He took her face in his hands. “I adore you.”
“And I you,” she said, tears in her eyes. Ludo kissed her again, slowly and tenderly, then met her gaze again.
“Don’t ever let me go, Tally. I wouldn’t survive.”
They spent the entire weekend together, then as Ludo only had a few scenes left to shoot, most of the following week. They spent days making love, talking, cooking, and just getting to know each other. Ludo was astonished at how quickly they had become so close, as if they had been destined to meet. He now understood the concept of ‘the one.’ Tahlia was his destiny. He knew it deep in his bones.
One day, she took him to where Cade had died and told him the whole story. Ludo was touched that she would share the story with him. To him, it was the greatest sign of trust. They sat together on the clifftop, Ludo’s arms around her.
“I come up here every anniversary and I search around. Cade always wore a St. Christopher pendant. It wasn’t found with his body, or in his home, or anywhere.”
Thalia’s voice broke, and Ludo pressed his lips to her temple. “Let’s have another look, shall we?”
She smiled at him gratefully, and he pulled her to her feet, kissing her before they started searching. They found nothing and Thalia’s shoulders slumped. “I just wish I had it, you know? Something to remind me …which sounds ridiculous. I’ll never forget him.”
Ludo stroked her hair away from her face. “The few times I met him, I thought he was the greatest guy. It runs in the family. You are Cade’s greatest legacy, Tally. Never forget it.”
Whether Ludo realized it or not, that was the moment when Tally knew she loved him without limit.
On the Saturday before Tally had to go back to work, she and Ludo went into the city to have dinner by the waterfront. It wasn’t an upscale place. Tally had discovered Ludo preferred the places that locals liked to haunt, and so they ate in a seafood place surrounded by a rowdy weekend crowd and loved every minute.
Thalia wore a white top that clung to her body, and Ludo couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Her dark hair was loose, but pulled over her shoulder, and her eyes shone with love. Ludo leaned over and kissed her, smiling. “I’m the envy of every man here, cara mia.”
They lingered over coffee, Ludo’s eyes never leaving her face. He laughed at her dumb jokes, stroking her face and not caring who was watching. It felt so damn good to be able to be together openly. Tahlia felt wiped out by love for this man, and it wasn’t the just the incredible, life-changing sex …Ludo was her partner in every way.
At just after midnight, they left, and walked along the waterfront, Ludo’s jacket around her shoulders, his fingers linked with hers. He kissed her under the globe lamps on the piers.
“I’m going to take you back to your home and fuck you senseless, you beautiful woman.”
Tahlia grinned. “Well, you’d better.”
Everyone along the waterfront started at the loud crack that split the night air. Ludo looked around, then cursed loudly. Marianne, her hair in long thin strands hanging down her face, was walking unsteadily towards them. In her hand, a gun.
Tahlia felt very strange. “Ludo …” she said weakly. He looked around, and she looked down at the blood blooming across her belly. “I think she shot me.”
Ludo didn’t have time to answer before there were two more shots, and he went down, his shirt seeming to explode with blood and gore. Tahlia screamed, the blood rushing in her ears. She looked at Marianne, screaming curses at her. Marianne calmly shot Tahlia again, the bullet grazing her temple, then, with blood pouring down her face, Tally watched as Marianne put the gun in her own mouth and pull the trigger again and again. But the chamber just clicked. A man tackled Marianne to the ground, where she laughed hysterically.
For a second, the night was silent. Then there was bedlam as people rushed to help them. Ignoring her own wounds, Tahlia sobbed as she clung to Ludo, trying to stem the blood from the wounds in his chest as she begged the people around her to help him.
Ellory was breathless when he reached the emergency room, and when Tahlia saw him, she wailed and he went to her. “God, Tally …are you hurt? Jesus Christ, you’re shot, baby. What the fuck happened?”
“She shot Ludo.” Tahlia was hysterical, batting away the hands of the doctor’s trying to tend her wounds. She was covered in blood. “Marianne. She shot me, then she shot Ludo …god, they won’t tell me if he’s dead. Please, please, Ell, help find out what happened to Ludo. I can’t lose him. He can’t die …”
Ellory looked horrified. The doctor in charge took advantage of Tahlia being locked in Ellory’s arms and stuck a needle in her arm.
“A sedative,” he said calmly, and Tahlia went limp in Ellory’s arms. He laid her down on the bed and looked on as the doctors cut her blouse away and tended to her bullet wounds.
“A through and through to the lower right quadrant …looks like it missed the organs, but we’ll have to do a laparotomy to find out. Thalia, we’re going to have to put you out …”
“No, I won’t sign any waivers until I know about Ludo.”
The doctor looked grim. “Tahlia, Mr. Ricci is in surgery now. He took two bullets to the chest. We’re doing everything we can to save him. That’s all I know. Now, please, let us help you.”
Tears dropped down Thalia’s cheeks. “Ell, please, make them tell you everything. Please. And call his family. They should know from a friend—not the news.”
Ellory bent his head and kissed her still-bloody forehead. “I promise, sweetheart. Now let them fix you, darling, please.”
In minutes, Thalia was being put under, and as she succumbed to the anesthetic, her heart was breaking, knowing that when she woke up, Ludo might be dead.
Ludo opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t. The lights of the hospital room were too bright, and his chest felt it was in a vise. There was only one thought on his mind.
Thalia. She had been shot. Was she dead?
No, no, please. Not my love …
A tube was down his throat and he couldn’t move. He reached out with his arm, searching for the call button, every movement agony. He found it and pressed it continually.
A nurse appeared. “Hey, look who’s up,” she said cheerfully. “Not often we get a movie star. How’re you feeling, honey? Just nod or shake your head.”
Ludo grabbed her hand and wrote on her palm. Tahlia. After a couple of tries, the nurse, Rosie, got it.
“She’s fine, honey. The bullet in her belly was a through and through and the headshot was just a flesh wound. She’s desperately worried about you. She’s been here every day, sneaking out of her room to sit with you. She’s only not here now because the doctor made her go back to her own room. I’ll tell her you’re awake, and if the doctor says it’s okay, I’ll bring her to you.”
The nurse kept her promise, and an hour later, she wheeled Tahlia in in a wheelchair. Tahlia’s face was like a shot of morphine to Ludo. He reached out for her, and she took his hand, pressing her lips against it, then gingerly standing and kissing his forehead. There were stitches on her temple, and Ludo could see she was in pain, but she smiled at him.
“I love you, Ludo Ricci. I know it’s fast, but I don’t care. I love you. You don’t have to say it or even feel the same as I do, but I want you to know that, and also that if I could turn back time and take both of those bullets for you, I would do so happily.”
Ludo’s heart—so nearly smashed by a crazy woman’s bullet—swelled and pumped rich, red, healing blood through his battered body. He beckoned her nearer and she kissed the side of his mouth.
Oh, how I love you, you beautiful girl …
She smiled at him as if she’d heard his thought, and Ludo knew everything would be okay now.
A week later, Tahlia was released from the hospital. Ellory stepped up and told her his spare room was hers for as long as she wanted it. He’d been to her house and packed a case for her. His apartment was only a few blocks from the
hospital, and Tahlia would be able to visit Ludo every day.
She met Ludo’s family—his mother, father, and his siblings, Nico and Grace. They all took her into their family when they saw how much their brother and son loved this woman, and how much she loved him. Ludo was recovering slowly, but surely. He would have to stay in the hospital for at least another few weeks, but for now, he was just glad to have the tube out of his throat so he could kiss Tahlia as much as he wanted. He hated feeling this helpless and weak.
And something else was bothering him too. Ellory Mackenzie. Since he had discovered the affair between Ludo and Thalia, he had been strangely attentive to Thalia. No, not attentive. Proprietary. As if Ludo hadn’t been strong enough to protect her, and so he, Ellory, was stepping in to ‘save’ her.
Ludo tried to shake the idea, putting it down to his own frustration at being stuck in this bed and unable to take care of her, but when his brother, Nico, entered Ludo’s room as Ellory was taking Thalia out, he made a face behind the big man’s back.
“That dude is a creep,” he said to his brother, and Ludo felt better. If Nico, who was the most laidback person he knew, thought something was up with Mackenzie, then there was.
Tahlia was at Ellory’s place, alone, trying to nap. She had visited Ludo for hours earlier, but had come back to the apartment, feeling sick and faint. She tried to sleep, but her headache was getting worse and worse. She went hunting out some aspirin in Ellory’s bathroom. Pulling open the cabinet, she reached up for the small bottle tucked behind a small, white cup. A wave of faintness passed over her, and she wobbled, knocking the cup into the sink. She gripped the basin, her eyes closed as the nausea passed. She opened her eyes and it was like being hit in the stomach by a sledgehammer. In the basin, a small gold chain with a St. Christopher lay against the enamel. Tahlia reached out and picked it up in the second before her legs gave way, and she sank to the floor, trying to breathe. Instead, she began to sob as she realized the lie she had been living for a year, and that she had given her loyalty, her time, her trust, and her body to the man who had murdered her brother.
“He must have broken his neck and thrown him over the cliff. You know how big Ellory is—Cade wouldn’t have stood a chance. Ellory murdered Cade.’
Tahlia’s voice was flat and dead as she sat by the bed in Ludo’s hospital room. Ludo looked at her, concerned. Eventually, she met his gaze, and he saw a world of pain in her eyes. “Why would he do it, Ludo? Why would he kill his best friend? And then to text me from Cade’s phone, leading me there so that I would be the one to find Cade’s body. The cruelty of it.” She turned the pendant over and over in her fingers.
“He arranged it that way so you’d see him as your savior.”
Ludo reached out and stroked her face, horrified by what she had discovered. He could kill Ellory Mackenzie, the son-of-a-bitch.
“Ludo …I was sleeping with Ellory when I met you. It was unexpected and very new, but I didn’t know how I felt about him until I met you and realized what I felt for Ellory wasn’t love. I broke it off when I knew how I felt about you, and he seemed okay with it. He had wanted sex and I’d had to tell him that I wasn’t feeling it anymore. God, Ludo …”
Ludo, his eyes heavy and tired, said, “Bella, I think you better stay somewhere else. Does Ellory know you know about Cade? About the pendant?”
She shook her head. “No. That’s one good thing—he has no idea. I’ll just tell him I need to be at home until you’re released.”
“I think maybe you should go the police.”
She smiled gladly. “I don’t have any proof apart from this.” She held up the pendent, then slipped it into her jeans. “I’ll just get out of there and we’ll try and figure something out. He hasn’t a clue that I know, and I have been talking about going home.”
“Bella …okay, if that’s what you want to do.” Ludo kissed her, then lay back on the pillow. He looked exhausted and Tahlia stroked his hair. “I’ll pack my stuff and go home. I’ll still come every day. Have they said when you’ll be released?”
“Maybe a week or two.”
Thalia hesitated. “You know …I don’t know what your plans are. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to go back to Italy and be with your family.”
Ludo smiled. “I’m not going anywhere without you, baby.”
Thalia smiled sadly. “Good. Because I don’t think I’ll be staying at my job now. Do they need good lawyers in Italy?”
Ludo looked delighted, his smile beaming. “Absolutely, cara mia. Call me when you get back to Ellory’s apartment, and when you leave, so I’ll know you’re safe.”
“I will. I love you.”
Tahlia had just finished packing when Ellory arrived back at his apartment. He looked at her case in amazement. She forced a smile on her face. “I think it’s time I go home now, Ell. You’ve been way too kind.” God, she nearly choked on the words.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re not well enough.”
Her smile was tight. “I’m fine.”
Ellory came closer and she flinched. “What’s wrong, Tal?” His voice was silk, but she detected something else in there that she couldn’t define.
Her cell phone rang and she answered it gratefully. “Hey, baby.” Her voice sounded unnaturally high.
“God, is he there?” Ludo’s voice was full of concern.
“Yes. How are you feeling?” God, she sounded fake. Ellory was staring at her and she was worried he could hear Ludo.
“Get out of there now, cara mia. Make any excuse. Just go.”
Tahlia edged away from Ellory and went into the living room. Her leg brushed against the table and a glass rocked and tipped over. “Woah.” Tahlia grabbed at it at the same as Ellory; she overbalanced and fell to the floor. Her phone skittered out of her hand and Cade’s pendant slipped out of her pocket and rolled across the floor. For a second, they both froze. Then Ellory looked at Tahlia and she saw murder in his eyes. Oh, god, no …
“Ludo!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping her phone hadn’t disconnected, because he was her only hope now. Ellory was going to kill her. She had no doubt. She heard Ludo screaming her name down the phone before Ellory picked his foot up and smashed it to hell.
She scrambled across the floor, but he was too quick and grabbed her hair, pulling her back. His lips were at her ear as he held her tightly. “You shouldn’t have gone snooping, little girl.”
Tahlia screamed and hollered, trying to attract attention from anyone, but Ellory threw her to the floor and launched a vicious kick into her stomach, dead on the site of her still-healing bullet wound. Tahlia gasped, agony ripping through her, but Ellory did not let her recover before his foot smashed into her again and again. Finally, he grabbed her head and, smiling, bounced it off the hard tile floor and knocked her out.
Ludo pulled his sweater on furiously, not caring that his whole body screamed in agony. Ellory had Tahlia and nothing—nothing—was more important than getting to her. Ludo somehow eluded all the staff and his family and got down to the entrance of the hospital. He flagged down a cab and was relieved when he saw it was the cab driver who’d taken him to the church in Olympia all those weeks ago.
The driver greeted him, then saw the look on his face. “What is it, man?”
Ludo gave directions and told him to floor it. “Please, we have to save her.” He was on the phone to the police before they had left the parking lot.
When she woke, Ellory was pulling her out of his car, and Tahlia realized they were at the old lighthouse. As she was being pulled from the car, she saw a gun on the passenger seat. Was he going to shoot her again? But he left the gun where it was and dragged her up the hill. The sun was setting and she knew she had to have been out for quite a while.
When they reached the top, Ellory locked his arms around her and started to walk her to the cliff edge. “You should have seen Cade’s face when he realized what I was going to do, Tally. And all because he said no. He t
old me I would never have you.”
Tahlia struggled in Ellory’s arms as he moved closer to the edge of the cliff. “He told me he would never allow me to be with you, Tally. So, you see, I had no choice.” He buried his face in her neck. “And after he died, I bided my time, and finally, I had you.” He tightened his grip on her as the rain lashed them. Tally screamed again and he clamped his hand over her mouth. “But you had to go and fall in love with the movie star, didn’t you? You were mine, Tally, mine. The second you let him fuck you …I knew then that you had to die. I gave the gun to Marianne and told her where you’d be. I told her to shoot you in front of your bastard lover … but I guess she went off script. Ludo wasn’t the target, but he took the bullets meant for you. When I heard about the shooting …on the news they just reported that Ludo had been shot, along with his female companion, whose injuries weren’t life threatening.”
“The disappointment when I came to the hospital and found the bullet you took was a through and through. If it had been me with the gun, all six would have been in your belly and I would be laying flowers on your grave, Tahlia. But, now, I think this is the perfect way for you to die. The same way as your brother. The poor sister who never got over her brother’s death ends her life the same way.”
He kissed her mouth roughly; Tahlia bit down on his lower lip, and he swore, cuffing her viciously across the face. “You little whore. I’m glad this will be over, Tally.”
“Mackenzie!”
Both Ellory and Tahlia started at the sound of Ludo’s voice, loud, raging, and furious. Tahlia’s eyes filled with tears as she saw Ludo, obviously in pain, climbing into the clearing.
Ludo ignored the searing pain in his chest as he rushed to save his love. In his hand was Ellory’s gun, retrieved from the car at the bottom of the hill. When the police had called and told them that both Tahlia’s and Ellory’s home were empty, he had known where they were. He told the police, but, by then, he was closer. He could hear the sirens in the distance. Mackenzie had Tahlia in his arms, way too close to the cliff’s edge. No. No, she wasn’t going to die. Ludo raised the gun and aimed at Ellory’s head. “Let her go, Mackenzie.”
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