Then I lurched across the room toward the window and jerked it open. “Can you make it through?” I asked as Gran stepped into her slippers to protect her feet.
“I’m not that damn old, child!” She bent—she was nimble for a seventy-four-year-old—and I helped her get one leg out of the window, then the other. I lowered her slowly until her feet hit the ground, then handed her the cell phone from her dresser.
“Call Kris!” I said as the first bang of Lynn’s fist shook the bedroom door.
“Sera!” Lynn shouted. “Come out now, or I’ll go find Kenley.”
“You can’t kill her.” For the same reason Julia couldn’t—that would break the bindings she wanted her son to inherit.
“No, but I can take her. And if I do, she won’t be sleeping on silk sheets. I’m not going to pamper her like Jake did. I watched him for years, Sera. I saw every mistake he made.”
“You’re going to take her anyway.” I said it as soon as I realized it, and I believed it the moment the words left my lips. She needed Kenley alive and in custody just as badly as she needed me dead.
“I will, unless you come out and stop me.” Her footsteps retreated, and I recognized the creak of the floorboard in front of the closet—and the soft click as she turned the light on, locking Kris and Kori out.
Shit!
I glanced around Gran’s bedroom until I found the lamp with the infrared bulb, which was kept on at all hours. I turned the lamp off, then flipped the regular light switch next to the door, throwing the room into darkness, except for what moonlight shone in from the open window.
Then all I could do was hope that Kris would find the pocket of darkness I’d left for him. And that he’d bring an extra gun.
I’d found the woman responsible for the slaughter of my family—evidently the third time really is a charm—and this one, too, deserved a bullet.
But when Kris failed to materialize more than a minute after I’d given him darkness, Lynn’s steps retreated down the hall toward the living room. And the staircase, leading to Kenley’s room. Surely Kenley had heard the commotion.
Surely she knew to hide.
But I couldn’t take that chance.
When I heard the landing creak with her weight, I eased Gran’s door open and tiptoed down the hall, careful to avoid the noisy board in front of the closet. Lynn was halfway up the stairs, but I snuck past her to the body still leaking blood on the carpet where he’d fallen half-out of the kitchen. Surely Sean was armed.
But he was not. Or else Lynn had already relieved him of his weapons.
Crap!
She was almost to the top of the stairs.
“Lynn!” I ducked behind an armchair when she turned, already aiming at me. “Leave Kenley alone.” Lynn didn’t have a way out of the house anyway, unless she’d already called in another Traveler. How was she planning to get Kenley out?
Her footsteps came closer, down the stairs, but I didn’t dare peek for fear of getting shot in the head. I had no idea how good her aim was.
I could only listen as she descended the stairs, squeaked on the landing, then stepped onto carpet. Her pant legs whispered against each other as she came toward me, and I circled the chair slowly, still squatting, trying to stay out of view.
“You have nowhere to go,” she said, but her taunt sounded more like a statement of fact. “You can’t get out of this boarded-up house. You have no weapon and you’re hiding from an armed woman. And before you decide you can take me, you should know that even if you killed Julia, you weren’t her real downfall. Her biggest mistake was underestimating me.”
I didn’t doubt that for a moment.
She came closer, and my heart thudded in my ears. I circled the chair to my right as she followed on my left, and my thighs burned from holding a squat for so long.
Then Lynn lurched into view on my left, grim smile in place, aiming my own gun at me. “Stand up, Sera. At least face death like an adult, and know that your sacrifice will mean the world to your brother and sister, when they’re old enough to understand.”
I stood, because my legs were cramping. And because she was right. What kind of dignity was there in being shot on the floor?
“At least your death will be more merciful than your sister’s. I promise I’ll aim for your head.”
“You bitch!” I lunged for her without thinking, aiming low, like my dad had taught me as a kid. My shoulder caught her in the chest, but only because I’d surprised her. She went down on her ass, but it only took her a second to regain both focus and aim.
I froze, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I was facing my death when I’d only just rediscovered life, and all it had to offer. Kris. Family. Freeing people and taking down bad guys.
“Fine. A graceless death it will be.” Lynn frowned up at me from the floor, taking aim two-handed. The world came into crystal-clear focus as the last seconds of my life ticked away, and I saw her finger tighten on the trigger.
Then sound erupted around us, and the side of her head fucking exploded.
I stumbled back in shock. My ears rang. My pulse raced. The gun fell from Lynn’s hand, and her body hit the floor, half on its side. Bits of her brain dripped down the screwed-shut front door.
My breath came and went so fast the room started to spin around me. Then I saw Kris standing on the landing, still aiming at the dead woman, and the world came back to me. Everything went still, and he seemed to cross the room in slow motion.
“How...” That was all I could manage.
“Kenley let me in through her bedroom.” He reached down to pull me up, and then I was in his arms, and I was alive, and he was crying, but he looked so happy. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were both dead.”
“Is she okay?” Kenley asked, and over his shoulder I saw her at the foot of the stairs in a thick bathrobe, holding Vanessa’s .22 like a kid with a water pistol.
Kris pulled away enough to get a good look at me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, and tears spilled down my face. “I’m good. I’m so good.” He wiped my cheeks with both hands, but more tears followed. “She killed my family, Kris. It was her, not Julia.”
His brows rose in surprise, then a smile grew on his face, which felt odd, considering the dead woman at his back. “So...I really did kill your bad guy?”
I nodded, still crying. “You did. Thank you.” I kissed him. Then I kissed him some more. And when I finally let him go, it was only so that I could say the most wonderful sentence ever. “I think we did it. I think we actually just put the Tower syndicate out of business. For good.”
“You rat bastard!” Kori shouted, and I pulled away from Kris to see her standing halfway down the stairs. Staring at the stain in the carpet formerly known as Gwendolyn Tower. “I wanted to take out the last of the Towers! I’ve fucking earned it!”
Kris laughed. “No one’s taking out the last of the Towers.” He pulled me closer. “We’re gonna keep her.”
“I’m not a Tower,” I insisted. But Kevin and Aria were. I hoped with every cell in my body that it wasn’t too late for nurture to overcome nature for them, as it had for me. And I fully intended to give it my best shot. With Kris at my side.
Kori stomped down the rest of the stairs and propped her hands on her hips, looking down at the corpse. “I’m not cleaning that shit up. He who spills the brains cleans the brains. You know the rules.”
“I tell you what,” Kris said, and his grin was irrepressible. “If you clean up this one teeny little corpse for me now, I’ll let you take out Cavazos all on your own. Bargain of the century, Kor. Act now—this offer won’t last long!”
“Go fuck yourself,” Kori grumbled on her way into the closet, presumably to bring Gran in out from the cold. “Both of you.”
Kris laughed so hard I was afraid he’d choke.
“Don’t mind her,” Kenley said, clicking the safety on her little pistol. “That’s how she says ‘I love you.’”
“Well, in tha
t case, she can go fuck herself, too,” I said. But I secretly hoped she was already gone and hadn’t heard me.
“So, now what?” He tugged me away from the cooling corpse still oozing gray matter onto the carpet. “What will you do now that your mortal enemy’s dead, her kingdom in ashes scattered over her corpse?”
“I want to give it all back, Kris.” I stared into his eyes and saw my need reflected in his. “The money. The house. It’s all stained in blood, and the only way to clean it is to use it for good. For your kids.”
“My kids?”
I nodded. “What more could you do for them with Tower’s fortune? How much better could you hide them? Protect them?”
“You’re serious?” He stared into my eyes, searching for the truth. Demanding it.
“Yeah. But there’s a catch.”
“And that would be...”
“Me. And Kevin and Aria. We come with the money. You get all of us, or none of us.”
I pulled him close for another kiss, and he groaned. “I’m in...” he murmured against my lips. “Kevin and Aria are younger than the kids I’m used to dealing with, but if they’re your brother and sister, they can’t be all bad.” He frowned, reconsidering. “Well, they can’t be worse than Kori, anyway. So I’m in for all of it. The only question is...how much of you do I get?”
I laughed as his steamy gaze traveled south of my chin. “All of me. But only if you say the magic word.”
“Agh!” he growled as I followed him up the steps. “You and that damn word.”
But in the end he said it.
In the end, he said it all night long.
* * * * *
Acknowledgments
This book happened during one of the craziest years of my life. It was born, written and edited while I had three others going in various stages, in the middle of my third move (this one mid-holiday) in four years.
Quite simply put, this book could not have happened without the dedication and patience of many other people, including:
Mary-Theresa Hussey, my editor, who worked on this book (on Kris in particular) during at least two of her own vacations.
My husband, who did all the packing, most of the moving, hauling, shopping, decorating, unpacking, cooking, utility hook-ups and even a bit of the pet-care while I did two crazy rounds of revisions on this book. Your repetition of the phrase, “Go work. I’ll handle the rest,” did not go unnoticed or unappreciated.
And, of course, all the folks in production at Harlequin MIRA, who hung in there with me, during the delays. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your patience and professionalism. It has been a privilege to write the Unbound series with your unfailing support.
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ISBN: 9781460306383
Copyright © 2013 by Rachel Vincent
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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