Page 86 of Her Silver Fox Firefighters
Blue and red lights flash as an ambulance enters the parking lot. Other emergency lights come on from four different sheriff’s department–issued cruisers. They were all waiting on the side of the road, hidden beneath the cover of darkness.
Marcus wasn’t going to make it out of here a free man, that’s for sure.
“You’re going to be okay,” Beck says, gently checking my vitals. “We’ll take you to the hospital for a full checkup.”
“He hit you,” Dax says, noticing the bruises on my face and neck. “If we could kill him again, I fucking would.”
“It’s okay. Like you said, it’s over,” I say with a sigh.
Finally, the nightmare has come to an end. My men didn’t give up on me. They came through and then some. They did what they swore they’d never do after they left the Marines.
They took a life.
To save my life. To save our children.
“It’s over,” I say it again, as if to convince myself that it’s true.
27
OLIVIA
Marcus’s body is covered with a black tarp.
The motel’s neon sign casts magenta and orange light over it, almost causing it to glow in the night, as if his soul is just about to rise from his body. That man haunted me for too long, and for the first time since I left him, I feel like I can truly breathe.
Every moment in Ember Ridge when I experienced that sensation, it was nothing more than a sweet illusion. Only now am I truly free.
“Your vitals look good,” Beck says, having taken over for his fellow paramedics. “Oxygen level is fine. Your blood pressure is a little high, but that’s to be expected under the circumstances. I still want you to go to the hospital for a full checkup, though.”
“Of course,” I reply, giving him a soft smile. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“Always, baby,” he says, and plants a kiss on my temple.
Leo comes over with a bottle of water from the motel’s vending machine. The flashing red and blue lights, the presence of police and the coroner, along with the dead body in the middle of the parking lot, has attracted most of the motel’s guests.
“How are you feeling?” I ask Leo.
Dax sits next to me on the gurney outside the ambulance while the paramedics prepare to take me to the hospital. Deputy Wilkes is with the crime scene photographer, planting yellow markers next to any evidence and pointing out the blood spatter from the headshot wound that killed Marcus.
Leo gives me a surprised look. “You’re worried about me?”
“Yes. I know you swore you’d never take another life, Leo. I can’t even imagine how it feels?—”
“Olivia, I would kill him a thousand times over if it meant keeping you safe,” Leo replies. His voice is low, the depth so powerful that it makes my heart vibrate with an intense emotion.
“As dark as this may sound, that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I reply, then chuckle dryly.
“It’s weird, I know,” Leo sighs. “I didn’t want to have to do it. But he was coming after you, Olivia. I had no choice.”
“I would never blame you. I know it couldn’t have been easy,” I say, taking his hand in mine as I pull him closer. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“I don’t regret it, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong—I don’t feel good about it either—but Idon’t regret it. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat to save you and the babies. I love you.”
“Welove you,” Dax adds, giving me a soft look as the aftermath of the tragedy unfurls around us with the clicking sounds of cameras, the scratching of radio transmissions, and the mumbling voices of bystanders as the deputies jot down their statements.
“We were waiting for him to come out,” Dax says. “Jocelyn gave him a meeting spot from which he was instructed to collect a key for a different car. We tailed him from there all the way to the motel, knowing that he’d come get you before leaving town.”
“You took us by surprise,” Beck laughs lightly. “We’d barely gotten into position.”
