Page 77 of Trust in the Fallen

“And how do you expect I explain this level of devastation?” He gestures around us with the gun flicking around wildly.

“I think you’re going to have a hard time explaining this regardless,” I mutter without thought.

The governor moves the gun he had pointed at Kovu toward me and trains it steadily. “I don’t think you’re in much of a position to be making snide remarks.”

“And you are?” Elias asks.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Jason pipes up for the first time since we came in. “You’re going to drop the guns and let the four of us walk out of here, and maybe we’ll let you live.”

A booming laugh fills the empty space, echoing off the tin walls, but it takes me a few moments to realize it came from me. “If you think you’re walking out of here with our woman, you have another thing coming.”

“She’s mine,” he growls.

“You’d think you were trying to take away one of his toys the way he’s carrying on.” Kaos chuckles as he steps up beside me.

I glance behind us and see there’s no one left standing. Just the four of us against the three of them. They’re outnumbered and definitely out-muscled, surely they know this is over.

“That’s all she is to him,” Elias says.

“That’s enough,” the commissioner thunders. “Step back, or I will put a bullet in her brain.”

Leighton’s eyes widen with fear, but immediately droop closed again. She’s barely maintaining consciousness. She needs a doctor and quick.

“She’s going to die if she doesn’t get medical treatment soon,” Elias placates.

“Which is why you need to let us walk out of here.”

Elias looks at me, and I give him a slight head shake. No fucking way is he walking out of here with our woman. Not in this lifetime or the next is he taking our angel away again.

Her eyes flicker open again, and she meets my gaze. She holds it for long seconds and then mouths three words I feared I would never see fall from her lips again.

I love you.

CHAPTERSIXTY-SIX

LEIGHTON

I’m dying.

I know enough about the human body to know there’s no way to lose this much blood and keep living without any kind of intervention, and they haven’t even bothered to dress the wound so there’s any number of infections to take into consideration, too.

I always thought I would die in a retirement home with the love of my life by my side. I thought I’d be in my eighties, and I’d be surrounded by our children and grandchildren, and it would be a celebration of the long life I got to live.

I never thought it would be surrounded by guns in a dingy warehouse with the men I love watching me fade away. I don’t want them to see this. They deserve more than to watch me die in front of them, but I can’t hold on any longer.

I’ve been in and out of consciousness since Jason lost his temper, but each time I come back to, it’s for less and less time.

The darkness calls to me, begs for me to succumb, but I’m not ready yet, even if death seems more peaceful than the life I’ve lived. The happiness I had was so fleeting most would think it wasn’t worth the pain, but that’s not the case at all.

The time I spent with Elias and Wyatt made every crappy thing that ever happened to me worth it. It makes the pain raging through my beaten body seem like nothing, because I got to know pure joy and to feel true love, and how many people are lucky enough to have that?

Each breath is harder to drag in than the last, and although I know I’m in agony, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to feel the pain.

My time is coming, and despite the chaos surrounding me, I’ve made peace with my own death.

I force my eyes open one last time and meet Wyatt’s intense eyes. They’re so deep I swear I could have spent my life getting lost in them, but that’s just not the hand we’ve been dealt.

I tear my eyes away from him and look to Elias. He looks so serious, like always, and the little line between his brows is deep with worry. All I want is to smooth it with my thumb, take away some of the tension so he can relax, something he rarely allows himself to do.