Page 45 of Prodigal

“Don’t fucking move. We only need you alive. The girl is disposable.”

“No. No. Jules. Jules.” He held out a hand for her as she reached for him, but the guy took hold of her wheelchair, wheeling her away.

“No!”

She screamed for him. “Please don’t take her,” he begged. “Please don’t hurt my sister. Please. I will do?—”

The one with Jules suddenly jerked and stumbled, then he fell face down. Jules kept screaming. The sound of guns going off filled the room, then the second masked man fell to the floor. André scrambled to get to Jules.

“Gideon!”

André blinked, shaking his head. What?

Gideon appeared in his line of sight, kneeling next to Jules, cupping her face and whispering to her. She clung to him, sobbing, and he shoved the gun he held into his waistband before scooping her up out of her chair.

Gideon was there?

Someone helped André up off the floor. Samir.

André couldn’t— “What’s happening?” he asked Gideon.

The other man eyed him up and down, furious anger in his eyes. “How is he?” he asked Samir.

“Physically unharmed.”

“Then let’s get the fuck out of here.”

They had to walk over all the dead bodies to leave the room. All of Gideon’s people were there, and they surrounded them as they left the building. André didn’t have the bandwidth to process what was happening, what had happened.

But he knew it was his fault.

Gideon’s men had died because of André.

Jules had been threatened and was scared out of her mind because of André.

Samir, who’d been holding on to André, helped him up into the back of an SUV. He sat next to Gideon, who still had Jules in his arms, her face buried under his chin as he stroked her back gently.

André watched them with a knot in his throat. Gideon represented safety to Jules. She didn’t reach for André because she knew Gideon would protect her, unlike André, who’d led her straight into danger.

A tap came on the door next to Gideon, then it opened and Samir appeared, telling Gideon, “We kept one of them alive.”

“Good.” Gideon’s tone was clipped. “Bring him with us. And somebody find me Sienna fucking Canto.”

Sienna Canto. Ennis’s daughter, Sienna? Why would Gideon— “D-don’t hurt her.”

Gideon’s gaze swung over to him. There was nothing soft in them. Just pure rage that he seemed to be struggling to control.

“Don’t hurt Sienna to get to our—her—father.”

“Oh, I won’t. I will, however, kill her for orchestrating what happened here tonight.”

“W-what?”

Gideon’s gaze bored into him. “Your father is awake. And he has some interesting things to share.”

André ignoredthe tremors running through his body. It was surreal, all of it. Being back at Gideon’s penthouse. The dead bodies they’d left behind at André’s place. The fact that Gideon had yet to discuss any of it. They’d sat side by side in the SUV, aggression and anger pouring off Gideon in waves.

Yet as Jules clung to him, he comforted her with soothing touches and softly murmured words. André didn’t get any of that, and he didn’t think he’d ever be jealous of his little sister but he’d wanted Gideon to soothe him too. But he wouldn’t. André didn’t expect that from him, not after the mess André had made of things.

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