Page 12 of Make You Mine

My body cradles Ashley’s against the floor. All the commotion behind us fades away as I revel in the fact that I’m holding her again.

“You okay?” I whisper, taking advantage of our proximity to inhale her scent. The perfume may be different, but the hint of Ashley underneath it floods my senses with the purest nostalgia.

Her plump lips part slightly, throat bobbing before she lets out a breathy, “Yes.”

Her blue eyes shine back at me with a mix of emotions while the brown and blonde strands of her hair fall around her shoulders, causing memories of her lying just like this beneath me to flood through my mind. She’s still the most precious, most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. The pictures over the last three years and sightings from a distance could never compare to this.

When I saw her for the first time earlier tonight, I swear my central nervous system went through a neurogenic shock. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. I had to tell myself to breathe.The moment she spoke to me, hearing her voice again after so long clogged my throat with emotion. Tears welled in my eyes before I could get my shit together. No practice could have prepared me for the first contact with the woman I love after over one thousand days without her.

“Trent, get the fuck up before you give yourself away.” Micah’s voice cuts through the trance we’ve both found ourselves in. “Go help your brother with this gunshot wound,” he says, tugging on my shoulder, ushering me to get up.

“Fuck,” I hiss, standing and pulling Ashley to her feet. I look over and see my brother making demands and holding pressure on Giovanni’s right-hand man’s upper chest.

“Was anyone else shot?” Ashley asks her brother, and I hear the slight hint of hope in her question. Did she want it to be Junior as badly as I did?

Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. She may truly be in love with him.

“Just Vito. Some glass shards from the front window cut into Junior’s upper arm, but nothing life-threatening.”

I look back at Ashley, and that’s when I realize her hand is still in mine. I need to go help Trevor, but I don’t want this moment with her to end.

Her brother does it for us, breaking our hands apart and nodding in my brother’s direction. “Don’t be fucking stupid. Go help Trevor. I got her.”

My eyes meet Ashley’s questioning ones. Surprisingly, after her cold demeanor toward me earlier in the night, she takes a step toward me, and the bullet in my gun with her husband’s name on it screams to end this. To end him.

With the movement, Ashley winces, and Micah helps steady her.

Concern etches on my face, chest tightening. “What’s wrong?”

She looks behind me, and her gaze turns stone cold. “I’m fine. I tweaked my ankle slightly when we went down.”

“Let me look,” I say and take note of the way Micah glares at the side of my head, at the same time Ashley holds her hand up to stop me in my tracks.

“No, thank you for your kindness, sir. I’ll be okay from here,” she says politely, passing me off like the stranger I’m supposed to be. Her dismissal hurts, but even after all this time, I can read her, and I know she did that more for me than her.He must be close.

Before I turn around to see, I hear my brother call my name. “Trent, I need you. Go get my kit.” I walk over to him, not feeling the urgency I typically would for a patient—because, fuck all of them—but I know this is our way in.

“We need to get out of here,” Junior barks, furiously making phone calls and demands to his other guys.

“We can remove the bullet,” Trevor tries to tell him.

“Who the fuck are you?” Junior asks with a bite, speaking in my brother’s direction.

“The doctor about to save your guy,” Trevor answers nonchalantly.

Micah walks up to Junior’s side. “I know them. I’ve used them in a few instances when your father was boss. They will sign an NDA. I’ve never had any issues.” I try to glance back inconspicuously to make sure Ashley is okay now that Micah has left her side. Her guard stands at attention beside where she’s sitting on a bench in the lobby, staring off with a blanklook on her face. It fucking kills me to see her light fading as time goes on, and as much as I want to go with her, I know I have to see this through.

“I’m trying to get Dr. M’s backup on the phone. That motherfucker picked the worst time to leave the country.”

Junior’s words let us know everything seems to be going as planned. His frustration is palpable.

“We don’t have time for that. We either do this here, or we move somewhere close as soon as possible if you want your friend to live,” Trevor says.

“We can’t stay here… We would be sitting ducks. Do you have what you need on you?”

“In our trunk,” Trevor says over his shoulder, focusing his attention on the man lying in his own puddle of blood.

Junior looks at us curiously, and I speak up. “As Micah said, we do this for many people of prestige, so we are always prepared and discreet.”

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