We stopped at the Maserati. Violet opened the passenger door and helped lower me into the seat. After she closed the door behind me, she hurried around the hood, and moved to climb in the driver’s seat.
Her father called for her to stop. To hear him out.
“Give me a chance,” he said.
Violet stepped into the car. “You had dozens of chances, Daddy. It’s over.”
Then she got in the car, slammed the door, and turned the keys that were already sitting in the ignition. She looked over at me. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I gripped the handle in the roof as she peeled out of the driveway and left her father staring after us, visible to her in the rear view mirror. As we passed through the gate at the end of the drive I pressed my head into the seat rest and gritted my teeth against a fiery burn that had started in my right shoulder.
“Drive faster,” I told her.
She geared up and hit the gas. “Hold on. It’s only ten minutes from here. We’ll be safe.”
Violet looked over at me and grabbed my hand. I squeezed hers back.
“Are you mad at me for breaking the rules and coming after you?”
I rolled my head to the side and tried to smile at her. “Only a little bit.”
She laughed. But it wasn’t a happy laugh. It was full of pain and loss. And grief.
I squeezed her hand again. “I’m sorry, Violet.”
“For what?”
“For your father. You can’t stop loving him just because you know who he really is now. He’s still your father. And he still loves you.”
“Don’t.”
I closed my eyes. I understood. This wasn’t an easy thing to talk about. Especially when the wound was still so fresh.
She had seen with her own two eyes how cruel her father was. Now there was no going back. How could she justify his actions when she’d seen everything unfold the way it had? I had no idea how much that hurt.
She took a sharp right turn and I winced as the seat belt pulled at my shoulder.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
I cracked open an eye to peer over at her. There were tears rolling down her cheeks.
Damn my broken fucking body. I wished I could gather her up in my arms and hold her and tell her this was all going to be alright.
“Don’t cry,” I said.
She wiped her tears away. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, either,” I grated.
Violet’s tears continued flowing. “The police will be showing up to arrest him.”
“What?”
She nodded. “Annie let me out of my room. I told her to run, and once she was safe, she said she was going to call the police. My father is about to get a bunch of unexpected company and he’s going to have to explain all the bodies in the driveway.”
“He’ll pin it on us.”
“Maybe. But Annie will have our backs.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked.
Violet checked her mirrors. “Because she’s one of the good ones.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Violet
“Only a few more minutes,” I said, as we took a left turn down a trendy street in downtown Washington. The road was lined with cherry blossoms and the sun was just beginning to set. By the time I pulled over, we’d have enough darkness for me to get Xavier inside without people noticing the blood he was covered in.
Hopefully.
“Did you hear me?” I asked, glancing over at him. “Only three more minutes.”
Xavier’s eyes were closed. His head was turned slightly to the right, like he’d been looking out the window at the passing trees. His body jostled as I drove over a dip in the road.
I grabbed his wrist and shook him. “Xavier.”
He didn’t stir.
“Fuck.”
I slammed my hand on the steering wheel.
This was so not what we needed right now. Could he ever catch a fucking break?
Deciding it was worth it to risk the chance of being pulled over by cops, I stepped on the gas and wove through traffic to cut the three minutes down to one.
The sixty seconds were agonizing. I kept looking over at Xavier, who remained completely still in the passenger seat, hoping he would wake up. He didn’t.
I was out of the car as soon as I pulled over to the curb. My parking job was crooked and messy and would have been embarrassing had I not been so concerned about Xavier. I opened his door and dropped to a crouch beside him. He was held up by his seatbelt and he looked terribly peaceful.
A part of me was sorry to have to wake him, yet another part of me needed to see him awake and moving.
His skin was hot to the touch when I took his wrist and shook him. “Xavier. You need to wake up. I need you to help me get inside.”
He didn’t stir.
My heart fluttered in my chest like a scared, wild little creature.
Now was not the time to panic.
I took his shoulder and shook him harder. I called his name over and over. When nothing worked, I patted his cheeks. Hard.
His eyes fluttered open.
“Oh thank God,” I breathed, hanging my head to rest my forehead on his shoulder.
“Violet,” he muttered.
“I’m here. I’m here. Can you stand? I need to get you inside and then you can rest.”
He nodded slowly.
“Alright,” I said, leaning away and offering him my shoulder. I held his hand and pulled him out of the car, then he leaned on me for support as I closed the door with my hip. “Stay close to me. We just have to go in those doors and get in the elevator. Not too hard, right?”
“I’m suffering from blood loss, not stupidity,” he groaned, as I forced him to walk alongside me.
“Good to see you’re still as much of a pompous jerk as ever. You must not be dying after all.”
“Just tired.”
We received some curious stares from people sitting in the lobby of the apartment building. I ignored them all and held on to Xavier, forcing him to walk with me to the elevators. I jabbed the button and we waited an excruciating two minutes for the elevator to arrive on the first floor.
We got on and I hit the button for the top floor.
Xavier leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
“Not much longer,” I said.
“I’m alright.”
“Bullshit. You’re bleeding like fucking crazy, you can barely walk straight, and—”
“Violet,” he said, opening his eyes and fixing me with that cool stare of his. “I’m alright. Come here.”
I moved to stand right beside him.
He put two fingers under my chin and tipped my face up. And he gave me that smile of his. The softening of the eyes and lips. “You saved my ass back there.”
“And you saved mine.”
He chuckled, winced, and held me tighter. “Yeah. Well. Thank you.”
I blinked. “Oh my God. You are dying. You said thank you.”
“Woman. You’re ruining the moment.”
“The blood already ruined the moment.”
The elevator doors opened with a soft ding. I slid my shoulder under Xavier’s once more and wrapped my arm around his waist. He leaned on me, but not too heavily, and I took him down the hall to the door at the end. We stopped on top of a door mat that read ‘Welcome’ in cursive lettering, and I raised my free hand to rap my knuckles on the surface.
“She’d better be home,” I whispered under my breath.
Xavier was getting heavier by the second and I knew it was getting harder and harder for him to stay on his feet. I needed to get him horizontal and I needed to get a look at his wounds and see what situation we were really in, here.
Because even though he was talking a big game back in the elevator, I suspected he was worse off than he made it seem.
The door opened.
My best friend Clara stood there.
She looked from me to Xavier, and then
back to me. Her mouth fell open but no words came out.
“Hi,” I said, knowing everything I said would fall flat. “We need to come in.”
I started moving into her apartment before she stepped aside to let us in.
Clara closed and locked the door behind us and followed hot on our heels as I got Xavier to the couch and helped him lie down. Then I set to work getting his jacket off and undoing the buttons of his shirt.
Clara hovered around us with her hands pressed to her forehead. “Violet? What the hell is happening? Whoa. That’s a lot of blood.”
“I know,” I said. Xavier was pumping blood from a hole on the right side of his chest below his shoulder. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
“What?” Clara breathed.
I spun to her. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Um. Yes. I think so.”
“Go get it. Now.”
Clara did as I asked.
I felt bad about being so sharp with her, but I needed her to act now. Xavier was my top priority and once he was taken care of I could tell her everything that had happened and clear all this up.
Clara returned with the first aid kit. I flipped it open and went through with a lot more confidence than the last time I’d had to do this. I found the antiseptic, the tweezers, the gloves, the gauze, the needle, and the stitching thread.
I handed the needle and tweezers to Clara. “Burn the ends of these to sterilize them. Please.”
Clara stared at the two items in her hands as I rushed to her linen closet and grabbed a bunch of towels. I also went into the kitchen and filled up a bowl of hot water. I brought everything back to the living room and set it down on the floor beside the couch.
Xavier’s eyes were closed, but he moaned softly when I applied pressure to his wound with one of the towels.
“I’m going to get the bullet out,” I told him. “And then I’ll stitch it. Okay?”
He didn’t answer me.
I know what I’m doing, I told myself. I could do this without him walking me through it.
Clara dropped to her knees beside me when she returned with the needle and tweezers. I put the latex gloves on and took the tweezers from her and then leaned forward to peer down into the bullet hole in Xavier’s chest.
I would never get used to bullet wounds.
Ever.
“What the hell are you doing?” Clara hissed, as I lowered the tweezers into the ragged wound.
“I have to take the bullet out so I can stitch him up. Otherwise, he’ll get an infection, or even keep bleeding and die.”
“Why the hell didn’t you take him to a hospital?”
“We can’t go to a hospital,” I said.
“Why?”
I paused and looked over my shoulder at my best friend. “Clara. I know you’re confused. And I know this is a lot to process right now. But I promise, I’ll explain everything as soon as I’m done with this, okay? He needs my help.”
Clara nodded and ran her hands up and down her thighs. “Okay. Okay. Just tell me what to do.”
I lowered the tweezers into the wound and fished around gently for the bullet. Xavier moaned but didn’t stir, so I kept going, hell bent on getting the bullet out of him in one shot.
Pun not intended.
Finally, I pulled the bullet out. No fragments were left inside, so I dropped the bloody piece of metal on Clara’s coffee table before taking the cap off the antiseptic bottle and pouring it over the wound.
That woke him up.
“Fuck me,” he growled as his eyes fluttered open.
“Sorry,” I winced, before wiping the liquid and blood off his chest with a towel.
His jaw flexed. “Easy woman. Are you trying to kill me?”
“Relax.”
Xavier exhaled through his nose when I started sewing him up. His hands were balled into fists and I hated that I was hurting him, but we both knew this was a necessity and there was no way around it.
It took about five minutes for me to sew him up, and in that time he passed out again.
When I was done I sat back on my heels and dragged a hand across my sweaty brow.
Clara sat silently beside me.
I looked over at my friend. “Hey.”
Her eyes flicked to me. “Hey.”
“Sorry about this. And about disappearing. I—I can explain everything. If you have time.”
Clara held up a hand. “Hang on. I don’t do well with blood. Let’s clean this up and then sit down and you can tell me everything. I think I need a drink, too.”
“A drink sounds good.”
Clara and I busied ourselves with tidying up. Well, she tidied, I hovered over Xavier like a concerned mother checking his temperature with my wrist on his forehead and inspecting the rest of his body for more injuries. He had none.
That wasn’t true.
He had no other life threatening injuries. Everything else was bruises or scrapes, and things I didn’t know how to fix.
Things my father had done to him.
Once I had done everything I could to make Xavier comfortable, Clara and I sat down at her kitchen table with a glass of wine. It was an odd thing. It felt so normal, strange and foreign at the same time.
Sipping the wine, I recalled sitting and doing this with her on a weekly basis. That life seemed so far away now. Like it had belonged to someone else.
I filler her in on everything I could. About my father and Xavier, and why we’d gone on the run. I didn’t mention the Shades by name, thinking it was something I could protect her from and spare her the nightmares. But I did tell her that Xavier and I had to leave the country as soon as he was fit to fly.
“What? Why? I haven’t seen you in weeks and you’re going to bail again? When will you come back?”
I frowned. “I don’t know, Clara. Not for a long time.”
Clara swallowed. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. And once I do, I won’t be able to tell you.”
“Why?”
I offered her a sympathetic smile. “Haven’t you been listening? It’s not safe. Not for me, or Xavier, or you. The less you know the better. And I need this. I’m not the same person I was. A lot has happened and I think I’m good with that. I think I’m who I’ve always wanted to be but was too afraid to become.”
Clara arched an eyebrow.
“I don’t need you to understand,” I said. “I just need you to know that I love you. And miss you. And that I’m very sorry.”
Clara polished off the rest of her wine. “I love you too. You scared the hell out of me, Violet. I’m just glad to see you. Even if it is under these circumstances.” Her gaze drifted to Xavier.
I studied him, too.
His chest rose and fell with calm, deep breaths. He’d look more human once he woke and showered. I knew that from experience. Right now he looked like the terrifying monster I used to think he was. And that’s probably what Clara saw.
But I saw a man who had put everything on the line for me.
For us.
And I was going to hold on tight and do whatever it took to stay with him. Because he was my home now. And I was his.
And the storm was over.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Xavier
One Month Later
The air smelled like salt and sweet tropical flowers.
I clasped my hands behind my head as a gentle breeze danced across the beach and rustled the palm leaves beside me. I was shaded from the sun where I lay in my hammock, which swung gently from side to side every time I shifted around.
This place was paradise.
Violet and I had been here for just shy of a month. After fleeing Washington, we’d bought a ticket to the first tropical island we could get to. And we ended up here. A tiny place with a population of less than ten thousand in the South Pacific.
We were a long way from home.
And it felt pretty damn good.
The tropical air and the salt w
ater had done wonders for healing my injuries. Of course, Violet had done a pretty bang up job of putting me back together on her friend Clara’s couch. The poor girl had been shell-shocked when we showed up at her front door in a bind needing a place to crash for the night to get our shit together.
We owed her, that’s for sure.
I sighed and gazed up at the afternoon sky, looking through the thatched roof of the porch of our little bungalow. It was bright blue and free of clouds, so I could have stared at it for hours had something distracting not walked across the porch.
Violet.
My girl.
She paused at the top of the stairs to look down at the beach and the ocean. Her skin was bronzed from all our time on this beach and she was toned, hardened from our time on the run. Her hair fell in a dark mane down her back, ending just above the two dimples above her ass.
I whistled at her.
Violet looked over her shoulder at me. “Did you have a good nap?”
I stretched. The hammock swung. “I did. Slept like a baby.”
“I could tell. You were snoring.”
“I don’t snore.”
She giggled softly. “Sure you don’t.”
“Are you going for a swim?”
“I was thinking about it.” Violet gazed out at the ocean.
She’d practically been living in it for the last couple weeks. She was a mermaid with legs. I know how bizarre that sounded, but it was the only thing I could compare her to that matched her beauty.
Violet hooked a leg around the railing of the porch and swung around to face me. “Are you going to join me?”
I looked her over.
The tiny white bikini she had on left little to the imagination, and I found myself aching to slip my hands under the fabric and feel her tits in my hands as we floated in the water together.
And, if I was lucky, I could do more than just cop a feel.
I hopped off the hammock and landed heavily on the porch. “I’m not turning down a chance to spend time out there with you.”
“Come on then,” she cooed, taking my hand and pulling me down the steps to the sand.
We had to run across the beach to get to the water. The sand was piping hot on the soles of our feet. We laughed at our own foolishness. We always forgot to wear our sandals down to the water.
Dark Lover: Sins of the Night Page 14
