Page 53 of Risky Taste
I glance at Kurt, slumped over. “Barely,” I mutter, my breath heaving. “If you’d called a second later, he wouldn’t be.”
“Keep him alive. Get home.” The line cuts, and I drop the phone, relief flooding through me. Noah and the other two are safe—alive—and it’s enough to pull me back, just barely, from the edge I was about to tip over.
“Seems like it’s your lucky day, you bastard,” I mutter as I grab him by the collar and drag him out into the main room. A nice little trail of blood follows us but I’m not trying to clean up my mess. I’m the least of their worries at this point. I dial 911 and call it in, mentioning that there’s a guy barely alive at a dive bar, beat to shit before hanging up. It won’t be hard to figure out who was in this room with Kurt but unless Kurt actually says anything, there isn’t much to worry about.
Even if he does, he doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to telling the truth.
He coughs, blood bubbling at his lips, and rasps, “This isn’t the end just because you say it is.”
“Give it up with the villain speeches. You’re going to jail, just like your goddamn parents. The others are alive and we’re gonna flourish without you around. I’d kill you, but I want you to suffer. Now excuse me while I go check on my friends and my boyfriend.” I stand, kicking his leg hard, his groan a faint echo as I grab my jacket, the blood on my hands smearing the fabric.
The drive’s a blur, my mind racing, the lingering rage kicking up when I stumble into the house, blood splattered across the hallway. Confusion and fear rake through me until I catch Sebastian sitting on the couch, Noah propped up against him. I don’t hesitate as I rush around the edge, pulling Noah against me despite my shirt soaked in blood. He lets out a small wince and I pull back, searching for injuries. “Sorry.”
“Just my head,” he whispers. “We’re alright.”
I tuck him into me a little softer this time, officers mulling around, one in conversation with Logan, Ed standing beside him. Yannis steps forward, surveying Noah tucked into my arms. “Where’s Kurt?”
“I called it in already,” I say. “Officers should be swarming the dive bar any second to gather him up. He’s a little… incapacitated. Not going anywhere.” I nod at the chaos around us—blood on the floor. “What happened here?”
Logan steps over, reaching to squeeze my shoulder, as if saying that this is really over. “Heath came to finish the job Kurt started. Apparently, the many times Noah didn’t die were moments he was supposed to.”
My gaze dips to the hallway and then back to Logan. “That’s a lot of fucking blood.”
Noah chuckles against my chest, voice muffled by my shirt. “Because Heath might’ve gotten shot in a foot or two. First time was needed,” Noah says, shrugging, his grin widening despitethe wince that follows. “Second time, I just wanted him to hurt.” He sits back, the smile playing on his lips absolutely everything I need right now. Yannis didn’t even flinch when Noah all but told him that this wasn’t entirely self-defense but I don’t think it’ll really matter. “We’re gonna be okay. Maybe not immediately, but we’re gonna be okay.”
It feels like those words are more for him than me but I’ll take them all the same. I nod to Yannis, wondering what happens next seeing as we all broke a few rules. “What happens now?”
Yannis sighs, rubbing his neck. “Well, there’s a lot more pieces than just what we found. It’s gonna be an ongoing investigation for a while, and I hate to say it, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That being said, you guys’ll be stateside until all this shit gets cleared up.”
Noah frowns, twisting to face the officer. “And that’s just it?”
“Oh no. This is just the beginning. This shit goes way deeper than people thought. Kurt’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Ed laughs, stepping in. “What he meant to say is you don’t have to worry about someone coming after you anymore. You might get pulled into interviews, interrogations, all that, but Kurt isn’t getting out.”
“What about Heath?” I question.
“He got immunity for some of the info he gave up,” Ed says, shrugging. “He’ll be charged for attempted murder or whatever they can get his ass on, but I don’t know how that’ll shake out. That’s a whole different case.”
“So long as neither one of them have access to us, I don’t really fucking care.” My black eye throbs and my hands ache, Kurt getting a few good hits in before I went to town on his ass. I hope I broke something. Afewsomethings.
Noah tilts his head, resting it on my shoulder, his voice soft. “You look like shit.”
“Yeah, well, you shot a guy in his foot,” I mutter, grinning, kissing his hair, the blood on my hands forgotten. “We’re even.”
“If we’re counting,” Sebastian adds, “He actually killed someone upstairs climbing through his window. Apparently, Noah’s still got his skills.”
I laugh at that, shaking my head as I sit on the couch, throwing an arm around Noah’s shoulder. “Seems he’s a better shot than his brother. Kurt had me right in front of him and still fucking missed.” Had Kurt actually practiced more instead of rigging the system, I wouldn’t be sitting here.
Noah glares at me, almost like he’s about to ask about what went down but he doesn’t. “Is he dead?”
“Kurt? No, he deserves to stand trial for all the bullshit he did. Every last time he hurt you and threw you away for his own purposes. I wasn’t letting him take the easy way out.”
“Good,” Noah mumbles, leaning into my side. “I need him to suffer. In agony. I hope he looks way worse than you do.”
“Oh, Bunny, there’s not even a comparison.”
Chapter thirty-nine
