adrian-run-to-you-v1

by Lara Adrian

  So, Kat was right. Hennings was sabotaging her. I don’t doubt that he even found a way to manipulate the shop’s calendar program to make her look negligent, when all along he was to blame. And I didn’t want to believe her. “You set her up to fail. You made me doubt her. She quit because of you.”

  God, I feel like an idiot to have not seen all of this until now.

  “You hacked into my computer and my phone. You’ve been spying on me. You put a monitoring device in the boutique. You have a camera hidden in my office.” Nausea swells inside me when I think of what he’s seen, everything he’s done. “You were at the back door that night the power went out, weren’t you? I heard the lock rattling. It was you, trying to get in.”

  He stares at me without a speck of remorse. “The device I installed had been working fine for months. I don’t know why it started shorting out. Technology can be so unreliable sometimes,” he says, as if he’s discussing the weather. “I needed to repair it or replace it before anyone might start poking around in there, so I swiped your purse for a few minutes while I was visiting the shop that week and I made an impression of the key, so I could come back the next night and work without interruptions.”

  He pauses, waiting for the last of the people in the station to step into the waiting train. The doors thump closed, and suddenly it is just him and me alone on the platform.

  “As I was saying, I intended to return the next night to investigate the device malfunction, but you were working late. I watched you for a while using the camera on your desk--”

  “The rosebush.” I practically gag on the word. “That’s why you brought me that so-called gift.”

  “I decided to follow through with my plan anyway,” he says, not so much as a pause to acknowledge the sickness of his acts. “I decided I would go the shop, and if you were still there, I would bring you home with me that night.”

  I can’t hide my revulsion. “You mean abduct me.”

  Something dark flickers in his expression. He glances down at the gun still aimed at me, moved farther out in the open now. “If I had come prepared that night like I am today, we would already be together, Eve. But the key was a bad copy. It stuck in the lock, made too much noise. I knew you’d hear. I worried that you would call the police.”

  That’s exactly what I should have done. Instead, I dismissed the noise, too afraid to rouse my brother’s overbearingly protective instincts, should he learn I’d panicked and called for help. I was stubborn and defensive of his concern--and now I’m paying the steepest price.

  Hennings steps closer to me, forcing me to either step back or let him come nearer. I know the edge of the platform is somewhere behind me. I can only hope my choices don’t boil down to facing off against a bullet or the third rail of the subway tracks.

  Absurdly, I pray if I die here today, that Gabe won’t hear about this and blame himself.

  I balked at his protection too. Now, I would give anything to be safe in his arms.

  “My luck took a turn a few minutes later,” Hennings says. “I considered it fate when the device in your utility room shorted out completely and the power cut off. I waited outside the back door for a while, hoping the darkness would drive you out to me. But then a vehicle approached, and I had no choice but to run back to my car a few streets away.”

  Thank God, Gabe had come that night. He is all that saved me from Hennings’ sick plans.

  I swallow a cold knot of horror to hear him breezily recount everything. And he hadn’t stopped with just those acts, either. “You followed me to the zoo. You slashed my tires.”

  “Yes, I did,” he says, ice moving into his eyes. “You disappointed me, Eve. I never took you for a slut, not until you started spending time with that other man. That cripple.”

  I flinch at the awful word, and the venom with which he speaks it. What’s also disturbing is that he talks about Gabe as if he is rival for my affection.

  He straightens, eyeing me with a new resolve under the glare of the station lights. “I’m glad to see the message I delivered today served its purpose. I wanted the interloper to see the real you, Eve. Not the mask you’ve been wearing for him. I knew if he saw who you truly are, he wouldn’t stay. And, yes, I wanted to punish you, too.”

  As he speaks, a pair of rushing footsteps sound on the stairs leading down to the platform. I recognize the gait. I swivel my head at the same time Gabe comes into view.

  “Gabe, stop!”

  He hesitates, his face the grimmest I’ve ever seen it. “Evelyn. Ah, Christ.”

  In that same instant, Hennings snags me with his free hand, yanking me against him. The nose of the pistol jams coldly into my temple.

  35

  ~ Gabriel ~

  It is as if my entire body freezes in the space of a moment.

  Like the instant between the first firecracker pop of a triggered IED and the explosion that will send twisted metal and body parts flying in all directions, I stand in a brief state of stunned incredulity as my mind tries to process the sight of Evelyn caught at the end of a madman’s gun.

  My heart halts, giving my brain a chance to formulate a plan.

  Without a weapon of my own, I don’t have a lot of choice.

  “Let her go.”

  I take a step down the stairs, moving by degrees while looking for ways to disarm her assailant. The man is shorter than her and sturdy. He is not young, in his sixties by my guess. Dressed well, he’s obviously a man of some means in his tailored suit and polished shoes.

  But he is crazy. I can see the wildness of insanity in his eyes.

  “Put the gun down. You don’t want to do this.”

  He sneers at me. “She’s mine. Tell him, Eve.”

  A strangled cry leaks from her. Her eyes are rounded, her breath panting shallowly through her trembling lips. “Mr. Hennings . . . Walter, please don’t do this.”

  I flick a glance at Evelyn, a silent acknowledgment of her courage in giving me the bastard’s name. Not that I’m going to need it. By the time I get her out of here, Walter Hennings will be dead--or wishing like hell he was.

  “Stay back,” he growls at me. “I’m going to take Eve out of here now.”

  There is a stairwell on both ends of the station; the one I’m standing at the bottom of, and another one about a hundred feet in the opposite direction. I hear other people’s voices and footsteps approaching. Any second now, the station is going to begin filling with commuters.

  Hennings starts inching my way, sidling past the row of squatty wooden benches in the middle of the platform.

  “It’s okay, man. You’re the boss.” I raise my hands in a surrendering gesture meant to relax him, while I consider my options. The way I see it, I have only two. Draw his fire away from Evelyn, or charge the bastard.

  I take an easy step toward him.

  He catches on and his round face burns red with rage. “Fucker, I said stay back!”

  The gun swings forward, his finger curling tight around the trigger. As soon as the weapon leaves Evelyn’s temple, she brings her arm up under his, throwing off his aim.

  The shot he fires hits one of the fluorescent tubes overhead. The light explodes, and the sound of gunfire scatters the few people who’ve trickled onto the platform at the other end of the station.

  At the same time, Hennings bellows, slamming the butt of the pistol into the side of Evelyn’s head. She goes down, landing on her side at his feet.

  I charge him, shoving him away from Evelyn as I grab his gun arm and push it up at a ninety-degree angle. He claws at me, his strength a surprise. No doubt he’s running on adrenaline now, in addition to psychopathic rage.

  He manages to punch me in the side of the head with his left hand. I shake it off and head-butt him. The bastard retaliates with a hard kick to my left knee.

  My prosthesis wrenches and we go down together in a heap on the concrete. The back of his head hits hard and he loses his grip on the pistol. With the impact of our inelegant fall, th
e weapon skitters under one of the benches.

  With Hennings dazed and unmoving, I scramble for the gun, my stump screaming in its skewed socket. The pain is inconsequential, but the lameness of my limb shaves off precious instants as I dive and shimmy beneath the low bench to grab the weapon.

  I hear Evelyn’s scream in the same second that I’m lifting my shoulders up off the ground, the pistol gripped in both hands and trained on Hennings.

  He’s standing near the edge of the platform, holding Evelyn in front of him like a shield. I can’t shoot through her, and one wrong move by her assailant and she could fall to her death on the tracks below.

  Hennings peers around her. He is breathing hard, spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth. “You’ve ruined everything,” he says to me, seething with fury. “You’ve ruined her, fouling her with your body. Now this.”

  He shakes his head, glancing at the ceiling of the station, where the pound of booted footfalls sounds from above. The gunfire and screams will have brought law enforcement from all directions. The station is probably already on lockdown, police only seconds away. Hennings knows it as well as I do.

  “There’s only one way out now,” he says, rubbing his cheek in Evelyn’s long, unbound hair. “They won’t let me leave with her. So, I’m going to have to take her with me another way.”

  Ah, Christ.

  The tracks.

  Evelyn’s terror is a palpable thing as she stares at me, her lovely face stricken with fear. I hold her gaze across the space that separates us, making a silent promise that I will fix this. All I need is the sliver of a chance.

  Her breathing slows as our eyes lock and hold. I watch as a calmness settles over her, a resolve that awes me, especially when every fiber in my body is stretched to the breaking point with stark, cold dread.

  “Walter,” she says quietly. Although he can’t see her face, I can. I can see the fortitude it takes for her to lift her hand and gently caress the arm that’s banded around her. “Walter, you’re right, darling. We can’t be together in this world. But, please . . . before we go on to the next one, I want to feel your lips on mine. Just once, my darling.”

  I stand as still as statue, watching as the madness in Walter Hennings responds to the siren sweetness of Evelyn’s voice. He relaxes his iron hold on her, just enough for her to slowly pivot in his terrible embrace.

  “Oh, my love,” he murmurs, taking his eyes off me to gaze into hers.

  He moves his mouth toward her. But instead of kissing him, Evelyn brings her hand up and rakes her fingernails down his face, hard enough to draw blood.

  The assault startles him, staggers him back on his heels with a roar.

  And in the split second of his inattention, with Evelyn now ducked out of the way, I adjust my aim and pull the trigger.

  The head shot topples him.

  I set down the gun as his dead weight tumbles over the edge of the platform and onto the rails below.

  “Gabe!” Evelyn launches to her feet and runs to me where I’m still on my ass on the floor.

  She dives into my arms, and I wrap her in my embrace.

  Her sobs gust against my neck. “Oh, God. I was so scared.”

  “I know, baby. Me too.” I hug her tighter, emotion thickening my throat. “I’ve got you now.”

  She lifts her head, searching my eyes. “I love you, Gabriel. I should’ve told you. I shouldn’t have let you leave--”

  “I’m here,” I say, kissing her trembling lips. “I’m here, and I’m holding you, and I love you. I love you so much, Evelyn. I’m never letting you go.”

  “Promise?”

  I nod. “It’s more than a promise. It’s a vow.”

  She kisses me, and I draw away from her lips reluctantly when I hear police officers clambering down the stairs with weapons at the ready. I recognize one of them as a cousin and give him a nod and crooked smirk in greeting.

  They will have questions, of course. There will be statements for us to give, and evidence to collect from the boutique and my apartment.

  But all of that can wait.

  The rest of the world will have to wait, because right now, I’ve got Evelyn safe and warm in my arms, and I’m not about to let her go.

  Not for anything.

  EPILOGUE

  ~ Evelyn ~

  One month later . . .

  “Kat, what do you think about the lace on this demi-bra? I went with Leavers, but now I think the Chantilly might be a better complement to the piece.”

  She walks around to my side of our shared design table and glances down at the swatches I’ve laid out. “Chantilly, no question. And I agree with you about the silk piping over the rosettes. It’s a beautiful design, Eve.”

  I meet her approving gaze and smile. “Thank you.”

  It feels good to be working with Katrina again. I wasn’t sure she would come back after the way I’d hurt her with my doubt.

  As it turned out, Walter Hennings’ derangement had gone much deeper than stalking and cyber sabotage. At his home, the police discovered reams of image files and documents going back to the beginning of my modeling career. He’d kept a journal of my appearances, and copies of every article ever written about me.

  If that wasn’t disturbing enough, he also had a life-size silicone doll molded in my likeness. The officers found the thing dressed in lingerie I had designed, its mouth painted in the red lipstick Hennings stole from my purse. And, yes, he had collected other, random personal belongings of mine over the years too, just as he’d bragged to me in the subway station. He had handcuffs and shackles as well, and a cabinet full of ropes and weapons.

  I still shudder to think what he would have done with me if he had managed to abduct me like he’d planned. But Walter Hennings is no more. It’s rare that I think of him weeks after Gabe saved me from him. Being busy with work helps.

  Once the news media got a hold of Walter Hennings’ death and the details of his sick obsession with me, Katrina called to see how I was doing. Thankfully, she accepted my apology for not believing her when I should have trusted her. She forgave me.

  Since she’s come back to L’Opale, our working relationship has never been stronger. Our friendship has strengthened, too. I couldn’t ask for a better creative partner on the boutique’s newest launch.

  With Avery Ross’s wedding and honeymoon ensemble making headlines, the shop has been inundated with new clients. We’ve hired more designers and seamstresses, but Kat and I are working alone on the concepts for the lingerie project that means the most to me now.

  Kelsey O’Connor steps out of the dressing room wearing our newest prototype. “Well, how do I look?”

  I smile, taking in the gorgeous sight of my friend. She’s wearing a sheer black lace, boned bustier with balconette cups and a touch fastener along the right side with matching panties. She looks fierce and sexy. Most of all, she looks beautiful.

  “Stunning,” Kat says, beaming at her.

  I nod in agreement. “Do you like it?”

  “I love it.” She smooths her hands along the front of the piece, the hand that’s flesh and bone, and the one she’s wearing today that’s fashioned of sleek titanium and carbon, the fingers gleaming like polished silver. She glances up at me, grinning. “I think Jake’s going to love it too.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of that.”

  “Speaking of,” she says, “they’re going to be here to pick us up any minute now.”

  As if she’s conjured the Noble brothers by mentioning them, I hear the electronic beep of the boutique front entrance chime. I tap my phone and the security camera image appears, one of the new features of the state-of-the-art system Gabe and his team at Baine International installed.

  “Better get dressed, unless you want to spoil the surprise and let him see you in that before it’s finished,” I tell Kelsey.

  She darts back into the room on an excited squeal while I walk out to meet Gabe and his brother.

  He’s chatting with Megan
, but as soon as he glances up and sees me, he smiles and starts heading my way. I hardly have a chance to say hello before he sweeps me into a warm embrace and a kiss that makes my toes curl.

  “Ready to go?” he murmurs against my lips.

  “Almost. Kelsey’s getting changed.” I lightly smack my hand against his chest. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going today.”

  He smiles, something cryptic, almost uncertain, in his loving gaze. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  Kelsey walks out to join us, slipping her hand easily into Jake’s. He grins at Gabe, revealing the same pair of dimples that have charmed me more often than I care to admit with his brother. “Let’s go.”

  I ride beside Gabe in the passenger seat of his Lexus, curious as we cross the bridge to Queens, then proceed toward Bayside, his old hometown. He pulls into the parking lot behind a small pub called McGilly’s. The place is crowded, and as we stroll inside, I see a lot of familiar faces. Some I haven’t seen in months.

  “Daddy?” I gasp to see my father stroll up to us alongside my brother. My father enfolds me in a big bear hug, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “When did you get in the city?”

  “I came down last night and stayed with Andrew. It’s so good to see you, Evie.”

  I nod, overcome with happiness--and not a little confusion. I glance at my brother. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Gabe wanted it to be a surprise.”

  The two men exchange a private smile before my brother gives Gabe a friendly cuff to his shoulder. They are back to being friends and colleagues, which is one of the best things about the past month. Now, seeing the three men who matter most in my life together in one room is practically overwhelming.

  In the next few moments, Gabe and I are greeted by other friends and family, too. His parents. His older brothers, Ethan and Shane. Avery and Nick are here as well. All of our combined family and closest friends are gathered in the pub.