Page 101 of Moonlit Thorns

I want to draw this out, make him pay, but I know that I’ll never be able to. I have to settle for my face being the final thing he sees before he dies.

“You’re going to rot in hell, and if I find out that you laid even a finger on her, I’m going to drag you back out of there myself and kill you all over again.” In my fury, I lift him again and smash his head down. Blood trickles out from under him and quickly disperses in the rain.

I need to get to Anabelle. I need to see if she’s okay. I didn’t even chance a look at her in the limo because all I could think about was making this piece of shit pay.

Removing my hand from his collar, I press the gun to his temple again and press the trigger. A sick sense of satisfaction courses through me at the bloody trail that runs from the road down into the ditch.

I push the gun into my waistband and pop up. “Anabelle!”

Frantic, I rush to the other side of the limo and find Kol there with one arm wrapped around a weeping Anabelle. The other is pointed at the driver, who’s standing beside the driver’s side door with his hands raised.

“Anabelle, are you okay?” I rush to her, pulling her away from Kol and letting my hands skim gently over her face.

She has a cut over her eyebrow and a bruise already forming there. There’s also a bruise blooming on her collarbone. I’m sure there are more I can’t see right now.

“Asher,” she weeps, crashing into my chest and wrapping her arms around me.

I hold her but not too tightly because I don’t want to hurt her. “Are you okay?”

“I am now,” she says.

“You two take off. I assume your jet is here?” Kol says, and I nod. “I’ll take care of this mess. You get Anabelle home.”

I glance in the direction of Preston’s body. “You sure?”

“I got this.”

I nod and pull Anabelle around the limo and Kol’s car and through the airport’s entrance. “Don’t look behind you.”

I don’t want her even more traumatized from seeing Preston’s body.

The rain beats down as I pull my phone from my pocket and hit the pilot’s contact, telling him to ready the jet ASAP. The stairs on my jet are down by the time we reach it, and Millie, the flight attendant I’ve employed for years, looks at us wide-eyed. I’m not worried about her telling anyone what she sees. I pay all my employees well enough to prevent that from ever happening.

“Tell Ralph we need to leave as soon as possible.”

She nods and takes off in the direction of the cockpit while I bring a trembling Anabelle to the back of the plane where my bedroom is. I lead her to the end of the bed and force her to sit down before I take a seat beside her.

“Are you okay?”

She nods, squeezing her eyes shut. “I was so scared, Asher. Thank you for coming for me.”

She hugs me, and I take her in my arms, running my hand up and down her back, so grateful that she’s okay. When she pulls away with tears in her eyes, my gaze snags on the injury on her head.

“I’ll have the doctor meet us at Midnight Manor to have a look at you. Did he…” I gulp hard, unable to say the words.

If Preston sexually assaulted Anabelle, I swear I’ll figure out some way to make him pay, even in death.

She shakes her head. “No, no, you found me before he could… but he said he was going to. He was going to do it and send you a tape of it.” Her face crumples, and she cries again.

That cuts like a blade over my skin, bleeding me out because it’s all my fault. If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t be traumatized like this.

I draw her into me until she settles, then I ask if she wants to take a shower. “I have some spare clothes I keep in the plane that you can change into.”

She nods. “Will you come in the bathroom with me, though? I don’t want to be alone.”

I cup the uninjured side of her face. “Of course.”

Once we’re in the air, I help Anabelle out of her dress. When I spot another bruise developing on her arm to match the one on her head and her collarbone, I feel as though I might be sick. If I’d been a few minutes later…

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