“What the—?”
“Now, Grace!” Raide barks.
I shove the bookshelf as hard as I can. It topples forward and I hear a loud, pained cry as it takes someone down. A gun goes off and I leap out before I even have the chance to glance at who or what the bookshelf took down. Raide is tackling a man, his hand curled around the gun in his grips. Another man is half stuck under the bookshelf, but he’s got his gun aimed at Raide. I leap forward and kick the weapon from his hand. It goes skittering across the floor and he hisses a curse at me.
I go to lunge for the pistol but his hand lashes out and catches my ankle. He tugs hard and I go down with a thump onto the floor. With a kick, he manages to free himself from underneath the bookshelf. He throws his body on top of mine.
I drive my elbow up and hit him in the ribs, then I reach back and find his hair. He gets his fingers around my throat and starts squeezing, so I tug his hair, I pull it so hard, a clump of it comes out. He screams and slaps me hard.
Suddenly his weight is off me and he’s rolling across the ground. Raide is still tackling the other man, but he no longer has a gun. It, too, is on the floor. Raide must have kicked him off me while they were wrestling. I don’t waste time. I slide toward the gun and when my fingers curl around it, I want to cry with relief. I turn back to the man I was fighting and see he’s charging toward me again. I aim the gun and shoot, hitting his kneecap. He drops to the floor with a bellow and I quickly tackle him down.
He’s too busy screaming in pain to try to fight anymore, so I get off him and turn to Raide. He’s managed to get his guy down, even with a sore arm. He’s got the man’s arms pulled tightly behind his back, his face pressed to the floor. “Grace, get me those cuffs from his belt.” I rush over and take the cuffs. I snap them on the goon’s wrists and Raide lets him go.
“Let’s get out of here.”
We both rush toward the door. There’s another man lying just near it. He’s got blood trickling from his head and he’s out cold. He must have been hit by the bookshelf. We don’t stay to study him, we just run out of the room. We’re in an old, run-down house. Raide pushes me behind him as we move, making sure no one else is present.
When we get outside, there are two cars lined up. We run toward them and just our luck, they left their keys in one. Why not—it’s secluded out here. We must be a fair way out of town because all I can see is thick trees, a long dirt road, and the crappy old house. Raide swings the passenger door open and I quickly get in. He jumps into the driver’s side and we skid out of there before I’ve even pulled my belt on.
“You hurt?” Raide asks as we bump down the dirt road.
“No,” I say, running my hands over my body. “You?”
“No.”
His voice is tight, so I glance at him. He’s got blood running down his arm, where he was shot. “Raide, you’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Can’t stop and worry about it now.”
I can’t argue with that. “What are we going to do?”
He looks over at me for a second, and what I see in his eyes scares me. “We’re going to end this.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
By “end this,” I figure he means kill Dean.
He has that look on his face. He’s angry, he’s hurting, and he looks like he’s more than ready to make his sister’s killer pay. I know I can’t talk him out of this, it wouldn’t matter what I say, he’s made up his mind. He made it up long before I came along. He doesn’t say anything else to me, and because my body is exhausted, I find myself drifting off to sleep.
I swear before I’m in complete darkness, I hear Raide say, “I’m sorry, baby.”
I must sleep a good long while; either that or we were closer to our part of town than I thought, because Raide is waking me with a soft hand to my cheek. I let my eyelids flutter open and I see him looking over at me. We’re still in the car, and he’s got a pained look in his eye. God, did I sleep through it all? Has he already gotten to Dean? I sit up quickly and I immediately see we’re not near Dean’s hangout. Not even close. We’re at … my work.
“Raide,” I whisper, “why are we here?”
I can see Don, Vance, Julio, and York standing on the sidewalk. It hits me like a sledgehammer to the heart: Raide is turning himself in. He brought me back here. He risked everything, gave up his revenge, and brought us both back here. He sacrificed … for me.
No.
“Raide,” I croak. “No.”
He reaches over, cupping my jaw. “You said I was selfish, because now I have you in my life, I should be fighting for it. You were right. I can’t go away for killing him, Grace, because that means losing you. This is me not being selfish. This is me doing the right thing.”