Page 52 of Dangerous

I pressed my hand tightly against my stomach and leaned in against Blaine. He had come for me, and he would see me safely out of the danger. For now, that was all that mattered.

Blaine held me tightly against his side while we both watched my father and Devlen go through all the papers in the briefcase in silence. It wasn’t until Michael looked away from us to play with his knife, clearly bored by waiting around without getting to threaten anyone, that I realized Blaine was doing much more than waiting.

The hand he hadn’t wrapped around my shoulders dug into the pocket of his leather jacket for a moment. I could see the rectangular outline of a phone against the leather and bit down on a small gasp.

He hadn’t simply surrendered to my family, and whatever plan was about to unfold, he’d just set it in motion.

My heart thumped unevenly in my chest. What if he didn’t know my family had a good dozen or so of their men circling the perimeter? If his men tried to storm the warehouse, they would get taken down before they could ever get to us. And we would both be executed.

My fear must have shown on my face, because Blaine lifted his hand back up to my face and cupped my cheek.

“It’ll be alright, I promise,” he mumbled.

I stared into his eyes, searching for the confirmation that he knew exactly what he was doing. I found it when his mouth hitched up in a smirk.

Even in as fucked up a situation as this, Blaine Steel was still the self-assured man I’d met so many months ago.

“Boss, there’s trouble coming. A fuck-ton of police is driving up. Do we shoot?”

The unexpected sound from my father’s walkie made everyone inside the warehouse freeze mid-movement.

I stared at Blaine, mouth open. The police? The one rule everyone in the underworld never,everbroke was to never involve the police. You did that and your reputation was done for. For good.

There would not be a criminal in the country who didn’t view him as a traitor. Him, and his entire family.

“You didn’t!”my father hissed. He spun around from the briefcase to face Blaine. “You fucking snitch!”

“Yeah. I did.” Blaine released his hold on me to fold both arms across his chest as he took a step forward. “Or rather, one of my brothers did. I believe he might have mentioned a big drug deal gone wrong and a pregnant hostage being caught in the middle—something like that. You know how nostalgic those coppers get as soon as you aim a gun at a pregnant woman. So go ahead, tell your men to start shooting at the police. I’m sure that’ll end well for you.”

“Boss?”The frantic-sounding man on the other end of the walkie said. “I need orders. They’re almost on us.”

“For fuck’s sake, stand down, you idiot!” my father hissed into the walkie before he tossed it aside. “Fuck!”

“You should never have crossed my Family,” Blaine said, his tone as cold as the ice in his eyes.

My father grabbed Devlen’s gun out of his hand. Wild with rage, he pointed it right at Blaine’s chest. “Youshould have kept your mouth shut, boy. I willnotbe disrespected. You think your name protects you? When it gets out what you’ve done here today, you’re through. Your entire family will be dead before summer, including her. Andyouwon’t be there to stop it.”

“You’re not going to kill me,” Blaine said, not so much as flinching as he stared the barrel of the gun down. “If you shoot me now, you’ll go down for murder as well as everything else, and you don’t have enough time to make anyone take the fall for you before the police get here. Yeah, I know how you operate, Clery. You’re a coward, deep down. That’s why you need to abuse those who are too weak to defend themselves. You don’t have the fucking balls.”

My heart dropped and adrenaline and fear roared through my veins when I saw the rage in my father’s eyes snap.

Blaine was right—my father was a coward, who would only strike when he was sure to win. But he had made one fatal miscalculation—because the only thing my father truly cared about was receiving the respect he thought belonged to him.

I knew he was going to pull the trigger before Blaine had finished his insult.

“No!” I didn’t have time to think—only to react. I threw myself in front of Blaine just as my father’s finger pulled back, shoving him out of the way.

Pain lanced through me, emphasizing the sound of the gun being fired. I screamed and crumpled to the floor, clutching my side. It felt like my flesh had melted into pure, liquid pain. My vision blackened and blurred. Then my head hit the concrete with a muffled thud.

“Mira! No!”

The last thing I heard was Blaine’s roar of anguish. Then everything went dark.

Twenty-Four

Mira

Slow, monotonous beeping pulled me from the depths of nothingness.

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