Page 119 of A Love Most Fatal

“I can make it look like an accident,” Cillian says.

“And if you do, then you might as well kill me too,” Vanessa says. “They live, you get my cooperation. They die, you will get my corpse.”

Cillian blinks at this, then throws his head back in a laugh. I am close enough that I might be able to shoot him, but I would need to fling the door open first. Cillian still holds his own pistol, ready to fire at any second.

“You’re such a bitch, you know that?” Cillian says. “I think we’re soulmates.”

Vanessa says nothing, and Cillian’s phone beeps. He pulls it out of his jacket and glances at it.

“Ride’s here,” he says. “Come.”

He walks out of my sightline, and I slide the last steps away from the door until I’m right in front of it.

“I can’t climb like this,” Vanessa says. Her hands must still be bound in front of her. “I need them free to get up the ladder.”

Cillian thinks on this before his voice gets so low I almost don’t hear it. “If you try something, Iwillkill him first.”

“I won’t,” she says. She sounds so dejected that even I believe her.

I need to barge in there. I need to act, I can’t just wait for an opening, but my limbs are frozen. If I go in too soon and he shoots Vanessa, it will be my fault; I need to be fast, and certain. If he’s climbing a ladder. . . maybe I can get him then. He will be distracted?—

An obvious scuffle sounds from the room, Vanessa grunting as what sounds like fists hit flesh. An instant later, she shrieks, and that’s all it takes for me to bolt into action. I shoulder open the door and raise my gun. None too soon because that prick is on top of her, his lip now bloody, but pinning her down with fury in his eyes. He’s choking her, tattooed hands around her throat.

I don’t think about it.

I line up my shot and shoot, then shoot again, both shots directly into his skull.

He’s the first person I’ve ever killed.

His blood coats the stone wall behind him, his body thuds onto Vanessa, who gasps for breath beneath him. I rush to her and push Cillian’s corpse off her, speaking incoherent comforting nonsense as I draw her close to me. There’s hot red staining the bodice of her white dress.

“You killed him,” she says. She grips my face with one of her hands, the other arm limp at her side. Her touch is a miracle to me. Everything about her alive in front of me is nothing short of a revelation.

“You’re safe,” I breathe, then say it five more times until I believe it.

She’s safe, whole in front of me, and Cillian is dead.

He’s dead because I killed him.

I killed him.

My eyes are stinging with relief as I bring her to me in a tight embrace, placing kisses on her shoulder and neck.

I killed Cillian.

I would do it again.

There is a time to do bad things. When the people you love are in danger, lines become blurred between good and bad—and I would do a great number of things to keep Vanessa safe.

A loud creak sounds above our heads, and a pit opens in my stomach.

Cillian had said their ride was here—they were about to climb the ladder to meet them?—

Vanessa grabs the gun I dropped at her side and points it to the hatch door that is heaving open above us. She cocks the gun but lowers her arm back to her side with a strangled sob of relief when the person who pokes their head in the room is Mary.

“Whose blood is that?” Mary demands. Her voice is frantic and loud. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Vanessa says.

---