Page 116 of Charity's Redemption

“Let’s go.”

I placed my hand on her waist and ushered her out of the door and into the hallway.

“Keep your head down. He may not have cameras in here, but there might be some in the garage.”

“There isn’t.”

I guess it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. We didn’t show caution when we arrived, especially with her looking for cameras.

Had she seen one, they would’ve caught her face full scale, no problem, and recognized me in a heartbeat.

Now that I think of it… we really didn’t have this thought through.

Opening the elevator door, we walked inside, my hand on her back without hesitation.

Charity stood beside me, her eyes heavy as though she were in a drunken state. “Are you okay?”

She nodded and exhaled. “Yeah,” she said breathlessly.

I dug my phone from my pocket, then dialed Doc and gave him the details.

It was going to be a long night.

The clock on hisPorsche infotainment center read eleven P.M. and it felt like it.

My shoulder ached with zings of agony, shooting down my back and over my shoulder into my chest. If I didn’t move it, the fire was all that remained and the cold sweat against my brow.

I hadn’t intended on killing him on the couch. I was only warming him up, so he’d take me to his room, but he became too aggressive, pulling on my wig, squeezing my breasts hard, but when his hand reached behind me, and he felt the knife in my hand, I knew that’s when my plan went out the window for a clean, quiet kill.

We wrestled with it back and forth until I clipped his cheek with the tip. That was enough to shock him into releasing the knife. That’s when I stabbed him over and over in a frenzy.

Then Nico walked in as the guards did. Another obstacle I was grateful to have Nico handle.

This was a blundering clusterfuck, and if it wasn’t for Nico and his quick actions, I would’ve been dead right beside Adams and his minced meat of a face.

Nico pulled into Luca’s driveway, then eyed me. “What are you thinking about?”

“How I made this into a nightmare.” I glanced at my hands in my lap, hacking away at my cuticles.

I pulled Nico’s suit jacket over my shoulders, tighter around the neck, and turned his heat to full blast.

“You’re safe, I’m safe. Now it’s over, and we can move on.”

It wasn’t over, but only just begun. We still had the investigation to go through and clear up any foul play.

We were through with Elias, but because of my mishandling of the situation, we now had an entirely other matter on our hands.

“I’m sorry, Nico,” I whispered, wishing it hadn’t come out so broken.

“What do you have to be sorry for? You did what we came here to do.”

“I almost got you killed.”

Nico sighed, parked the car in the garage, and then turned his body towards me while placing his hand on my thigh.

“I think you see this normal man who holds a nine-to-five, dresses in expensive suits, and sits at an office desk all day. But what I think you forget is that violence has been around me since the day I was born. Just because I choose not to take part in it doesn’t mean I’m not capable of inflicting it and holding my own.”

He’s right, and we’d had this conversation before, but it didn’t make me feel any less guilty. I didn’t see him in the same light as Luca or Max. He was gentle and kind; he didn’t let his life harden him. It’s what I loved most about him.

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