Chapter Twenty
“Abby,” James whispered in my ear. His fingertips brushed at the wayward strands of hair covering my face. “Wake up.”
I stretched, and he smiled against my cheek. Ocean waves tumbled against the shore, and I slowly woke from my slumber.
“I can’t believe I fell asleep,” I said, turning in to James’s side. The sun was hot and warmed my skin. He tucked my hair, wild from the whip of the wind, back under my wide brimmed hat.
“I’m wounded, truly.” His lips curved into a smile. “I thought you enjoyed my company far better than a nap.”
I smiled. “I find there are few things I like more than a nap. Maybe one day you will be one of them.”
“I don’t know if my pride will survive you,” James said, leaning up on an elbow.
“I hope not, because that other version of you was almost unbearable.”
“Unbearable, huh?”
That forced a giggle from my lips, and James glanced at my mouth, his smile lingering. My heart flipped. I’d never been kissed before, and thinking that he might want to confused me. Our relationship was friendly, sometimes playful, but it had never been romantic. He leaned forward until our faces were inches apart. Our smiles faded, and I was held captive, my breath trapped inside my chest.
Jolts of electricity popped across my skin when he closed the distance between us. His lips were warm and sank against mine for a long second before he pulled away.
“You kissed me,” I said, somewhat confused, and sat up, brushing at the sand that stuck to my palms. “You don’t even like me.”
“That’s not true,” he said. His lashes, black as soot, framed concerned eyes equally dark. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
But I didn’t let him finish. I pressed my lips against his, and everything inside me jumped like a thousand bouncing balls. I pulled away only to have him follow, his lips chasing mine. I rose to my knees and finally to my feet. I was flushed and warm, suddenly energetic and wild. Never in my life had I been so brash—so bold. Other girls did that, not me, but here I was, looking down at the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, knowing I’d done what every girl wished she could do with James Bellingham.
My cheeks lifted with a smile, bigger than should’ve been possible, and I ran into the surf. The water lapped over my ankles, and when I turned to James, the wind lifted my hat from my head and carried it out to sea. James was smiling, still lying on a single elbow, and I knew I’d found everything I’d ever been looking for. My other half, my soulmate. My home.
I curled in on myself, folding my knees toward my chest as I pressed my hands against my ears. It was so loud. Why was it so loud? My head rang and pounded, and the yelling—God, the yelling—was making everything so much worse.
“Do you even realize what you’ve done? What could happen to her? Right now? Tonight?” a voice demanded.
My eyes adjusted to the darkened room. James was kneeling by my side, oblivious to the man yelling at his back.
“You’re awake.” He sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes. I lifted my hand and placed it against his cheek. Covering my hand with his, he turned his face and kissed my palm.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” His voice was rough but gentle, and my chest twisted at his words. Too familiar, too real.
“Kingsley.” The sharp tone turned both of our heads toward the door where I saw Mack angrier than I’d ever seen him before. “Are you listening to me?”
James dropped my hand and stood. “I heard you quite clearly, McCormack.”
“Mack?” I asked, struggling to sit upright under the weight of the bedcovers.
His eyes flicked to mine, and some of the anger seemed to dissipate, but violence was still simmering below the surface. His hands were fisted at his sides, and his arms were tense, held slightly away from his body as if anticipating a fight.
“What’re you doing here?”
He ignored me. James was his only concern.
“You’re going to kill her,” Mack said with venom. “Not that I’m surprised. Leaving women to die is kind of your specialty, right?”
James turned with lightning speed and swung so fast I would’ve missed it had I blinked. His fist connected with Mack’s jaw, and Mack stumbled back several steps before he charged forward. With his shoulder dropped low, he rammed into James’s middle, and the two men crashed against the floor.
I jumped from the bed. Mack had a knee on James’s chest, his fist slung back, but before he could punch, James bucked up and flipped Mack to his back.
“Stop it!” I yelled, but neither was listening. “James!” I screamed just as his fist connected with Mack’s eye. An explosion of obscenities came from Mack’s mouth as he recovered.
They traded punches, each trying to gain the upper hand. Their big bodies hit walls and furniture, and the very ground vibrated with anger.
“No, no, NO!” I yelled when Mack lifted James from the floor and pushed him into the wall. A picture, the only one I had of my mother before she was too sick, toppled to the ground. The glass shattered and the frame splintered. I looked up from the mess to see Mack press one hand around James’s throat and pull the other back, ready to swing.
“Colin!”
Mack turned, his green eyes glittering, and a cut above his eye swelling. He pursed his lips and looked back at James with murder in his eyes. He gave one last shove and dropped his hands. James stalked away from the wall, fury radiating from his body, and wiped at the cut on his lower lip. They were both panting with exhaustion.
“Better now?” I asked.
“Far from it,” Mack said. “I told you being with him was dangerous.”
“I’m a big girl, Mack. I can take care of myself.”
“Really? Have you seen yourself?” His cheeks were flushed, and his face shone with a fine layer of sweat.
When I didn’t answer, he grabbed me by the arm and spun me to face the mirror over the dresser. James took an automatic step in my direction, but I gave my head a shake. “Look. Look at what he’s done to you.”
I froze when I saw my reflection. I was pale, so much more than normal, and my eyes. They were the same blue but now somehow hollow—like the sockets were too big. It was how my mother looked at the end of her life.
“Now do you understand?”
“James didn’t do this, so stop blaming him.” I wrenched my arm from his grasp, but no matter how many times I blinked, or how many times I tried to erase it from my mind, all I saw were her eyes, my mother’s eyes, staring back at me. “You’re as much a part of this as he is.”
Mack shoved a restless hand through his hair. Under his eye was dark purple now, while a trail of blood spilled from the cut on his brow.
I turned to James. “Do you mind giving us a second? Please?”
James shook his head. “Abby, no.” He stood tall by my side and begged me with his eyes.
“I’ll be fine. Just give me a few minutes.”
His eyes flicked to Mack and back at me. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
I bent and picked up the photo from the wreckage. Swiping bits of glass from the picture, I placed it on my dresser.
“Why are you here?”
Mack touched a finger to the cut on his brow and winced. “Your father called.”
“Of course he did,” I said, mostly to myself.
“He’s worried about you.”
“So he left?” I gestured in the general direction of the front yard. “And called you to pick up the pieces?”
“He spent most of his career researching ways to correct your mother’s drift. Finding out that his only child is suffering the same fate? You have to know how hard this is for him.”
A ridiculous laugh jumped from my lips. “Hard for him? Are you serious?”
“He watched your mother deteriorate for years—decades. He understands the end game. Do you think that’s easy for him? He’s scared.”
“He doesn’t need to be. I’m going to fix this.” I stared at the hole in the floor and hoped I could make good on my words.
“Then let me help you. Stop shutting me out.”
“You’ve given me no choice. After everything that’s happened—after everything I’ve learned—I don’t trust you.”
Mack was wounded. His shoulders fell, and his hand lifted to plead with me. “What can I do? What can I say?”
“Tell me how you know Nino Roselli, because I know there’s something about him that you haven’t told me.”
He let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s more complicated than that.” I turned to leave, and Mack caught me by the arm, sparking the anger that was already kindling. “Where’re you going?”
“It’s no use talking to you. You say you want to help me, but when I ask questions, you brush them off. How is that supposed to make me feel confident that you’re being honest with me?”
“I only want to help you.”
“We don’t need your help.”
“You may think that you don’t, but I’m a part of this, too, or have you forgotten?”
“How could I, when you are the entire reason James and I never got the chance to live our lives together,” I spat and shook my head.
“That was in the past. I’m not that man anymore. Stop turning this into something it’s not and blaming me for something I can’t correct.”
“I’m not turning it into anything. It is what it is.” I ran my hands through my hair and tried to calm the fire that was burning inside.
“Then, please, see it for what it is, for Christ’s sake. I’ve spent my life, my career, trying to be everything I wasn’t a century ago. Why do you think I chose the military? Why do you think I chose the FBI when they approached me? I wanted a future better than the past from which I came. I wanted to prove to myself—to everyone—that who I was isn’t who I am. Abby—” He broke off and shoved himself back until he was gripping the edge of my dresser. He sucked in two breaths and exhaled his words. “I want a chance.”
I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t help myself. “A chance at what?”
Mack closed the distance between us and lifted his hands as if to touch my face. I flinched, and he dropped them to my shoulders. He was struggling with something. I could see it in the way his eyes jumped, never holding on to anything long enough to see it. “A chance at us. A chance to have the life—the ending—we should’ve had.”
My mouth hung open, with speech just out of reach. I stared at the floor, finding it easier to gather my thoughts when I wasn’t looking directly at him. “Mack—” I began, but words wouldn’t follow.
He released me and rubbed at his neck. “I wish I could change the way that night unfolded. I spent the rest of that life and all of this one trying to make up for my mistakes. Please,” he said.
I stepped back, and a sharp pain twisted in my chest. Since finding out Mack could drift, I never once thought about how his feelings—or his life—were affected. And he’d been dealing with it since before we met. I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I love James.”
He nodded and turned away. Knowing there wasn’t anything else I could say, I left the room. Down the hallway, I stepped into the bathroom and let out an exhausted breath when the door clicked closed. I shut my eyes and searched for the calm that would stop the shaking that consumed my body, and dropped my head against the door.
From the main living area, I heard a heavy thud followed by a short scraping sound, like a chair moving against the floor. I turned toward the door and strained to listen, but there was nothing. Just as my hand wrapped around the door handle, the thump came again, but this time it was followed by a muffled grunt. I opened the door and peered outside.
Mack was creeping down the hall with his gun held low, the barrel pointed to the ground. He pressed his finger to his lips and whispered, “Stay here.”
“What’s happening?” I asked, but his only reply was a sharp shake of his head.
He moved silently toward the living room and turned the corner with his gun raised in front of him.
“Colin,” a hearty voice called. “What a pleasure.”
My heart thudded, recognizing the sound, and I crouched until my back was pressed against the vanity. Roselli was here.
“Put the gun down. You have no play here,” Roselli said.
“You know I can’t do that.”
There were several moments of silence before a swift sound sliced the air. Someone grunted through clenched teeth, and my heart dropped. James. My stomach clenched and wave of nausea had my fingers gripping my lips.
“Nino,” Mack barked. “Don’t do this. They didn’t find the necklace. Killing him won’t help you.”
“Next time, I shoot him in the head. Now, put your gun down.” There were a handful of seconds where I heard nothing. “Not enough of an incentive, huh? How about you put your gun down or my friend here kills your girl.”
I didn’t have time to run, much less hide, before a man appeared at the mouth of the hall. His nose was taped with a bandage, but his face was one I’d never forget. This was the man who’d thrown me in the back of his van not twenty-four hours ago.
“You gonna come easy this time?” he asked, waving a gun at my middle.
When I didn’t respond, his hand shot out with lightning speed and grabbed me by the arm. In three steps, I was hauled into the living room. Roselli was seated on the sofa with his back to me, and Mack stood in front of him, his gun trained on Nino.
His jaw clenched. “You’re outnumbered here, McCormack. Set it down so no one else gets hurt.”
The man holding me pressed his gun to my temple, and Mack bent, placing his gun on the coffee table in front of him. When he straightened, the man holding me turned his gun from my head to aim at Mack’s.
I scanned the room. “Where is he? Where’s James?” I asked when Roselli turned toward me. I wrenched my arm, trying to free myself from the henchman’s grip, but it only tightened.
“Let her go,” Roselli said.
When he released my arm, I ran around the sofa. “No.” My heart dropped at the sight of James’s boots. I could just see the soles peering from behind the wall, and from the way his feet were angled, I knew he was lying on his back. Panic seized my heart as I rounded the corner, and something like a scream gurgled in my throat.
In front of me was everything I never wanted to see. Not again. James grunted, and relief pulsed through me. He kicked himself back toward the wall only using his left leg. His right was dragging across the kitchen floor and smearing the blood puddled there.
I slid to his side and stared at the hole in the thigh of his jeans, the one that was soaked black with blood. “Oh God,” I said. I looked around pulled a stack of dishtowels from a drawer.
James gnashed his teeth and swore when I pressed the thick cloth to his leg. When the blood soaked through, I grabbed another, and then another, hoping to staunch the flow.
“Abigail,” Roselli called from the living room. “Don’t worry about James. There are bigger things we need to discuss.”
I ignored him and focused my narrowed attention on stopping the bleeding. My hands pressed against the towels, but no matter how much pressure I applied, blood continued to soak through. I saw it crawl from under my hands to the outer edges of the towel and my drift flashed in front of me. Only instead of soaking the towels, James’s blood was spilling between my fingers.
“No, no,” I said more to myself than anyone else. I needed help. I needed to call someone, to find someone. My head swung in every direction, looking for a phone. It wasn’t until I felt pressure on my own hand that my gaze went to James.
His hand, rippled with scars, was covered in blood. “You need to go,” he mouthed. “You need to get out of here.” He nodded his head toward the door that led through the laundry room and out to the backyard.
An unbidden image of James’s dead body lying alone in a grimy alleyway surged forward. “I’m not leaving you here.”
James’s expression contorted to one of anger. “Abby, go,” he said, but was cut off by Roselli, his voice loud enough to be heard from the living room.
“No need to run, dear, but if you do, know that things won’t end so well for you or your friends.”
I stared at James, at his beloved face twisted between pain and fury. I grabbed his hand and placed it over the gunshot wound.
“Please,” he said.
I looked back toward the living area and then again at James. “I can’t…I won’t.”
“Why not?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Because I’ve done that before, and I know how that feels.”
“Don’t do this because of something that happened in the past. Do this for me. The me that’s here, now.”
I pinched my lips and stood, but instead of heading toward the back door, I turned toward Roselli. Nino’s cheeks lifted with a grin, and as he stood, he held his arms wide from his chest like he was welcoming me into an embrace. I took a hesitant step forward, knowing this could be the beginning of my end.