Page 52 of Hidden Dane
Emily stepped back but kept her eyes on Dane, who stayed in any potential bullet’s path as she said, “D…Uriel. I’m sorry for everything I said.”
Alexandre headed to the staircase, his gun out and aimed at Dane.
Henry would have to leave his spot to get a shot now, but Dane refused to move. Not while Emily was a target. Alexandre took another step as he said, “She’s sorry. Now why don’t we all go our separate ways.”
The police were downstairs. Hopefully this would be over. Dane held out his hand. “Alexandre, before you go I’d like my mother’s jewelry.”
“Your father was Edmond Pearce?” Alexandre took another step.
Technically no, but Edmond was the man that haunted his nightmares as his father. “Yeah, I thought he was my father.”
Alexandre reached behind him for the door as he asked, “Did your father have relatives, Mr. Delligatti?”
The Pearce family consisted of an uncle and a great aunt. Neither wanted anything to do with him, since they’d contested his father’s will but Dane still inherited Edmond’s wealth. During that brief year, he’d depended on Michael to pay for his boarding school. “Why does that matter?”
Alexandre threw open the door behind him, making a hugebangsound as the metal hit metal. “You asked who the buyer is that wants these trinkets. If your father were alive, would he be a force to cross? Would you trust the police to protect you?”
His fake father had his real father imprisoned and tortured for a crime he hadn’t committed. Dane winced and motioned with his hand for Alexandre to drop the gun. “You can trust me though. Edmond never broke my biological father—we can help you if you help us.”
Alexandre ran into the elevator bank but as the door closed a bullet sound reverberated through the air.
Dane said a silent prayer as he waited for impact.
Nothing hit him though.
The elevator closed as Emily screamed, “No!”
Dane turned around. Emily slumped to the ground, A young under cover officer from earlier with a weapon was being reprimanded by his superiors that came to investigate the shotes. Henry spoke to someone on the phone in urgent tones about an accidental shot. Dane dropped to his knees, lifting up her head as he said, “Emily. What did you do?”
She cupped his chin and patted his cheek as tears ran out of her eyes. “Dane, I love you. I was stupid and wrong last night. Forgive me.”
Everything she’d wounded, everything he’d tried to bury inside his soul last night, all melted in his heart. He squeezed her hand. “Where are you hurt?”
She tried to lift her leg opposite him but winced in pain. “My leg is numb.”
He twisted around her and scanned her body for other injuries too. “Let me see.”
The bullet meant for him had hit her. Henry called out, “An ambulance is coming. We should get her downstairs.”
Dane reached under her and lifted her as Henry pressed the button for the elevator. Emily hugged his waist. “Why did you come here, Dane?”
Hadn’t she seen?
Dane leaned against the elevator wall as Henry pressed the button and let the wall hold some of Emily’s weight as he shifted and took out her necklace. He handed it to her as he said, “I got your necklace back because you wanted it. Sorry about ripping your pants.”
“I think being shot was the biggest problem.” She said in her usual back hand voice, but then she clutched the necklace and cried into his shoulder. “I want you. I don’t care about the pants.”
Her words made the walls around his heart fall. The doors opened and he said, “Then Emily Mira, for once, you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” Police sirens sounded all around them.
Henry pointed toward Alexandre, who was in a stand-off against the police.
Dane kept a brisk pace to get her toward the ambulance and said so only she could hear him, “Yeah. I’m not going to let you die.”
“Good, because I don’t want to die.” She mustered a smile for him.
Either she was numb to pain right now or she wasn’t hurt that bad.
