Chapter 38
Tip Toe
Gemma
SMITH PRESSES THE cool metal to my bare back.
The light in the room makes it appear so much larger than it did in the dark and Caleb looks so far away.
He has a choke hold on Enrique and Enrique looks panicked, but not because of the gun pointed at his temple. That hand of his lifts in the commanding way he has about him and that ring of his flashes. “Let her go, Smith,” he demands. “She has nothing to do with this.”
He’s so clueless.
He still thinks I’m his possession.
His thing.
Smith coughs through a laugh, steadies himself, and tries to smile as he wipes the blood from his nose, the blood I drew from him in my fight for freedom. “I can’t do that, Mr. Cruz. She has to be eliminated.”
“No,” Enrique calls out. I glance at Caleb. They don’t know about him and I, or that I have the necklace.
This is about Penelope and it has to stay that way, so as much as I want to tell him he’s been my pawn all along, I keep my mouth shut.
“No, she doesn’t,” Enrique tells him. “Lower your weapon. She has nothing to do with this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve been so caught up in the details of your own fantasies, you can’t see what it’s doing to your business.”
“Smith,” I say calmly. “I think Penelope has misled you.”
“Penelope?” Enrique questions.
Caleb adjusts his stance. “Enough with the bullshit! Let her go or I’ll shoot him.”
Smith shakes his head.
Caleb slams the butt of the gun into Enrique’s head and he falls to the ground. “I’m not fucking around.”
“Neither am I.” I feel Smith shift from behind me and then he strikes me with the gun just as Caleb had done to Enrique.
Searing pain bleeds through my body. It jolts through my limbs but somehow, I find the power to jab my elbow upward before I fall and catch Smith off-guard, knocking the gun from his grip.
It misfires in the process and I hear a howl of pain and then the gun falls to the ground just as I do. I watch as the piece of metal slides somewhere behind the big, ornate desk.
Caleb!
Oh, God, Caleb.
Already on the floor, I start to crawl in the direction of the gun. When I glance up to see who was shot, I lose my chance to grab for the weapon, but at least Caleb is still standing despite the fact that blood is gushing from his thigh.
Oh, God.
Scrambling on his feet, Smith jumps over the desk, sending the computer and everything else to its destruction. He gets ahold of the gun and without any further discussion, he pulls the trigger.
“No!” I yell.
There’s a loud thud as a body tumbles to the ground.
Caleb!
My vision goes black.
Everything seems lost.
The necklace and keys in my garters seem like artifacts no longer needed. Fear takes over every cell in my body. The room disappears under my knees and I can’t get to my feet.
Something blue sparkles from the ground. Enrique’s ring? I try to gain my senses. To focus. Then I hear another shot and watch as Smith falls to the ground beside me. That’s when I realize it wasn’t Caleb that Smith shot, it was Enrique.
Weapons fire from outside the door and sirens wail in the distance.
Caleb is standing in front of me. “Are you okay? We need to get out of here.”
The walls seem to be on the ceiling.
“Goddamn it, Gemma, answer me!”
The other door into the office starts to open.
Caleb lifts me and carries me through the hidden passage. It’s only when it’s pitch dark again that I realize we are both alive.
“I can walk,” I tell him.
He sets me on the ground. “Good. Now show me the way out of here.”
Blood is still streaming down his leg. Staring at it, my lungs start to burn with the effort to inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. “Your leg,” I point.
“I’ll be fine,” he tells me, removing his bowtie and tying it around the wounded area. “Just get us out of here.”
Caleb knows how to flee, how to stay inconspicuous, how to move soundlessly anywhere. I, on the other hand, do not. Still, I manage to lead us down into the kitchen.
As soon as we get outside though, and the rain pours down on us, I start gasping so desperately Caleb is forced to stop at the guesthouse. He’s breathing a little harder than usual as well, but he has reason.
He takes my face in his hands and tries to focus my eyes. “I want you to do what I do, okay?”
I start to choke. “Are they both dead?”
“It looked that way to me,” he tells me.
“What if they’re not?”
He ignores my question. “We need to get out of here, Gemma. Now, focus. Do what I do.” His eyes are determined, patient, fearless.
Do.
What.
He.
Does.
I watch, still in a trance.
He breathes in and then out. In and then out. Without thought, I copy him. He stops. “Good girl, now give me the keys.”
With trembling hands, I lift my dress and pull them from my garter. “Good girl,” he says again. “Now, wrap your arms around my neck.”
I do, and then he lifts me like I weigh nothing. Like he’s not shot.
Even though the sound of sirens gets louder and the rain seems to be pelting harder, I’ve never felt safer than I do right now.
In his arms, I close my eyes and press my cheek against his neck. I thought I could do this on my own.
I was so wrong.
I put my palms together and pray.
It’s not that I’m religious, but who knows, maybe it will help. Besides, it’s something I haven’t done in a very long time.
Although he’s limping, he moves swiftly through the puddles of water and then before I know it, he comes to a halt. I open my eyes to see we made it. We’re on the other side—outside the compound.
When Caleb sets me down, I take his face in my hands and whisper, “I love you.”
He smiles that small, panty-dropping smile at me. The one where his lips twitch like he’s trying not to laugh.
A million butterflies take flight in my belly. “What’s so funny?”
Pulling open the door, he leans down like he’s going to kiss me but instead he whispers, “Good thing I only had to get shot and not die to get you to admit it.”
If I’d known he’d smile at me like that . . . I would have told him a long time ago.