The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(95)

“Perfectly.”

Turning to face the door out into the corridor, he offered her his elbow … as if he were escorting her to a party.

And Sola took it just because she wanted to feel him against her. Know his warmth. Be close to his size and strength.

It was a different kind of hell to be facing the prospect of meeting her grandmother’s eyes.

“Do not think of it,” he said as he led her down the long hall. “You must remember that. She will see it in your face if you do. None of it happened, Marisol. None of it.”

Sola was dimly aware that the guards that had met them when they’d come to this place had slipped in behind them. But she had so many other things to worry about—and that bunch of men hadn’t pulled any of those triggers as she’d come into the facility. Hard to imagine why they’d bother on the way out.

One of them jumped in front and opened the steel door for them, and the Range Rover was right where it had been parked. Next to it, Assail’s two cousins were standing grimly—watched over by more of those incredibly dangerous-looking guys.

Assail opened the back car door for her and offered her his hand. She needed it. Humping herself up into the SUV caused her thigh to sting until her eyes watered. But as she was shut in, she managed to work the belt herself, pulling it out from her body and clipping it in place.

Sola frowned. Through the tinted glass, she watched as Assail went to each of the men, one after another, and offered them his hand. There were no words spoken, at least not that she saw, but there didn’t need to be.

Grave stares met Assail’s eyes and subtle nods were given with respect as if an accord had been reached among them all.

And then Assail’s cousins hopped in the front, Assail got in the rear with her and they were off.

She had only a vague memory of all the gates and barricades they’d had to go through to get into the place—but she figured the way out would take forever.

At least she wanted it to. She had some hope that if enough time passed, she could convince her inner little girl that she hadn’t broken the main Ten Commandment twice, nearly been raped, and had to deface a body to get herself out of hell.

Unfortunately, they were back on the Northway, heading south toward downtown Caldwell, a heartbeat and a half later. Or it certainly seemed like that.

As they zeroed in on the bridges that would take them over the river and through the woods, to Assail’s fortress they went …

Great. Her brain was non-sequituring it up.

Rubbing her tired eyes, she had to pull things together.

It didn’t happen.

“You know, you may have a point,” she said quietly.

“About what,” Assail asked from beside her.

“Maybe it was all just a dream. A bad, horrible dream…”

The Range Rover mounted the westbound bridge over the Hudson, and with traffic moving smoothly across the span, they were going to be at Assail’s in only five or ten minutes.

Twisting around, she looked at the receding downtown, all those lights like stars having fallen to earth.

“I don’t know if I can see her,” she heard herself say.

“It didn’t happen.”

Watching that cityscape get smaller and smaller, she told her brain to do the same with all the sights and smells and sensations that were so close, too close: Time was a highway and her body and brain were traveling on it. So she needed to hit that f*cking gas pedal and get the hell away from the last forty-eight hours.

Before she knew it, they were turning off onto the thin road that went down to the peninsula Assail owned. And then her stomach sank as that glass house came into view, its golden illumination pouring out onto the landscape as if the place were a pot of gold.

They went to the back, the headlights swinging around across the rear of the mansion. And there she was. In the window of the kitchen, head lifting to look out, hands reaching for a dish towel … Sola’s grandmother was watching, waiting—now scrambling for the back door.

Abruptly, everything went out of Sola’s mind as her hand fumbled for the latch.

Assail gripped her arm. “No. Not until we’re in the garage.”

Unlike the rest of the trip, getting undercover took forever, that reinforced door trundling down like it had all the time in the world.

The instant it thumped into place, Sola burst out of that SUV and ran for the door. It was locked, and in her jammed-up mind, the only thing that occurred to her was to grip the handle harder and yank and pull—

Someone unlocked it remotely, because there was a clunk! and then suddenly things sprang open.

Her grandmother was on the far side of a squat anteroom, standing in the center of the kitchen, that white dish towel wadded up to her face, the scents of home cooking like love in the air.

Sola ran forward as her grandmother opened the only arms that had ever been there to hold her.

She had no clear knowledge of what was said in Portuguese, but on both sides, words flowed fast. Until her grandmother pushed her back and captured her face in those weathered hands.

“Why for you this sorry?” the woman demanded, brushing tears away with her thumbs. “No sorry for you. Never.”

Sola got pulled back in hard and held against that generous bosom. Closing her eyes, she sagged and let her brain shut down.

This was all that mattered. They were together. They were safe.