Page 61 of Married to My Master

Edward started a low whine, a sound deep in his throat like a wounded animal.

“Shoot you?” Dane asked after a while. “Let you go? What do you think I should do, Edward? What would you do in my shoes if I'd packaged a drug for your brother that got him to kill your niece, nephew, and sister-in-law?” He fingered the trigger, his thoughts on Emily and Benton.

BioSphere was going down over this, one way or the other. Edward Barker, though? Who knew? He may do a couple years in prison, if Dane was lucky. But the courts didn't seem to care much about corporate crimes. They just fined people and threw a couple of scapegoats to the wolves.

Look at the banks during the Great Recession. They were bigger than ever. Was that what Edward Barker was going to be like? Richer than before?

But, then, there was Emily. Dane's soulmate. God, it sounded cheesy just to think it, but deep down he still knew it was true. It was truer than anything he'd ever believed in during his short, miserable life. What would she think of him if he gunned down Edward in cold blood? He wasn't judge, jury, and executioner. He couldn't be, no matter how light a sentence Edward would receive for his horrendous crimes against the first responders and soldiers of this country.

He raised the pistol and aimed it straight at Edward's head.

Edward recoiled in his chair, his eyes wide, his face white as the blood drained. Edward began to cry. “You can't. I didn't mean to hurt anyone like that. I really didn't.”

No. He couldn't do that to Emily. He couldn't saddle her with the knowledge that she'd fallen in love with a cold-blooded murderer, a man willing to gun down another like this.

“Bang,” Dane shouted.

Edward screamed.

“Just kidding, Edward,” Dane said, as he reached forward and yanked the executive to his feet. “Come on. We're walking out.”

Dane sniffed the air as he shoved Edward in front of him, toward the office door. He grinned as he held the gun on him. “You piss yourself, Edward?”

Together, they headed down in the elevator. Dane kept Edward against the elevator wall, opposite him, and away from the control panel. When they hit the lobby, an uneasy feeling hit the pit of his stomach.

“Lotta cops out there,” Dane mused, as they crossed to the front entry way.

“Yeah,” Edward agreed. “I'd be worried if I were you.”

“Why should I be worried,” the veteran replied, as he shoved Edward forward through the doors. “I'm not the one who was basically poisoning all their buddies with fake medication.” The sounds of the outside, the beating of the police helicopter's rotors, the blaring of bullhorns, and the sound of distant sirens all hit him like a wall as he stepped outside onto the little concrete plaza. It was a wall so difficult to penetrate that he actually had to slow a step and take a moment to deal with all the input coming at him.

“Dane Bishop!” roared a familiar voice on a bullhorn, from behind the ring of steel surrounding the building. “Put down your weapon and put your hands in the air!”

Dane hooked the gun's trigger guard over his finger and raised it in the air as Edward ran for the barricades. He could see the dots of the red lasers doing their twists and turns on the concrete in front of him, speedily making their way to his body, but he didn't think anything of it. If they'd wanted him dead, they could have gotten him in the lobby. He hadn’t used Edward as a human shield on his way out the door.

He leaned forward and, with exaggerated motions, so the police would know and understand his intentions, put his gun on the ground of the plaza, then put his hands in the air.

Dane glanced to the left suddenly, his arms going wide like he was making a move. “No!” he yelled, his voice booming out over the assembled police and other first responders.

He saw a blur coming toward him, slipping out from between the barricades. “Dane!” the blur screamed. “No!”

She must have seen the laser sights and thought that meant they were ready to shoot. Now she was rushing out in front of a trigger happy group of cops. “Emily,” Dane yelled back, waving her away. “Get down!”

She was nearly to him when they open fired and the bullets began to come down in a hail of lead and powder. Dane swept her into his arms, tackling her to the ground beneath him. His body shook with pain under the countless impacts of bullets, intended for him and his love. Beneath him, Emily cried out in fear as his body jumped and shook with each bullet that hit him.

They just seemed to continue to come, and Dane's mind groaned under the strain, sending him to a better, happier place.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Dane

Benton flipped the burgers as the kids ran around in the sprinklers. Dane stood on the porch next to his twin brother, looking out over the backyard, ice cold beer in his hand. It was his brother's own brew, in fact. He'd had labels printed up that read ‘Bishop's Brews.’ Dane was going to help him with the next batch.

“Got yourself a good family, bro,” Dane said, unable to wipe the stupid grin from his face as he watched the kids run around, chasing after each other with water guns, their laughter and simple cheers of wordless excitement filling the air.

“Yeah,” Benton said, his face wistful and pained. “It feels good to be back with them after all those years in the sandbox. Wish I could be a little better, you know, but I've been trying my damndest. Gotta embrace the suck, you know. Make it work for me.”

“Medication still not working, then?”

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