Page 85 of Blood on Ice

He was in the doorway now. Exposed.

Zeke moved so fast I barely comprehended it. He pulled a gun from a shoulder holster, aimed and fired. Benito fell backward, and his head made a sickening crunch against one of the stairs.

“Fuck. Did you just…?”

Val and the others rushed up the stairs, taking them several at a time. “He’s dead,” Val yelled as they hurried into the house, ready to defend us against anyone working with Benito.

I reached out to Zeke with my good arm. “Are you okay?” He was still staring at the top of the stairs as if he expected Benito to come back to life or for someone else to start shooting at us. “They’ll take care of anyone else. They’re really good at what they do.”

Zeke finally turned to face me. “I…I’m fine. No one hurt me. Your arm, how bad is it?”

“I’ll be fine. There’s nothing wrong with me that can’t be fixed.”

He frowned. “You’ve got a bruise here.” He brushed his fingers over my jaw. “What did they do to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. You can’t kill him again.”

His eyes turned fierce. “I would, you know.”

“You’ve never shot anyone before. It’s a big deal. Are you sure you’re all right?”

He shook his head as if dismissing the question. “I’m fine. He hurt you. and he would’ve killed you. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Of course you didn’t. You did exactly the right thing, and you shot him dead center in the chest. I thought you said weren’t a very good shot.”

“I’m not, but this counted more than anything ever has.”

I loved Zeke so fucking much. Before I could tell him that, there was commotion upstairs. We both froze, listening carefully. No one called out to us, and no one appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Look at me, Zeke.”

He did, and when I looked into his eyes, my heart skipped to beat. “I love you.”

“I love you too. I thought…I thought you were just obsessed with me, that you would get over it once the excitement died down?—”

I pressed a finger from my good hand against his lips.

“That was never going to happen. From the moment I first saw you in Vegas, I felt something that I’ve never felt with anyone else before. But I didn’t really understand how much I cared about you or how deep this went until I saw you with my family. That’s when I knew…I knew that I loved you, that I wanted to be with you forever.”

“Well, that’s good because you’re stuck with me.”

“They like you, you know. My family.”

“I like them, too.”

Val called down to us. “Everything’s clear up here, and there’s a cleanup crew on the way. We need to get you home, then track down the rest of these bastards.”

“He needs to go to a hospital,” Zeke said.

I shook my head. “We have a doctor who will come to us. I promise she’s really good and very discreet.”

Zeke looked up at Val, and Val nodded. “He’s telling the truth. I wouldn’t risk his safety any more than you would.”

“Shit. Your game. What happened? Did you win? What time is it?”

“I left before the game started. I told everyone I had a family emergency and took off. I couldn’t play knowing that Benito had you.”

“But how did you know he’d captured me? How did you know what happened?”

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