Page 52 of Ace

Pulling my gun as I ran, I spied Jake and Mom in the kitchen, shock written on their faces.

“Where is she?”

“Games room.”Jake pointed down the hallway.

I pushed him out of the way and raced down the hallway.The door was shut.Locked.I raised my booted foot and kicked the fucking thing open.

Emma, my Emma, was sitting on the floor with the thirty-thirty I’d given her held so tight her knuckles were white.A clicking sound kept repeating itself as she pulled the trigger on the empty magazine.On the floor in front of her was a mountain of a man, his eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling, his chest a mass of blood and gore.

A thirty-thirty Winchester can do a lot of damage at point blank range.

I went to Emma and gently liberated the rifle from her hands, setting it down on the floor.Coaxing her to her feet, I led her to the sofa and sat her down onto my lap.She melted into me, letting out a long shaky sigh.

Jake entered the room, followed by Tiny.

“Get rid of the trash.”I gestured at the corpse with my chin.

“Yes, sir.”

The two grabbed the corpse by the head and feet and carried it out.

I turned my attention to Emma, wrapping my arms around her shaking body.In a perverse way, I was proud of her for doing what she had to do, protecting herself but I knew it never should have gone down like this.

I should have been here.I should have protected her.I should have killed the fucker, so she didn’t have to.

As soon as we’d hit the enemy base, I knew something was off.We did our job.We took out the top three assholes just like we’d been asked to but none of them matched the description of the murderer that Emma had given me that night.I’d stayed with my brothers, done my duty, made sure there was no remaining threat from the Atlanta crew, but a sick feeling in my gut told me it wasn’t enough.

I’d hiked it back to the clubhouse double-time, only to hear those shots the moment I set foot on the front porch.

Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!

Would she ever be able to forgive me?Would she ever be able to trust me again?I had no idea what I’d do if I lost her.In just this short time, she’d become my whole world.

She took a deep breath and lifted her face to look into my eyes.“He’s dead.”

“Yeah.He’s dead.”

“I killed him.”

“Yeah, babe.You killed him.”

“I’m glad he’s dead.”She shuddered as she laid her head on my shoulder.“It’s over now, isn’t it?”

“It’s over.We took out the head guys.Anyone left standing hightailed it back to where they came from.”

“He kicked me.My side hurts.”

I suppressed a blaze of white-hot anger.Asshole was already dead.I wished I could bring him back to life just so I could kill him again.Slowly this time.

I lifted her shirt to take a quick look.The bandage didn’t show any sign of blood, so I decided to leave it until the club medic could take a look at it.

“I’ll have Joker look at it as soon as he gets here.You hurt anywhere else?”

Her hand went to her cheek.“Probably going to have a bruise here.He slapped me pretty hard.”

I ran a gentle finger over the area, and she flinched.“We should probably get some ice on that.”

She didn’t say anything, just nodded and snuggled in tighter against me.

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