Page 82 of The Killer Who Kept Me

“I don’t want to let go.”

I laughed softly. “Just for a minute. Then I’ll take a shower with you, how’s that sound?”

He nodded against my shoulder and pushed away. His face had a few bruises on it. One by his mouth was new, and the side of his head was matted with blood.

“What happened?”

“I provoked him.” He shrugged.

“He’ll pay for this.”

“I’m okay. I’ve had worse.”

While Em thought he was comforting me by saying that, he was in fact not. It only angered me more, and I wanted to storm to the basement and start removing limbs from Ramsey.

“Shower,” I said instead.

He followed me in and I undressed him first, noting every cut, bruise, blemish, all of it. Once I too was sans clothes, I turned on the shower and waited for it to get hot, then guided him in with me.

He was silent as I washed his body, kissing every mark his father had left behind. When I got to his head I was careful; asmall bump had formed where the matted hair was. He hummed peacefully as I made sure it was all washed down the drain.

“I’m going to get some ice brought up here and painkillers.” I shut the water off and grabbed a fluffy towel to wrap him in.

“I know you need to go deal with Ramsey. It’s okay, I und?—”

“Oh, I’m not leaving you. Ramsey can wait; you can’t. Come on.”

His small smile was all I needed to see to know he didn’t want me walking out of this room. He dressed in comfortable clothes. I called for the ice, pills, and some food.

“Hop in bed.”

He did, and soon I joined him. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah. I knew you’d come.”

“I heard. Andre told me.”

He didn’t say anything right away. “Ramsey told Andre his dad must have loved him a whole lot but never said why. Do you know?”

“Ramsey took Andre to force the governor to announce he wasn’t seeking re-election. Once the news went out, Ramsey was going to announce he was running and the governor would endorse him.”

“That would take a lot of time; he was going to hold Andre that entire time?”

I snorted. “That’s what we thought at first but no, he was going to claim to be the person who found and rescued him, gaining him public approval. Add the governor’s endorsement, and he’d win and be the new governor.”

“I’m surprised he came up with all of that. There was a lot that could go wrong with that plan, though.”

I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Yeah, namely me.”

“You got the governor to trust you to get his son?”

I brushed his hair out of his eyes and rested my hand on his cheek. “I like the governor; we have a good relationship. It’s apower dynamic that works for me. I got a message to him that I could help. He called, I explained.”

“How’d you know where I was? Ramsey was tracking my cell phone, I’m an idiot for keeping it.”

I too hadn’t thought about that but still, Ramsey had known Em was with me.

“You’re not an idiot, but Ramsey is. He trusted Lionel Cummings. He hired him to track and grab Andre. So, he knew exactly where Andre was. He owed me a favor or ten and he’d gotten his money from Ramsey, and I guaranteed no one would find out he’d told me.”

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