A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(123)

For a moment, Parker wondered if she really could put her gun down and walk away, allow all of those angry people upstairs to slice him to pieces or beat him until the last breath escaped from his body. She’d killed plenty of people in her career: drug dealers, foreign insurgents– all monsters, all killers of the innocent people exactly like Milo. The only difference was she’d never shared her life with any of those people. For the most part they were faceless criminals that left a trail of death and destruction in their wake, and their deaths never gave Parker one night of restless sleep. But she’d never shared her body with those individuals, never shared her soul. Parker wondered if she’d sleep as easily this time around.

Milo saw the hesitation in her eyes and thought maybe he’d misjudged her. Maybe he’d given her kind heart too much credit. She might actually let him suffer brutally before he took his last breath. He knew he would die in that room; his carelessness let him forget that Parker had access to a gun. His hatred of Garrett made him sloppy, and now it was all over. Milo knew of only one way to make Parker change her mind, one way into manipulating her into ending his life quickly and to show him mercy.

Milo quickly twisted his body and reached for the gun he’d dropped with his good arm. He knew he wouldn’t be able to shoot straight left handed, but he only needed to convince Parker. Wincing, he glared at Garrett and raised the gun.

In the end Parker gave Milo exactly what he wished for. A swift, torment-free death where he wouldn’t have to answer for his sins to the people he’d wronged.

She wondered if she’d see the face of a monster or the face of her best friend dying by her hand for the rest of her life.

When she stopped firing her gun and nothing could be heard in the basement except the echo of the shots she’d fired, and the clicking of an empty chamber as she continued to pull the trigger, Garrett rushed to her side and caught her just as the gun fell from her hands and she lost the strength to hold herself up.

He eased her down to the floor just as the door to the basement burst open and his team raced in. They took in the lifeless bodies all around the room. Once they were certain they were all dead and no longer a threat to any of them, Brady sent Austin and Cole back up the stairs to find out what was happening outside with the mob and Fernandez. After they left, he sprinted to Garrett’s side and crouched down next to him.

When Garrett’s hands went around Parker’s waist as she fell. He felt something wet and sticky against his hand. He tried not to let the panic show as he gently pulled her into his lap, holding her tightly to him.

He heard his team come in and knew Brady was next to him talking, but he couldn’t hear the words and didn’t give a shit about anything but Parker.

“You did good, baby, everything’s going to be okay now.” He spoke to her as he pulled his hand away from her waist and saw the blood. He swallowed down a sob and smoothed the hair off of her face, leaving a bloody fingerprint trail across her cheek.

Parker stared up into Garrett’s face and knew something was wrong. Now that the adrenaline was gone from her body, the small burn she felt in her side had turned into an inferno. It felt like her stomach was on fire and like every layer of skin and muscle in that area was being burnt to a crisp. She wanted to scream for Garrett to put out the fire, to douse her with water, anything to make it stop hurting, but she couldn’t find her voice. All she could think about was the pain. She didn’t want to worry Garrett any more than he already was, so she was glad she couldn’t speak. She didn’t want him to know how much she was suffering right now. It would only scare him.

“You just hold on, okay? Help is coming. You’re going to be fine,” he reassured her.

In all her life she never thought she would see the day when Garrett McCarthy cried. She almost smiled at the tears she saw pooling in his eyes right then as he looked down at her, but she knew nothing about this was funny. She felt her vision getting blurry and she blinked a few times to bring Garrett back into focus. She just needed to keep looking at him. If she could see his face and his eyes, it wouldn’t be so bad. She wouldn’t be swallowed whole by the guilt she felt from killing Milo, and she wouldn’t fade away into the nothingness she knew was hovering close by.

Garrett pressed his hand against the hole in Parker’s stomach and kept pressure on it. He could feel the beat of her heart through the wound as it pumped blood out of her body and into his hands. He held Parker’s life in his hands, and it felt like he held a fragile pile of sand that seeped through his fingers and could blow away with one strong gust of wind. Garrett fixed things. He’d fixed Parker and Milo’s relationship more times than he could count over the years. He fixed computers at work, problems out in the field, and members of his team who needed guidance. The only thing he wanted to fix right now was Parker, but there was nothing he could do to make it happen. There was nothing to stop her from leaving him right now.

Voices from far off surrounded Garrett as he stared down into Parker’s eyes and watched her struggled to keep her gaze on him. He was vaguely aware of Brady making contact with the team outside and learned that the situation was under control and they had Fernandez in custody. He knew Brady had called for assistance when the sudden rush of bodies into the room meant help was finally here.

“I love you, Parker. Do you hear me? I love you. Don’t you dare leave me!” Garrett yelled as Parker was pulled off of his lap and placed on the floor in front of him.