upset. Beyond upset, the man looked like he’d been through hell and back in the short time that I’d been unconscious. Never letting go of my hand, he reached blindly behind him to find the chair he’d been sitting in and dragged it forward to sink into it once more. “Sadie…” When Griffin next spoke, his voice was a hoarse croak. His gaze dropped from mine to my hand as he pressed his forehead against it, his grip tight. “I’m so, so sorry. I never meant for you to get mixed up in any of this. I was just trying to protect you.”
I swallowed slowly, my throat curiously thick. Why was I upset? Griffin had done this. He’d lied, put me in danger, kept secrets!
And he regretted it. That much was evident by the way his usually proud shoulders sagged and the dark circles beneath his eyes.
“What?” I finally managed, swallowing my own grief. “What are you trying to protect me from?”
At that exact moment, a low knock came on the door.
Griffin released my hand, his green gaze turning irate as he looked to the door. In a smooth movement, he stood and crossed the room in three strides to yank the door open. “What?”
Standing in the doorway was a tall, blue-eyed man with graying mahogany hair that looked to be about my father’s age. Before he spoke, he flashed a badge that made Griffin’s mouth snap shut. “Mr. Webb. Detective Morgan Addison, City Police. I understand your girlfriend’s injuries are minor and she’s recovering nicely.”
Griffin visibly paled. When he spoke, his voice was gruff with embarrassment. “Yeah. They’re keeping her overnight for observation but she’ll be fine.”
Well, that was nice to know, all things considered. Now that I remembered things a bit more clearly, I thought I must have fainted at the sharp pain in my arm—I wasn’t exactly the swooning, fainting type. Wouldn’t get me very far in my profession.
“I’m glad. Would you mind stepping outside so we can discuss what happened?”
Griffin cast a glance back in my direction, his gaze hovering on mine. Within a split second, I realized with no small amount of surprise that he was asking my permission. Griffin Webb, subservient to no female, international playboy, bruiser, and hard ass was asking me for something.
What could I do but nod?
His mouth set into a tight line, Griffin left the hospital room with the detective, closing the door behind him.
Without him, the hospital room suddenly seemed horribly empty.
It was in that instant that everything hit me at once.
I was in the hospital. I’d been shot, albeit grazed, but still shot, and here I was, waiting like a lost puppy on a man who had put me in danger, however unintentional.
If my parents ever found out, they’d lose their minds. Hell, if anyone at my job ever found out, they’d lose their minds.
I was having a bit of trouble keeping it together.
How the hell had I gotten to this point? A few weeks ago, I’d been assigned to do a story on Griffin Webb. That was all. The man got under my skin and worked his way into my life until he was all I could think about. He was destructive, dangerous. A force of nature that I couldn’t possibly hope to keep up with.
And yet…he was exciting. He was unpredictable; he sparked something in me long dormant, something I didn’t know existed. There was something about being with Griffin that demanded I seize the moment and take advantage of all the opportunities I had ignored trying to play it safe. I was good at my job, and I loved being a writer, but how many years had I spent at Grind waiting for a cover story to fall in my lap? Two whole years? In that time, I could have been travelling and writing, making a living as I lived. I could have fulfilled dreams long forgotten in the doldrums of the day to day.
And I’d forgotten what I was capable of until Griffin reminded me.
It was exhausting, I had to admit, fighting the person I used to be. Safe Sadie wanted nothing to do with Griffin, and though she might think she was keeping me out of harm’s way, what she was really doing was keeping me from living my life.
If I was ever going to accept Griffin—and whatever it was he felt I needed protecting from—I was going to have to let her go.
Somehow.
I sighed, closing my eyes as I tried to find my Zen place. When I opened them, my eyes lit on two dozen vibrant red roses sitting on the regulation hospital bureau close to the door. At the sight of them, I couldn’t help but smile. I could hardly imagine Griffin buying flowers for a woman.
He’d effectively rendered me warm and fuzzy inside, if only for a moment.
Not that I was ever going to tell him that.
I didn’t know how long Griffin was outside talking to the detective, but by the time the door finally opened, I was dozing slightly. I forced myself awake to the sight of the fighter’s broad back as he slipped quietly back into the hospital room.
“I’m awake.” Even if I didn’t sound much like it. Griffin immediately turned, his expression solemn. He ran a hand over the stubble that covered his chin before crossing the room to me and taking his seat once more. I pulled myself into an upright position against the pillows to stare at him, waiting patiently.
He knew what I was waiting for.
“Sadie…” He reached out to take my hand again, the gesture sending warmth through me. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I was trying to keep you safe, and now I realize how fucking stupid that was. I…I want to tell you everything…but I’m scared.”
I looked down from where our fingers were intertwined to his earnest green gaze.
“What are you scared of?” I couldn’t possibly imagine. The man had gone half-dressed against two men twice his size with guns. He took men down for a living. He gave few fucks about what anyone thought about him and did whatever he wanted.
“That you’ll walk away from me and never look back.”
All the breath was sucked from my lungs as I stared at him, at a complete loss for words. That was what scared him? That I’d leave him? There had been no real discussion that we were officially together. Certainly, he admitted he had feelings for me and I definitely felt for him, but this…he was speaking like I was the love of his goddamned life.
He was scared of losing me.
I didn’t think I’ve ever had a man tell me that.
“I won’t walk away from you, Griffin.” I squeezed his hand reassuringly, pushing safe Sadie down one final time before she poofed from existence. “I promise.”
Strong words. I only hoped my stomach could match them.
Griffin exhaled a long breath before he started to speak; despite all his bulk, I’d never seen him as small as he was in that moment. “When I was young…I made a lot of bad decisions. I’ve been lucky enough that most of them have just disappeared but one…one has come back to bite me in the ass in a big way.” His mouth turned downward into a scowl as he continued. “The first year I started fighting professionally, I was hungry. I wanted to win so damn bad there was little I wouldn’t do for it. Riley kept me out of the idiotic shit like fixing
matches and paying people off, but he wasn’t around when I met Ivan, the neighborhood steroid pusher.” Griffin grimaced. “That shit is more rampant in the sport than you can even imagine, and Ivan was all too happy to convince me that it would give me the edge I needed so fuckin’ desperately. So we made an agreement and I started juicing.”
My eyes widened. Was this Griffin’s secret? That he was a steroid user? That his talents weren’t entirely his own?
I couldn’t lie; the idea rocked me to my very core.
“It went on for about a year or so before I realized that the drugs weren’t so much giving me an edge as making me think I had one. They fucked with my already shitty temper, made me groggy and fuzzy, and if my muscles grew, it was only physically. My career didn’t advance too much, and so I made one of the better decisions in my life and I told Ivan I was through.”
