Page 145 of The Moments You Were Mine
“That was just a warning. I do know how to use a gun. Turn around and scoot back against the wall,” she said to Parker.
He swiveled on his toes but didn’t sit.
“Put the gun down,” Parker said. “And you might get out of here alive.”
Celia laughed. “Alive? My life ended two years ago. This is how I get it back. I promised Ace I’d make sure the bitch died. I promised I’d make her suffer and I wouldn’t let Ike fuck it up in his desperate attempt to get to her daddy. We don’t care about Rafe Marquess. It’s Fallon who destroyed everything for us! Making her lose everything, her reputation, her fucking inheritance, was only the start. I had it all in motion. I’d set her up perfectly with the altered video footage, the strand of hair on her sweatshirt, and her fingerprints. But Ike had to go and get impatient. He’d already waited years, so why the hell couldn’t he wait a few more days?!”
Her voice had gone up with each word until it had become a brittle, sharp scream. She kicked Ike’s dead body. “Fucking moron.”
“You don’t know anything about SEALs, do you?” Parker said quietly.
“What?” Her eyes jerked back to his face. “I don’t fucking care who you are or what you do. It’s just too bad for you that you came for her. Now, you’ll die too.”
As if she hadn’t spoken, Parker continued, “You should care, Celia. Because, you see, SEALs don’t work alone. They’re part of a unit. A team.”
Her eyes flickered for half a second before the muzzle of a gun landed on the back of her head. “Drop the weapon.”
Sweeney shifted into the weird light of the tunnel. Celia screamed in fury, and she raised her gun, finger squeezing the trigger, but Sweeney reacted first. Her head jerked as the bullet blew through her. Her body swayed, and she hit the ground.
Dead eyes found me. The same dead, soulless, evil eyes that poured from Ike. The same ones I’d seen in Tennessee whenTheresa Puzo had hit the ground.
My body quivered and shook.
Parker twisted around, scanning me. His eyes lingered on the slice on my arm still dribbling blood and the bruised flesh on my wrists from where I’d been trying to bust the zip ties. Then, he was kissing me. It was fierce and desperate and dark. I felt his fear and rage and relief in it, tasted the metallic of the blood from the cut on my lip.
And yet, it was the best kiss of my life.
Because we were all alive. We’d made it. The bad guy had lost, and we’d won.
Parker drew back and pulled his knife from his pocket. He sliced the ties and then eyed the manacle on my ankle.
“Fuck. Sweeney, we need a blowtorch,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at his teammate.
“No, we don’t,” I breathed out. Parker turned as I opened my clutched hand to show him the key.
Surprise coated his face. “How the hell did you get that?”
“Used my expert antagonization skills.”
His eyes narrowed on my swollen cheek and mouth. “And paid the price, damnit.”
He unlocked the metal and then pulled me from the ground and into his arms. His warmth seeped into me, the love I felt covering the fear that still lingered in the air around us.
“They’re asking for a sitrep,” Sweeney said behind us.
Without letting go of me, Parker pressed a finger to his comms unit. “Ducky secure. Repeat. Ducky secure. Targets neutralized.”
From beyond us in the dark of the caverns, a “Hooyah” sounded.
And that was what broke me. A sob escaped, tears flooded me, and the shaking took over in full force. Parker looked down into my face, his own turning squinty. “Damn it. Don’t cry.”
“I wasn’t afraid, P-Parker. He was mad because I wasn’t afraid, but I knew you’d come. I knew I wasn’t alone.”
Before he could respond, more bodies filled the cave opening, shifting in the shadow and light.
The rest of his team. My team.
Our family.
