Page 63 of Killian
Ellie
Vane walkedinto the store with one of the angriest faces I’d seen in a while. He marched right up to Khloe and grabbed her arm. Not in a mean way, but in a way that she knew she wasn’t getting away from this situation. A way that screamed he meant business.
“Please cut these off,” Khloe asked, and Vane shook his head.
“Fuck no. You’ve been a pain in my ass, and you’ve got some questions to answer.”
“I didn’t do…” Khloe started, and I seriously wanted to slap her. She did everything. She was the reason this whole thing started.
I started to move to her, but Killian held me back and whispered in my ear, “Not here. Let’s get her where we don’t have ears.”
I was going to lose my mind on this woman, but Killian was right. We needed to get where we could find out answers without an audience of store customers and workers. The less people who knew, the better.
Killian nodded to Vane in some secret man language only they understood, before he leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips.
“I’m taking you to the ER, and then we’ll go question your friend.”
“She’s not my friend.” I actually took a bit of offense to giving her that title.
In my book, Khloe was written off the moment she didn’t come forward when Bri and I were at the party that got raided. She didn’t answer calls or texts when we tried to find out if she was okay and what was going on. She had no regard for anyone but herself. She was selfish and not the kind of person I wanted in my life.
Vane left with Khloe, and Killian wrapped an arm over my shoulder as we left the store. I couldn’t help but look around for the three men who took us. There were police cars everywhere, and an EMT was currently checking Khloe out.
The pain in my arm throbbed as the adrenaline started to fall from my body. I could feel myself leaning more and more into Killian as the fatigue took hold of me.
“Ellie!” Elliot barked, jogging to us just as we reached Killian’s SUV. I stopped and turned to him. “Are you okay?” he asked, eyes roaming over my body.
“I’m alive and not with those fuckers, so I reckon I couldn’t be better,” I tried to joke. The air was tense between us. I could feel my brother’s fear for me, and I didn’t like seeing him upset. Eli didn’t think I was funny. Come to think of it, neither did I. This was anything but funny, and trying to make it that way was just stupid. I huffed out a deep breath, answering, “My hip and shoulder took the brunt of the fall out of the van. Overall, I’m better than I could have ended up, so let’s just hold onto that.”
He looked at my wrists covered with angry red, blue, and purple marks. “They had you tied?” he asked, his brow twitching.
“Zip ties. With moving so much, I wore my skin raw. The jarring of my ribs brought back some of the pain with them too.” I looked at the two men, knowing both cared about me and wanted me to be okay. “I’m really okay, though, guys.”
“You’re not,” Killian stated, matter-of-factually. “You’re bruised and possibly broken.”
“But I’m not with them. I’m here. That’s all I wanted while sitting in that van.”
“Tell me what happened.” My brother crossed his arms over his chest, and I gave him the short rundown of the events. His jaw ticced a few times along with his brow. Twice he sucked in deep breaths. While it sucked telling Eli, not only was he my brother, but a cop as well. I’d be telling him one way or another.
“Let me get this straight. You pushed Bri out of the way. I get that. You’d do anything for her.” I smiled up at Killian who shook his head. “Then you decided to jump from a moving van?”
“Eli, if I would’ve let them take me to wherever they were going, they would’ve killed me. I couldn’t risk it. I had to get out of there. This store was my last hope. There were no people outside, so we ran like hell to get inside.”
I looked at Killian. “How’d you know where I was?”
He smirked. “Tracker in your boot.”
My eyes widened as round as saucers. “You mean to tell me you put a tracking device on me?”
“Damn straight. After last time, I wasn’t taking chances.”
I wanted to be pissed. I wanted to tell him it was an invasion of my privacy. I wanted to tell him that he had no right to put a tracker on me.
Then I thought twice about it. If he hadn’t done those things, he wouldn’t have gotten to me fast enough. He wouldn’t have been the first person to hold me tight. As much as I didn’t want him anywhere near the flying bullets, I was happy he was here with me.
“We have someone to talk to,” I interrupted this fun conversation. “I want to find out where the stuff is, so this will be over.”
“Hospital first,” Killian decreed.
