Page 264 of Things We Left Behind

“Ow!”

“Come on, baby.” I half dragged, half carried her to the window seat.

She eagerly climbed onto the cushion and swung a leg over the sill of the window I’d left open. “Let’s go,” she said.

I shook my head. “You go first. I’ll make sure he doesn’t see you on the roof.”

She flinched. “Lucian.”

“Sloane. Go!”

The footsteps were getting closer, and that lock on the door wouldn’t hold back an overly excited golden retriever.

“I’m not leaving you,” she said stubbornly.

I cupped her face in my hands. “Pixie, I need you to trust me this time. Trust me to handle this. I’m asking you, but in a second, I’m going to be telling you. I need to deal with this, and I can’t do it if I’m worried that he has a clear shot at you. Trust me to do this.”

The doorknob rattled, followed by Wylie’s raspy cackle. “I know you’re in there, girl.”

“Ugh. Fine. But I’m also trusting you not to murder him,” Sloane said.

“I’m not promising that.”

She swung her leg over the windowsill. “Don’t let me down.”

Women.

“Oh, also, he has two guns. His and the judge’s. He was going to make it look like he caught the judge murdering me.”

The sirens were screaming down the street now, and an anger unlike any other I’d ever known tinged everything a bloody-­murder red.

I shoved her out the window onto the roof. “I love you. Now get the fuck out.”

“I love you too. Don’t end up in jail,” she whispered.

I shut the curtains on her just as a boot landed a hard kick to the door. It flew open on the second kick, rebounding off the wall as I hurried across the room and flattened myself against the wall.

The barrel of a gun with a silencer came into view. “Come out, come out, wherever you—­”

I brought my arm down on his in a fast, sweeping arc. My forearm connected with his. I grabbed him and dragged him farther into the room.

“Son of a bitch!”

“More like son of a bastard,” I snarled back as we wrestled for the gun.

“Your dad was a good man. You were just a no-­good brat who thought he was better than everybody.”

“I was better than him. You took everything from me once. I won’t let it happen again, old man.” I threw an elbow to his jaw, and he howled in pain. The gun tumbled to the floor, and I kicked it toward the bed. “You hurt her. You threatened her, burned down her library, and you made her bleed,” I roared over the sirens.

His eyes were a bloodshot blue and desperate. “You should have stayed out of this. Neither one of you needed to get involved.”

“And you should have gone to fucking jail instead of me, asshole. I’m going to make sure everyone who’s ever heard your name knows exactly what kind of man you are.”

He pushed me back two steps, and I let him. I heard feet pounding on the stairs. But this was between him and me.

“Better get those hands up so the chief can cuff you. I’ve been looking forward to this perp walk,” I taunted.

In a move impressively fast for an asshole of his age, Wylie reached behind him and pulled the second gun. But I was already on the move.