Chapter 34

Tori Townsend

The door shatters as it's kicked in, and the wood shards bounce off the wall and clatter to the ground. My eyes are wild as I take in the silhouette of Killian's coiled frame, my neck craned so that the scalpel that's pressed to my artery doesn't knick the skin.

I'm still strapped to the table, still exposed, but instead of standing between my thighs, Josiah is behind me, threatening my very life if Killian takes one step closer.

His hand doesn't shake. His hand is poised, confident, as if he fully plans to take my life, no matter what, and that thought alone causes my hands to tremble. I squeeze them into fists in hopes that it doesn't shake my whole body because, if it does, I'll seal my own fate.

We had heard the commotion outside, someone shouting, and then heard the stomping upstairs as people entered. The crying of children, more shouts. It hadn't taken long for Josiah to realize we'd been found, and he had headed to the cabinet, grabbed the first sharp object he found, and waltzed right back to me. Waltzed. Some may even say it was a swagger.

I wish I had seen it before, the crazy inside him. I never would have hired him, but I've quickly learned that he had been fixated on me the moment he applied. Maybe before then. He would have taken me even if he wasn't my employee. There was nothing I could have done differently but simply not exist at all.

They stand there like that, Killian making choices in his head while Josiah waits for him to choose. I can't make out Killian's face with the light still shining and half-blinding me. If I can't see his face, then neither can Josiah, and for some odd reason, that gives me a little comfort. He can't see the calculations that are surely going on in Killian's head. He can't read him.

"You have two choices," Josiah murmurs to Killian. "You can turn around and walk out, leaving me with my girl to walk off into the sunset with, or you can try to kill me."

Killian says nothing, and I whimper once more as the skin splits with the tighter hold Josiah has on the scalpel.

"If you try to kill me," he continues, "I'll take her first, and then you truly will have no one, Killian Savage."

A fine sweat breaks across my spine, pricking the pores and causing me to force down a shiver. I can see the shadow of Killian's fingers curling into his palms as he makes his decision. Part of me fears that he just might walk away, so I whisper, "I'd rather be dead than go anywhere with you, you sick fuck."

Killian takes a threatening step inside the room when Josiah chuckles darkly. It's then that I can make out his face because the light hits it just right. His expression is hard, his lips set in a thin line and his eyes narrowed to slits and fixated on the man, the man-child, behind me.

Slowly, Killian's eyes slide down Josiah's poised arm to the scalpel at my neck and the bead of blood that drips down the slope. And then his eyes meet mine. Together, we hold a silent exchange, a conversation that needs no words at all. He'd rather I be dead too than go through any more of the pain that Josiah has to offer. Because that's what I'd live – a life of emotional damage, an existence of eternal misery. It wouldn't even be a life. I'd be a prisoner, an incubator, until one day, it would kill me. Whether that death would be by my own hand, fate's, or Josiah's, it doesn't matter.

Even though his eyes are set into slits displaying his rage, I can see the sorrow there. The pain. It's then I know that he feels something for me, that the very thought of me being gone may just do him in. It does little to comfort me, not in this moment. But we don't have a choice now, do we?

Killian's eyes flick to Josiah's, and I start to tremble, awaiting my own death. "Did you do it?"

I can hear the smile in his voice when he asks, "Do what?" All three of us know, by that tone alone, that Josiah knows exactly what he's talking about.

Killian's asking if he did the job. If he raped me.

"Did you force yourself on her?" Killian rumbles in such a dark and dangerous way that even my own body wants to recoil.

"I guess, if she survives, you'll find out in nine months."

Killian's jaw ripples as he flexes it, and I can see him weigh just exactly how he's going to make him pay. He looks at me once more and I watch as tears gather in his angry eyes. "I love you, Tori," he whispers. "And I'm sorry."

I don't have time to revel in the idea that he feels the same way for me. To wish I had one more second to tell him the same words. To think of what we are to each other and dream of what we could be. I don't even have time to tense as he thunders forward. Instead, I close my eyes, waiting for the sharp pain and the warm blood as my life slips away from me.

A single tear slips out of my squeezed eyes, and just as I suck in a breath, a boom rocks the room, and a thud quickly follows. The breath whooshes out of me, and my eyes fly open. Ears ringing, I glance beside the table to where Killian is staring at something on the floor. It's then I realize that the scalpel is no longer at my neck and the insane man is no longer standing behind me. I don't feel the sickening heat from his body nor smell the stench of his sweat from getting himself off. Instead, cold air swirls around my scalp.

Something steps out of the shadows of the door, and my attention quickly moves to it. Pierce comes into the light, his gun pointed at where Josiah had just been standing, and my heart skips a wild beat. The boom was a gunshot.

For a moment, the three of us remain there in silence, Killian's chest heaving while he stares at what surely is Josiah's body, Pierce, calm and collected, positioned to take another shot, and me, shaking so bad that the exam bed I'm on rattles. And then Killian peels his gaze away from the man who took his family from him, the man who about took me too, and turns his attention to me. His eyes zoom in on my neck, but I can feel that the knick there isn't life-threatening. I only feel tiny beads of blood that have already cooled against my skin.

"Is he-" I swallow thickly. "Is he dead? "

My hollow voice is enough to stir him into action. He heads to me and begins to untie my legs first, and once they're free and I'm no longer exposed to the room, he gently pulls down my dress to cover my sex. Without saying anything, he frees the rest of me and helps me sit up. Once I am, he takes my face in his hands and presses his lips so hard to mine that I'm sure he'll leave a bruise.

When we both need air, he pulls away and rests his forehead against mine. His chest still heaves from adrenaline, and my body still trembles with fear, but we wait there for a moment, sharing space we both thought we'd never have again.

A sob racks my chest as Pierce crosses the room and bends to where Josiah's body lies. Because he didn't fire his gun again, I know that he's dead. It's over. But as my body continues to tremble, I ask myself, is it really?

Killian gathers me into his arms, wraps my legs around him, and picks me up. I hold on tight and sob against his shoulder. The tears flow freely, and try as I might, I can't stop them. I can't control the quaking of my body. I can't take away the memories that flood my mind.

With one hand holding me up around the waist, he tangles his fingers in my hair, tucks his face in the crook of my neck, and inhales deeply. "It's over," he murmurs against my skin. I hear more emotion in his voice than I've ever heard, and it only serves to make me cry harder. "It's over, dollface. It's over."

"I-I-I can't – breathe," I choke out.

"Get her out of here," I hear Pierce say, and Killian doesn't need more instruction. He takes me from the room in long strides, climbs the stairs with me still in his arms as if I weigh nothing at all, and the next thing I know, we're in the warmer climate of the outdoors. Of freedom. It's something I thought I'd never have again .

I suck in precious evening air as I'm set on the trunk of a cop car, and Killian pulls his chest away from me to grip both sides of my face. He looks at me, takes in my wild expression, and whispers to me, "Breathe. Take a deep breath."

Even though it's difficult, I do as he instructs.

"Another," he commands softly.

We repeat this until my breathing is more hiccups than hyperventilation, and once I've calmed enough, he pushes hair from my sweaty face and gently presses his lips to my forehead. He lingers there for a moment, and when he pulls away, I can see all the pain on his face.

"He-He was going to make me carry his b-baby."

"I know," he responds hoarsely, petting my hair once more. "Did he-"

He leaves the sentence lingering there, but I know exactly what he's asking. I give a shake to my head. "He didn't rape me." I see his shoulders relax slightly, and I angrily wipe away some of the tears at the edge of my jaw. "He was going to do some sort of medical procedure to make me pregnant."

I watch as Killian swallows thickly. For a second, his gaze flicks below, between us. "Did he?"

I shake my head. "He didn't get the chance. You guys came crashing in." It's then that I look around. Pierce is at the front door, his phone in his hand as he calls for an ambulance to take a dead body away. Two other cops are by another cop's car, one on his phone while the other watches over the children I had heard in the house.

The other three women are by the other cop car, and I can see the dead look in everyone's eyes. It doesn't settle well with me that another day would give me the same look, the same void of emotions.

In the back of one of the cars is Josiah's father. Even though I only saw him in darkness, I'd recognize those features anywhere. There's a craze in the set of his face as he struggles with the cuffs holding his hands behind him. Either he heard the gunshot – the death of his one and only child – or the very thought of jail is worse than his own death.

"He deserves everything that's coming to him," I say to no one in particular and then wipe more of my tears because, seeing him in cuffs, knowing his son is dead, makes a sense of calm wash over me, ridding my body of the rest of the quakes.

I turn back to Killian. He's watching me with a nervous sort of energy, probably wondering what sort of state I'm in. I'd be wondering the same thing if the roles were reversed.

Swallowing with difficulty, because I still have a lump in my throat, I grab his hand and twine my fingers with his. "You said something back there. Did you mean it?"

He squeezes my hand and nods. "I meant it."

"And you would have killed me to save me?"

His jaw flexes, but he nods again. "You mean everything to me, Tori." He brings up his other hand and swipes away my next tear. "The thought – I couldn't – I would have rather been alone the rest of my life than watch you for another second, knowing you'd be raped the rest of your life, knowing you'd be dead inside. I knew you'd rather be dead than endure such a life, and I was willing to take you from mine to keep you safe."

And though those words aren't much, I know they're everything. Another tear falls, and this time, he kisses it away. "I love you too," I whisper, and I mean every damn word. And the best part? I'm not afraid of it.