“No!” Hugh screamed. “She’s his! His flesh and blood, just like the other whore! They’re both going to die, and then he’ll have nothing, nothing! The bastard will pay to have his own flesh killed—that’s the fucking best part! He’ll rot in that jail and have—”
Saxon leapt forward. Hugh tried to shoot, but Saxon knocked the guy’s hand to the side and then he drove the knife he held right into the bastard’s chest.
“She doesn’t die,” Saxon gritted out. Not on my watch.
Then his fingers locked with Elizabeth’s. They ran past the fallen man, with Victor and Zoe right on their heels.
Saxon pushed Elizabeth up the stairs. “Sax—”
“Go, sweetheart, go!”
Then Victor was there. Saxon stepped back as Victor said, “Zoe, get up those stairs and out of this house!”
Zoe grabbed for the stairs.
“Now you, bro,” Victor told him.
Locking his teeth, still using the pain that coursed through him, Saxon climbed that ladder. He cleared the top seconds before Victor came up after him.
Zoe was running for the door, but Elizabeth was waiting there. Waiting for me. And when Saxon’s legs tried to give out beneath him, she slid her shoulders under his arm and held him tight. “I’ve got you,” she told him. Victor was on his other side, also holding Saxon up and rushing with them toward the door.
At any moment, Saxon feared an explosion would rock the place, and he was praying hard because he needed Elizabeth to get out alive. She had to survive.
“Go,” he rasped to her and to Victor because he was slowing them down now that his strength was ebbing and—
“Just shut the fuck up,” Victor told him as both his brother and Elizabeth just seemed to move faster…and to tighten their hold on Saxon.
Then they were outside. They didn’t stop. They kept running—
And they were still running when the house exploded behind them.
Chapter Sixteen
“Saxon!” Elizabeth screamed. She’d flown through the air, the explosion propelling her away from Saxon and straight into the street. Her palms were scraped raw and bleeding. Her cheek was throbbing and—
There was a ball of flames where the house had been.
She staggered up to her feet, looking for Saxon. “Saxon!” Then she saw him. In the middle of the road, about ten feet from her. She started hurrying toward him.
And then the headlights hit her. She heard the SUV’s engine growling and her head snapped up.
The vehicle was racing right toward her!
Tracy didn’t leave. She just waited to see who survived. Now she was coming to pick off the last of her prey.
Elizabeth ran to Saxon. “Get out of the road!”
But he wasn’t moving. The SUV was coming closer. She grabbed Saxon’s arms and started dragging him. His eyes were closed and he was a dead weight.
“Elizabeth!” That was Victor’s voice. Her head jerked up and she saw him close to the burning house.
“Help me!” she screamed at him.
The SUV was so close. Too close. She needed to be stronger. She pulled again, straining with all of her might. Tracy was aiming right for them. Intending to kill both Elizabeth and Saxon.
But then Victor started shooting. She didn’t even remember him grabbing a gun before they’d gotten out of that basement. His bullets blasted into the driver’s side window of that SUV. Bam. Bam. Bam!
And the SUV started to veer. Only it was still too close. Too close!
She put her body on top of Saxon’s and heaved. They rolled. Once, twice, and she felt the rush of the SUV as it slid inches past her body. Then the SUV kept going. It drove forward fast and slammed straight into a tree. When the vehicle stopped, its horn was blaring—a long, continuous cry.
And Saxon was too still beneath her. “Saxon?” Elizabeth said his name as her trembling fingers stroked his face. “Saxon, please open your eyes and look at me.”
Footsteps thundered toward her. She didn’t glance up. She was looking at the only thing that mattered right then.
Only he doesn’t see me.
Her fingers went to his throat, and when she felt the beat of his pulse, her whole body shuddered. He’d been so still, hardly seeming to breathe, and she’d been so afraid that he’d left her.
“What can I do?”
It was the woman who’d been held captive in that basement. She was on her knees beside Elizabeth.
“I want to help,” the woman said again.
“W-we need to stop the blood flow.” Her hands slid down and pressed to the wound on Saxon’s stomach. “We have to get help! We need an ambulance!”
“Already called them,” Victor said as he rushed toward them. Then he, too, was on his knees beside Saxon. “They’re coming. So, Saxon, you just stay strong, you hear me? We’re out of that hell, and now you just need to stay—”
“Strong,” Elizabeth finished. She could feel tears on her cheeks. Saxon was always strong. What she wanted, what she needed most was… him. “Hang on,” she begged him. “Because you’re not supposed to leave me.”
His lips moved. So faint. She couldn’t hear him so Elizabeth leaned closer, desperate to hear the words he’d said—
“Never. Never leave…you.”
A sob broke from her. His blood was on her hands, and her Saxon was promising her—
“I love you,” she told him and Elizabeth pressed a soft kiss to his lips.
His eyes didn’t open, but he smiled.
***
The ambulance raced to the scene, with a line of cop cars behind it. Sirens were screaming and the swirl of lights illuminated the night. Fire trucks were there, too, like they’d be any good against the blaze.
“I’m FBI,” Victor called out as the cops emerged from their vehicles. “Agent Victor Monroe.” He flashed his ID. “And that man is to be given the absolute best care you got, understand?”
The EMTs were already loading Saxon into the back of the ambulance. Elizabeth was with him. Close at his side.
Always.
She loved his brother. He knew that. He’d never forget the sight of her, in that street, refusing to leave Saxon as she struggled to get him to safety.
If I hadn’t grabbed that gun in the basement, she and Sax would both be dead.
What the hell would he have done then?
“Agent Monroe, what the hell happened here?” One of the cops demanded as he stared up at the blaze.
“Another betrayal.” He was so sick of them. He turned his head and saw Zoe Peters trying to edge away. He caught her hand and pulled her back to his side. “Not so fast.”
“Look, police stations aren’t so much my scene…”
That fit. He was getting an idea of just what he’d been missing in his little deal with Luther Bates. “I think I can imagine why.”
A few cops were headed toward the smashed SUV. “It’s too late for her,” he said, feeling an ache in his chest. “She’s gone.” He’d already checked the vehicle, and he knew that Tracy had been dead before the SUV hit the tree.
“Who was she?” Zoe asked him softly.
“An FBI agent.”
She tried to pull away then, but he just held her tighter. Vic shook his head. “I’m guessing you know plenty about crooked agents?”
Her gaze darted to the cops around her. “Everyone’s on the take. Give them enough money, and they’ll do anything.” Her laughter was bitter. “But you know that, right? I mean, how much were you paid to come and get me?”
The ambulance had pulled away. Saxon and Elizabeth were gone. “I haven’t gotten my payment yet, but I will.”
He felt her stiffen.
“I just have to give proof of life, and then we’re clear.”
Their voices were low, carrying only to each other.
But Zoe inched ever closer to him. Her body brushed against his. “Please, I’m begging you…don’t. Don’t give him proof of life. Let Luther Bates think I’m dead.”
That wasn’t the deal. He shook his head.
“I’ll do anything,” Zoe told him, voice breaking. “Anything. Do you think Hugh Rowe was the first guy to come after me? He kept me for days, waiting, and he told me about all the others out there who want me dead. He would have killed me…except he got a phone call. I-I think from the dead agent over there.” Her head turned toward the smashed SUV. “She’d found news on someone else that he was looking for, and Hugh wanted to wait…he had a plan for the other woman, too.”