Page 19 of Cruel Seduction (Underground Kings 2)

With a deep breath, my eyes flutter open and when I see the ocean depths staring back at me; I know it means I’ve died and gone to heaven. I sob and reach for his face, bloody hand and all, smearing it across his cheek.

“Sebastian? Is it really you?” I pinch his face, rubbing my hands over his cheeks. His rough, coarse beard tickles my palm. “Sebastian!” The tears don’t stop. I don’t think they will ever stop. I am no longer in pain. I am healing. “It’s really you. Oh my god, it’s you.”

“It’s me, baby. It’s me, Gabriella. I never thought I’d see you again. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’re here, right under my thumb this entire time.” He lays his forehead against me, and I want him to kiss me, to finally put us out of our misery, but he holds onto me instead.

And he feels good.

Sebastian is like waking up from a nightmare in a coma. He is relief, medicine, and heaven all at once, and I never want to know what it is like to lose myself like that again.

“I smelled you,” he says, burying his nose in my neck and inhaling like he did years before. “I had to look for you. Something told me it was you, and you’re here.”

“You smelled me?”

“Okay, sorry to break up the eternal lovefest, but we really need to get going.” His friend interrupts us and grabs Sebastian by the back of the shirt collar, and Sebastian’s arms are still around me, so I come with him. “Not good, not good. We cannot be seen here when the cops arrive.”

“Did you kill him? Did Kendrick see you?”

“No and no, Sebastian. God, what am I? An amateur?” the man says as we run to a vehicle.

Well, they run. I’m in Sebastian’s arms.

Sebastian opens the back door of the heavy-duty black truck and slides us inside. “Fuck, baby. You’re bleeding,” he says, putting pressure on the wound. “It’s just a graze. You’ll be okay.”

“I can die now and be happy because I know I’m not in the hands of a monster,” I admit, reaching my hand up to touch his face. I can’t help it. I still think I’m dreaming because there is no way this man is real. He looks so different, but I’d know those eyes from anywhere.

Sebastian is real.

His jaw is sharper, more defined, and he seems like a man who hardened to the world, but when he looks at me, every sharp feature of his face relaxes, and nothing but love stares at me. His hand brushes over the bruise on my cheek, and his jaw flexes from clamping his teeth together. He might have thought I missed it, but I saw the tear leaking out of the corner of his eye before he wiped it on his shirt.

He gathers me tighter in his arms and pulls me to his chest. My nose presses against the steady beat of his heart, and I weep with joy. His shoulders slightly shake and I know he’s crying too. I feel the wet tears on my neck. “God, I never thought I’d see you again, Gabby. I thought I had lost you forever. I looked so long. I never gave up. I could never give you up.”

“I thought you had,” I admit, rubbing my wet face against his shirt. “I wanted you to. I convinced myself you were married with kids, settling down and happy.”

“I could never want those things because the only person I ever imagined myself with is you, Gabby. You know that. I could never do anything because of my brother—”

“And he won’t be the last of your worries,” the guy in the driver’s seat says. “I didn’t kill him. I have a feeling he won’t let her go so easily, but he doesn’t know it’s you either. He didn’t see us.”

“He’s right, Sebastian.” I lean back and stare into the eyes I fell in love with so long ago, but I knew my fate belongs to someone else. “You are better off giving me back. He will stop at nothing until he has me again.”

“And I will stop at nothing to make sure he never lays a hand on you again,” Sebastian says, his thumb grazing over the bruise on my neck. I don’t know if it’s from the collar or the earlier chokehold, but it’s sensitive. “I should have found you earlier, and maybe none of this would have happened to you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t blame yourself. I’m the one

who said to let me go, remember?”

“I wanted to kick your ass for that,” his lips curl into a playful grin. His lashes are wet and stuck together, pointed black spears framing his eyes, and the dark color against the light blue make his eyes pop even more. “I tried like hell to bang down that glass.”

“I know,” my eyes well with the memory. “I heard it.”

“You didn’t turn around,” he points out, inhaling the scent on my neck again. “It killed me.”

“I didn’t want to risk your life.”

“You’re worth it,” he admits.

I shake my head, remembering all the things Kendrick told me over the years. “No, I’m not worth it. No one would be happy with me. I’m useless, and I don’t behave. I deserve the punishment I get.” The words leave me like a song playing on a record player. They are automatic and monotone. Kendrick has gotten what he wanted after all.

He broke me.

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