Page 24

Chapter twenty-four

Declan

W e watch from various points around the house, as a man wearing all black steps out for a cigarette. When he’s almost done, another one joins him. The morning is so quiet their voices carry across the yard and through the trees.

“You gave her too much last night. There’s no way he doesn’t notice, and he’s going to come out pissed at you,” the first man says to the second.

“She might have some memory loss, but it won’t hurt her,” the second answers, shrugging his shoulders.

Rage surges through me. It’s all the confirmation I need that Noel is inside. They must’ve drugged her, and she hasn’t woken up yet. If Zander wasn’t standing on my feet to keep me in place, I’d already be charging the house. The toes of his boots dig into mine as he shakes his head slowly and warns me to stay put with his glare.

Clenching my jaw and fists, I watch over his shoulder as they both go back into the house. Zander backs off at my deep breath, and I pull my phone out to call Garrett back.

“Who the fuck brought her here?” I whisper-shout into the phone.

“Nate,” he says, dropping the name like a fucking explosive.

“Tiny fucking pieces, G,” I say.

“Yes, sir,” he answers and ends the call .

Zander was close enough to overhear. His blue eyes stare at me in surprise at what we just heard.

“He’s mine.”

Zander nods at me just as we hear the door open behind us. Nate walks out and gets into a car to leave. We let him go, not willing to compromise Noel’s safe rescue.

Once the car is out of sight, Leah walks up to the front door. Veronica answers the door, and hugs Leah while asking her how she got here.

Dumb bitch.

I signal to Chance who’s stationed near the back of the house, and he approaches the back door.

“One,” he says through my earbud, confirming that he’s taken one guard down.

Isaiah steps into view and Veronica screams, retreating into the house. The second bodyguard shows his position when he cracks the blinds in a front window. The glass shatters as Zander fires at the movement.

“Two,” he says.

Isaiah rushes into the house to grab Veronica, and we all take off inside after him.

When I step in, a fist swishes past my face as I dodge at the last second. Pulling my knife, I stab the third man in the neck.

“Are there anymore?” I shout at Veronica.

She’s sobbing in a chair with Isaiah hovering over her. “Answer the man,” he orders.

She shakes her head and cries harder.

“Where’s my wife?”

When she doesn’t answer, Isaiah pulls her hair to show me her face .

“First door down the hall,” she manages to sputter out.

Isaiah rubs the top of her head and starts to speak to her, but I’m not listening. I’m down the hall with Zander on my heels. A music box is playing from inside the room. Inching the door open, I go in with my knife ready in case she was lying about there being no more men.

Once inside, I see Noel in the center of the room tied to a chair. The sight of her is worse than a thousand knives being thrown at me all at once. Rushing to her, I check her everywhere for injuries as she sobs hysterically.

“I’m here, sunshine. You’re alright,” I try to calm her down but focus on cutting the ropes around her hands and legs.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Zander asks behind me.

Turning around, I take in the room. There’s a TV on the wall she’s facing. The image on the screen is me fucking a woman from behind in a hotel room. What the fuck? It changes to another one of me with Leah in the elevator.

I throw my knife into the TV, shattering the screen. When I turn back to Noel, she’s crying into her now free hands.

The creepy fucking music box is grating my already frayed nerves. Chills run down my spine when I finally realize the song that’s playing. I’m going to rip his fucking face off.

“Zander, shut that fucking song off!” I roar.

Bending down in front of Noel, I take her face in my hands.

“That sick fucker will pay for all of this, but I need to get you out of here first.”

Her beautiful green eyes meet mine, and everything inside of me shatters. She’s utterly broken. Clenching my jaw, I do my best to hold back my rage, knowing she doesn’t need to see me as anymore of a monster than he’s already made her believe .

“Can you stand?” I ask her as gently as I can manage.

Her legs are shaky, but she gets out of the chair holding onto me. Once she’s close enough, she puts her face into my chest and grips my shirt in her weak fists. She holds onto me as we walk. I stop long enough to yank my knife out of the TV on our way to the door.

Commotion from the front of the house has me shifting myself to shield her from whatever is coming. Zander maneuvers to wait behind the door out of sight just before Nate walks into the room pointing a gun at my head. Noel’s tiny fists cling tighter to my shirt, and she presses her head against my back.

Zander tackles him to the ground before Nate has time to realize he’s in the room, and the gun slides across the floor. I rush out to take Zander’s place, dying to rip this fucker to shreds.

“Get her out of here,” I tell Zander as I step on the back of Nate’s neck to hold him in place for Zander to let go.

“I’m not leaving without you,” she screams desperately.

“I’m right behind you, baby,” I tell her, smashing my boot harder into him.

Zander has to pick her up and carry her out over his shoulder when she refuses to leave. She’s screaming at him to put her down as they walk through the house, which only fuels my rage.

When I bend down with my knife, Nate throws me off. I stumble back a few steps before catching my balance, giving him enough time to get back on his feet. He charges into me. I lose my grip on the knife when my back hits the ground.

Fuck!

Before I can catch my breath, Nate straddles me. His punches land hard on my face. Blocking him as best I can, I force my lungs to suck in air, so I can do more to defend myself.

My fists start to make contact with him as he continues to lay into me. Reaching behind my head, I grab the chair and smash it on top of his head. The force pushes him back enough for me to get out from underneath him.

We both realize that he is closer to the gun at the same time. I dive for it, but he gets there first.

Before I can get back up, he has it pressed against my temple. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and call her face to my mind. If he pulls the trigger before I can pull his feet out from under him, I want her to be the last thing I see.

Just as I lift my hand to yank his ankle, a gunshot sounds and the cold metal falls away from my head.

Another shot is fired.

My eyes pop open.

It wasn’t me.

I jump up, and I’m stunned to see Noel standing on the other side of Nate’s body crumpled on the floor.

She’s shaking like a leaf holding a bloody knife looking down. Following her line of sight, I see Nate bleeding out from his neck at our feet.

Slowly, I close my hand around hers. When she remains still, I take the knife from her. She lets it go easily. I let it fall as soon as it’s out of her grip and pull her into me.

She wraps her arms around my shoulders. I lean into her embrace, finally allowing myself to breathe her in. She jumps up to wrap her legs around me, and I carry her out of the room and away from this fucking nightmare.

“Close your eyes. Don’t look,” I tell her, not even stopping when I see Zander standing over a dead woman with his gun still drawn .

Once we make it outside, I stop walking and position us so that all she will see are the trees. The car Nate left in is parked in the yard with the driver’s door wide open. They must’ve had a panic button of some sort to alert him so quickly.

There’s another car parked in the street that wasn’t here originally, and I’m going to guess it belongs to the dead woman in the living room, whoever the fuck she is.

Soft lips kiss the side of my neck, and I’m pulled into a vacuum with her. My arms squeeze her tighter, and I turn my face into hers, trailing kisses across her face as she turns her head slowly.

Finally, my lips meet hers. I release a sigh into our kiss that I’ve been holding since she was taken. We hold each other this way, kissing softly through her tears, for quite a while.

When she pulls away, I see the questions behind her eyes. I kiss her forehead and set her down.

“Am I going to jail?” She asks.

“Fuck no,” I scoff at her. “This may not be the best time to tell you this, but I have people who make shit like this go away.”

She looks confused but relieved. “My head is really foggy, but I think you just said you have people to cover up murders. Dec, why do you have people like that?”

“Another day. For now, do you think you can sit with Leah while I get things sorted out inside?”

“Her name is Veronica.”

“No, you won’t be getting anywhere near her again. Leah is my informant. I paid her to get close to Veronica for information.”

“You knew about Veronica?” Her voice is full of accusation .

“Yes,” I tell her without hesitation. She tries to shove me away, but I grab her wrists.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She tries to pull away from me, but I’m not fucking letting go of her.

“It was irrelevant to your life,” I state matter-of-factly.

“Apparently not!”

I’m too relieved to have her back in my grasp to care much about her attitude. She doesn’t need to know everything I do to keep her safe.

“If I had known that fucker still walked this earth, I would’ve handled the problem before it became one. For that, I am sorry, Noel.”

Her lips part as she sucks in a breath, and I find myself staring at her pretty mouth. Her tits rise and fall with another deep breath.

Then she whispers, “I can’t unsee all of those pictures, Declan.”

She looks up at me with a face full of pain, and I pull her into me.

“Look at me, Noel. They were nothing. Just a distraction. A way to dull the pain while I waited.”

“One of them was timestamped just a couple of weeks ago,” she says in misery.

Taking her hand, I walk her over to the Tahoe to see Leah has already made it back to the vehicle.

“Get out,” I tell her.

She looks between me and Noel before getting out to join Isaiah and Veronica in the other vehicle. I help Noel into the backseat then climb in behind her.

“Isaiah’s father, Jeff, still watches him and the club. Girls aren’t supposed to leave with men, but I needed to hire Leah. The only way to do that was to make it look like I was using her,” I pause waiting for her to understand .

I wish I didn’t see the doubt in her eyes, but I can’t blame her considering all the other pictures she saw.

“So the elevator was fake?” She asks, fidgeting with my fingers in her lap.

“Yes,” I answer, simply.

“He wanted me to hate you.” She looks into my eyes again.

“Considering I haven’t touched a woman besides you since his accident, I’d say he has been planning this for a long time. You must’ve given him reason to believe you still felt something for me.”

“He found my journals,” she mutters.

“What journals?” I ask.

“I kept journals of us from high school. I never could bring myself to throw them out,” she says.

“When?”

“He said he found them years ago, but that’s why those men broke in. He wanted me to burn them today,” she explains.

“The only thing we’re burning today is whatever bullshit is left of him,” I grind out.

“I can’t believe I killed him,” she states in disbelief.

“I can. You’ve always been strong enough to slay your own demons, Noel.”

When I pull her into my lap, her eyes widen at what she feels beneath her.

“Everything you do fucking does this to me.”

I grab her ass to rub her over it.

“Mmm,” her little voice purrs, and she closes her eyes.

“And I love what adrenaline does to you.”

She smiles without opening her eyes, and I’m sure exhaustion is about to take her. I lay her down across the seat.

“Don’t leave me,” she pleads .

“I’ll be right back,” I promise her.

Walking back into the house, I already see a lot of the damage has been taken care of. The three man crew works quickly to remove all evidence and replace broken items. Zander is helping one of them stuff the woman’s body into a bag.

“Who was that?” I ask him.

“His mom,” he says, looking up at me.

Nodding at him, I turn and find myself gravitating back to the room with Nate’s corpse to make sure I didn’t miss anything. The music box sitting on the mantle had been playing “You are my Sunshine” while the TV showed pictures of me fucking women in the past. That’s some fucked up shit.

The stack of journals sits next to the music box. I open one up and start reading about a conversation that sixteen-year-old me had with Noel. It was one of the many times I told her that I would take her traveling when we were old enough. Flipping the pages around, I can see it’s more of that, her catalog of our conversations.

After I finish the clean up in the room, I grab the journals and tell Zander to let the crew finish what’s left without us. We walk out to the Tahoe Noel is waiting in.

“Drive us back,” I tell Zander when it’s obvious he’s walking toward the passenger seat. I’m not driving shit if I can be next to my wife.

We join everyone except the clean up crew at the plane. Instead of waiting on them, I give them a call to remind them about the hanging man in the hangar and tell them to catch a flight home when they finish up.

“Get us the fuck outta here,” Isaiah calls out to the pilot.

Noel sleeps safely in my lap where she belongs as we take off.