Chapter 12

12

Meg

A pproximately twenty minutes after Koen leaves me chained on the floor of his office…I start to feel anxious. Very anxious. He’s covered me with a blanket, but I kick it off with a restless movement, trying to put my finger on why I’m growing more and more unnerved. Of course, I have the right to be nervous. I’m chained up on the floor! There’s a corrupt woman planning to kill my family if I don’t deliver on my mission…and that ship has sailed. There’s no more mission.

I fell wildly in love, instead.

Four more days remain before Etta actually acts on her threats, though. That’s plenty of time for Koen to handle the problem, however he decides to do that. Why am I so jumpy, then?

I go very still when a recent memory drifts to the fore.

At the train station.

There was a woman in the parking lot when we arrived. She stood facing the vending machine, hands on her hips as if it had ripped her off. She was dressed in jeans and a sunhat…but her posture gave her away. Etta. She was at the train station.

I’m suddenly positive of it.

Which means, she would have been watching me with Koen.

Would have witnessed the unmistakable bond between us.

A woman that smart would recognize two people in love…and like she said on the phone, feelings get in the way of doing a job. What if she decides to deliver on her threat to my family sooner than later, because she knows I’m not going to complete the task she gave me?

Suddenly, I’m positive she will. She’s going to burn my house down, just as she promised. It’s the middle of the night right now. What better time?

I have to move. I have to get home and prevent this from happening.

I have to save them.

It’s my fault if they die.

“Oh God,” I cry out, yanking futilely on the chains. “Koen!” I scream, on the off chance he hasn’t left the house yet. “Koen!”

No answer.

I twist around onto my stomach and examine the cuffs. He didn’t secure them on the tightest setting—and he could have. Easily. My wrists are small. Maybe he didn’t want to bind me tight enough to make me sore? Could I slide my hands out with enough effort?

Determined to succeed, I start to twist my wrists in the metal bonds, wincing at the painful chafing and the marks I’m definitely creating with every twist and turn of my hands. But my hope builds when I start to make progress, painful as it is. One second, there is no chance of escape and the next, I’m halfway free of the bonds.

“Come on,” I whisper, twisting, crying out. “A little more.”

One of my wrists comes out, followed by the next. Filled with an overwhelming sense of urgency and responsibility, I stand and fling myself out of the office, taking the stairs to Koen’s bedroom two at a time, finding a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, throwing them on as fast as possible before hurling myself back downstairs and out of the house.

Intuition tells me it will be a miracle if I arrive in time to save my siblings…

But I have to try.

Koen

I’m standing in the shadows of Etta’s living room when she waltzes inside, taking off a strange sunhat that I’ve never seen her wear before. She’s humming to herself, no idea she’s about to die a miserable death for threatening Meg.

Bad call.

Although now that I’m seeing Etta again in the flesh, it occurs to me that I might never have crossed paths with Meg if Etta hadn’t sent her to deceive me.

And that gives me pause.

Perhaps I’ll kill her fast, as a thank you.

Yes. Fast. That way, I can get back to my girl. Release her from the restraints.

Should I have chained her like that? My body has been in a state of shock since leaving her, as if my conscience is coming back to life more and more because of Meg. And now it’s the very thing making me feel like a fucking monster.

Do the job. Go home. Tend to her.

I’m going to give her a bath, feed her and finally figure out some clothes.

Maybe…maybe I’ll bring her to visit her family. I don’t know. I’m not sure yet. If she wants to return to them, I’m not sure I’d react well.

Stop thinking. Act.

Blade in hand, I step out of the shadows.

Etta catches the movement in her periphery and spins around with a gasp, backing into the kitchen and immediately reaching for a drawer.

“The gun isn’t there, Etta. You taught me better than that.”

She scoffs. “I have more than one weapon.”

“They aren’t there,” I enunciate slowly. “Anyway, we both know I could throw this knife end over end and bury it in your jugular before you manage to open that drawer.”

The jugular in question shifts with a heavy swallow. “Why are you here?”

“You know why I’m here. Her.” My stomach sinks with indescribable love. “Meg.”

Silence stretches. “Who?”

“I’ve decided to kill you quickly for sending her to me. Play dumb with me again and I won’t be so kind.”

Her face is white as a ghost. “You would kill the closest thing you have to a mother?”

“You’re not the closest thing I have to a mother. A mother doesn’t turn her son into a killing machine.” I flip the blade over in my hand. “I had someone closer to a mother. You had me kill her grandson while she slept upstairs. You’re the real monster.”

Understanding dawns in her eyes. “ That’s why you left.” She pauses, looking me over thoughtfully. “And now you’re going to kill me over some overzealous child who is too mouthy for her own good?”

Her words only inspire a searing affection inside of me. “Yup.”

Etta tilts her head and glee flits across her face, making my blood turn to ice. I know that look. She knows something I don’t know. “Do you truly love Meg, then?”

“Yes,” I respond, raggedly. She’s chained on my floor—

“Then you better hurry.”

It doesn’t occur to me until that moment that I never asked Meg why.

Why she deceived me.

What was the threat that caused her to do it?

She tried to tell me at the train station, but…I cut her off, didn’t I? Drowned her out with my fear of her leaving me? Not loving me as she claimed?

Oh my God.

Acid shoots from my belly to my throat, choking me.

She’s chained on my floor.

She’s…

I let her down. I’ve failed her.

She told me everything and I didn’t fix anything.

“I gave her a week to convince you to return to work, but once I saw the way she looked at you tonight, I knew she’d never send you back to this dangerous world. Women who look at men like that only want to keep them close. Keep them safe. She is no use to me. And you know how I do things, Koen. I don’t waste time once I make a decision.” She taps her chin with her index finger. “I wonder if she’ll love you back when all of her siblings and father die in a house fire while you were standing here chitchatting with me.”

The knife slicing through the air can’t be heard over my bellow of denial.

Meg

The house is already on fire by the time I arrive.

It’s not fully engulfed yet, but fire is flickering quickly up one side, as if following a trail of fuel, like kerosene. I’m out of breath after hitchhiking to town, which was dangerous in itself, then sprinting the remaining mile. But I’m not too late. I’m refuse to be too late.

I run for the front door, my knees nearly buckling with relief when I find it open and I run inside, already formulating a game plan. Upstairs first—

Footsteps coming up the porch turn me around and I catch the barest glimpse of a man’s nondescript face…right before he slams the house door shut, closing me inside. Panic clogs my throat and I lunge, trying the handle, but…it doesn’t turn. It won’t turn! He’s put something beneath it to prevent anyone from exiting the house. In my haste to find a different means of egress, I look around and realize…

Boards have been hammered over all the windows.

Dizziness hits me hard, and I stagger back, but I don’t lose hope completely. No. There has to be a way out. But first, I must alert everyone to the fire. They’ll help me execute my plan, whenever one occurs to me. Better think fast.

As quickly as my legs will carry me, I run up the stairs, “Fire! Fire! Wake up!”

The sleepy faces of my sister and one of my brothers appears in the doorway of one room. “Meg?”

“Yes. Wake up Dad. Tell him there’s a fire and then get downstairs. Move. Now!”

Their eyes widen with fright, but they do as they’re told and I clamber back downstairs, beginning to hear a crackling noise. Fire. The fire is inside the kitchen now. How can it move so quickly? How? I don’t have that much time. I have no idea how much kerosene has been used to accelerate the fire. And we’re locked inside.

No help for it now, I’m so scared, I can hear my heartbeat rattling in my ears.

Koen’s face materializes in my mind and I cry out for him, uselessly, knowing he won’t survive my death. My soul mate. My twin flame. How unfair would it be to find him only to have everything ripped away from us?

“Fire!” I screech, my voice starting to sound sooty. It’s the smoke.

It’s rising around me, my siblings and my father, who stumbles into the entryway, clearly drunk, but beginning to comprehend the danger we’re in. “The windows are boarded,” he slurs, blinking in confusion.

“Why are we locked in?” shouts my sister over the sound of the flames eating through wood, her hand furiously trying to turn the door handle.

Full of fear, I look around and deduce the flames are farthest from the back of the house, so I hustle everyone in that direction, picking up a chair on my way and wailing on one of the rear windows as soon as we hit that section of the house, hoping to weaken the board. When that doesn’t work, I stand up on the chair and attempt to kick the board free. Once, twice. It’s loosening a little, but oh Jesus, the flames are in the room with us now—

Koen enters the room, a dark figure appearing like a phantom.

He walks straight through the center of the fire. “Meg!” he roars, his distress palpable. Bigger than the fire. “Meg. Meg.”

“Help us,” I sob. “I can’t get—”

His fist goes through the board, tearing it from the window, so it’s no longer blocking our exit. “Wait,” he barks, taking a gun from inside his jacket and looking out the window, his expression deadly. “They won’t leave your deaths to chance. Someone is out there, waiting to pick you off.”

“ What? ”

“Protocol. But you know I won’t let that happen, don’t you?”

I’m already nodding. He came. He’s here. He walked through fire for us.

“Who is this, Meg?” inquires my father, as if we’re having a tea party.

“I’ll explain later.”

“You.” Koen turns his cold stare on my father. “This is your doing. You climb out the window. When I see where the gunfire is coming from, I’ll eliminate it.”

“What if the gunfire hits me?” my father sputters.

“I’m willing to take that chance on you,” drawls my hitman boyfriend. “But not with your daughter. Get out or I’ll throw you out. Everybody else get down.”

Apparently, my father still has a few working braincells because he doesn’t argue with Koen, deducing based on the way he handles his gun like its second nature that he is the more immediate threat. No, Dad might look nervous, but he swings his leg over the window frame, we all duck, and as promised, a bullet comes winging into the bedroom, lodging in the far wall.

Everyone, including me, screams.

Koen doesn’t even blink.

He calmly aims and pulls the trigger. “Target eliminated.”

I reach for my closest sibling, boosting them out the window and into the arms of my father, quickly doing the same three more times, assisted by Koen and then it’s my turn. “You’ll be right behind me, right?” I scream over the roaring fire.

“Always,” he says, planting a fervent kiss to my mouth. “ Always. I’m so sorry I let this happen, baby. Never again. You’ll never be scared again.”

Then he’s picking me up and urging me out into the cool, night air, though I won’t leave the side of the house until he comes out after me, pulling me into his side even as he takes action, searching the night with his gun raised, demanding everyone to get inside his SUV without delay. Within minutes, he’s peeling out of our yard and on the road, his gun disappearing back into his jacket in favor of holding my hand.

“Honey, do you mind telling us who this is now?” This, from my father.

I answer with all the certainty in my heart. “He’s my everything.”

With a hoarse sound, Koen brings our joined hands to his mouth, kissing my knuckles hard, a suspicious dampness in his eyes reflecting the dashboard light. “And she is mine.”

“Where are we going?” asks my sister from the backseat.

“We can’t go back. We can only go forward,” Koen says, looking at me with such an abundance of affection, I must hug myself tight or fly apart. “Together.”