Page 44 of Savage Reckoning

“I gave him a double dose of morphine.” She checks his eyelids once more. “I’d say he’s already gone.”

I gape at her. “You killed him.”

“If you like. You said he needed help, and I gave it. It’s over.”

“But, Jack wanted to—”

“Jack can go to hell. I’m a doctor, sworn to do no harm. I wouldn’t have ever delivered that poor man up to them to continue what they were doing. I put him out of his misery. It was all I could do for him in the end.” She snaps her bag shut and marches past me. “Don’t worry about telling Jack. I’ll do that myself in my report.”

I take a moment to check for myself. Sure enough, Mitchell is dead. I hare off after Megan who is already at the top of the steps leading to the outside.

“Hey. Wait…”

She quickens her pace, so I break into a run. Even so, she’s almost back at her cottage by the time I get close enough to grab her arm.

“Let go of me.”

“We need to talk. About what just happened.”

“No need. I’ll write it up.” She tries to shake me off, but she might as well try to hold back a double-decker bus. She’s no match for me, and I’m still with her when she reaches her door.

“Excuse me.” She tips up her chin as though daring me to push the matter.

Bring. It. On.

I shove her through the door and into her cottage, then back-heel the door shut behind me with a crash. “I said, we need to talk.”

“Get out of my house.” She shakes off my grip on her elbow, but only because I’m ready to let her go now. “I did my job. Now you go and do yours, whatever that is.”

“Your job, your one job, was to keep Mitchell breathing,” I snarl. “Whose side are you on?”

“Sides?” She rounds on me, her anger blazing in her eyes. “Don’t you dare talk to me about sides. About loyalty. Ethan Savage let me come here when I had no one, nowhere else to go. He did it for my aunt, out of loyalty and friendship. I know how much I owe him, and I’d never let him down. Or any of them. A lot happens here that I don’t like, things like that…” She gestures back towards the castle and the dungeon. “But my loyalty is clear. Solid.”

“Yeah. Right,” I sneer. “So solid that you remove our only witness from the picture because you decide he’s suffered enough.”

“You asshole. You cock-sucking maggot. What do you know about loyalty? You’re just pond life. Slime.”

I execute a mock bow. “If you’ve quite finished stroking my ego…”

Megan lets out a shriek and flies at me, but I’m ready for her. I grasp her by the wrists and swing her around to fling her onto the sofa then drop on top of her. I make the mistake of letting go of one of her wrists and get her fingernails raked down my cheek for my trouble.

“You fucking hellcat…” I grab her flailing, lethal hand and capture both wrists in my fist, then pin them to the cushion above her head.

“Get off me. I’ll scream, and—”

I don’t doubt she will, and that will bring a dozen armed and hardened criminals rushing to her aid. I do the only thing I can think of on the spur of the moment to avoid ending up being flung into the ocean along with Gregory Mitchell.

I cover her mouth with mine.

CHAPTER 10

Megan

What the…?

I shut my mouth, try to seal my lips against the invasion. I twist my head from one side to the other, desperate to throw him off, to escape the punishing kiss. It’s hopeless. He’s twice my size, and I’m just wasting my energy.

Who else would use a kiss as a weapon? I squirm at the very idea, the audacious, outrageous mockery of it.

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