Page 85 of Midnight Torment

“Amy?” The other guy asked.

“If that was the woman trying to stick a needle into Megan to kill her, she’s dead up in the room Megan was held in.” Jordan didn’t even sound a little bit sorry for killing my would-be murderer.

“I need to go home,” I said, unable to stomach the thought of being here another minute after the memories I’d relived here.

Dante nodded once. “Have the bodies removed, Jake. I guess it’s time to change the plans I’ve made for the past few decades.”

“I’m not leaving without my stuff,” Flynn grumbled.

“I’m sure Jake can have it collected for you and I assume you have a boat moored somewhere close by?” Dante suddenly looked twenty years older. “I guess it’s time to go home.”

Jordan put his finger to his ear. “I assume you heard all that? Best tell Lucas his presence is required. Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

A helicopter ride took us back to France where Jordan’s plane was waiting to take us home. He had clean clothes for me in the back compartment and carefully washed me in the small shower, his expression darkening as he catalogued all my injuries.

“She thought using floggers and whips against me would break me,” I said, leaning back into his strength. “But I took myself far away to a place where only we had been. I stayed in those memories and refused to give her what she wanted.”

His lips skimmed my forehead. “She deserved to die.”

I framed his face with my hands. “All this started with death. Maybe we should concentrate on living for a change.” I stood on my tiptoes, my lips finding his since his embrace was my true home.

***

Chapter Thirty

Jordan

Everyone was assembled in Lucas’ townhouse when we arrived. Ash and Xavier’s body language said they’d been fighting. I’d speak to Ash myself later when no one else was around. His comments after he returned from Rome finally made sense.

I asked for Lucas to be present, since he seemed to be the one person who had oversight of everything that had happened twenty-five years ago. He had been a father figure to me and deliberately misled me, and that cut too deep for me to consider right now.

“Dan.” Lucas nodded at the man I’d buried twenty-five years ago. “You’re looking well following your resurrection.”

“Lucas.” Dante or whatever I was supposed to call him shook Lucas’ hand. “It’s been a long time.”

Lucas’ gaze moved to me. “He looked more and more like you as he grew up. I’m still amazed Horatio was able to keep his heritage from him. It took a lot of fear and money on his part.”

“He always did have his little black book of dirty secrets that he could use against everyone.”

I was beginning to wonder who they were talking about as Grampa had always been good to me. A little overbearing at times, but he had been the one stable person in my life.

Cassandra and Lucrezia came rushing out of the kitchen to engulf Megan and drag her off for a female interrogation. I knew she didn’t want the others to see her the way I’d found her on that island—covered in blood and dirty. She’d clung to me in the shower as I cleansed her of her ordeal. My only regret was that I couldn’t go back and kill that evil bitch all over again.

Megan had almost been taken from me with the previous injection. She’d whispered the horrors of the hallucinations to me in that small bathroom on the jet while I washed her hair.

I sat in Lucas’ office in my own thoughts while the others discussed the evil deeds of Grampa. All this time, I’d believed both Mum and Dad to be dead, and my world had tipped off its axis. Lucas’ zodiac chart still hung on the wall with his death cards covering the men who had already gone to see if Heaven and Hell really existed. On another chart, Xavier had started to list all the Council members, and cross out the ones who had also met an untimely end.

Surrounded by all this death and misery, I felt sick. Without a word, I got up and went in search of Megan. Vengeance could wait for another day, plotting the demise of our enemies would have to go on the back burner because all I craved right now was to bury my face in her hair and remind myself she was alive.

She glanced up when I wandered into the kitchen, concern lacing her blue eyes. I held my hand out and she took it without question.

“I need to commission some jewellery from you,” I told Lucrezia. “Clear your schedule, as I doubt your business partner would object with the amount I’m prepared to spend.”

The other women’s faces broke out into grins at my words. I tugged Megan behind me as she waved her goodbyes.

Megan was right. Tonight, I needed to celebrate life, and the only way to do that was with the woman who drove me beyond crazy.

“Where are we going?” she whispered, pressing herself into my back.

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