Raw Redemption (Crossing the Line #4)(73)

His cocky expression slipped, but snapped back into place. “This morning I might have been surprised. Now?” He backed up a step. “Not so much. Considering I was woken up by the arrival of someone you might just recognize.”

The lifted gun entered the kitchen first, pointed at Ailish. Henrik made a broken sound to her left, but she could only stare at the man who joined them in the kitchen, walking with noticeable difficulty, a permanent wince on his face. Gordy. The man she’d shot in Michigan. “Hey there, little girl.”

Caine traded a look between Henrik and Ailish. “Thought I was losing control of my men, here. Every time I sent them after you, they didn’t come back. Turns out I passed a little thirst for violence on to my daughter.” Mind rebelling over her father’s words, she didn’t notice Henrik trying to sidle closer, until her father shouted at him to stay put. Then he turned his head slightly to address Gordy. “Is that the man you saw Ailish with at the campsite?”

“Yeah. That’s him.” Gordy made a rough noise and clamped his non-gun hand over his side. “They were inside together for a while until she split. That’s when I followed her.” He cocked his gun with a sneer. “That’s when the bitch shot me. And he took down Vick.”

Beside her, Henrik stood still as a statue, but Ailish sensed a building need to act. Could sense his fear on her behalf. “Caine, she’s your daughter. You sent these men to kidnap her. You can’t blame her for defending herself.” His chest lifted and fell slowly. “You’re not going to let him kill her over it. She’s your blood.”

“No, I was thinking I’d do it myself,” Caine answered, transferring his gun from Henrik to Ailish.

With a bellow, Henrik dived for Ailish, firing his gun at Caine as he closed the distance between them. The bullet struck Caine in the collarbone. He staggered, but didn’t go down, only taking a too-brief second to lift the gun again. When Ailish saw Gordy take aim at Henrik, she tightened her finger on the trigger of her own gun—

The kitchen…exploded. At least, that’s how it seemed, as Ailish went from a slow-motion existence to rapidly moving reality. Connor and Derek appeared in the doorway behind her father and Gordy, holding black gun muzzles to their heads. The door behind her was kicked open, Bowen storming in with a ruthless expression on his face, Erin close on his heels looking gleeful.

“Drop the guns and slide them toward Bowen.” Derek shouted. “Bowen, raise your hand.”

Bowen picked the half-eaten apple on the island and took a bite. “That’d be me,” he said around a mouthful. “Send ’em on down.”

When her father and Gordy laid the guns down, Relief blew in like a gale wind, smoothing out the daggers in Ailish’s chest. Safe. They were safe. It was over, and her father couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. Especially not in her name.

Ailish let her weapon fall to her side and reached out for Henrik.

And then her world slowed down again. In her periphery, she saw her father dive for his discarded gun and lift it—but instead of aiming it at her, he pointed it in Henrik’s direction. Her father’s body jerked with the impact of two gunshots, fired from where, she hadn’t a clue. She only knew the next bullet fired was coming from Caine’s gun and it would hit Henrik. The man she loved.

Without another thought, Ailish moved in front of Henrik, white-hot pain tearing through her body almost immediately upon surrounding him in the broadest embrace she could muster. The agony was so consuming, she couldn’t tell where the bullet had struck, only that it felt like a hundred bullets instead of one, clawing at every layer of skin, setting her on fire. Henrik’s arms were around her, though, and that somehow made the pain worth it. He was yelling her name, interspersed with curses, his voice breaking, and hell…at least that meant he was alive.

Henrik was alive, so their love couldn’t die. Even if she might.

That was Ailish’s final thought before everything went dim. Then black.

...

Henrik wouldn’t sit in a chair. Didn’t want to experience anything comfortable. Refused to. Ailish is hurt. Ailish is hurt. Ailish is hurt. He longed to slam his head back against the hospital waiting room wall he’d slid down hours before, slipping into a state of numbness on the outside and World War III on the inside, grenades being launched from smoking trenches. Other people were there, too—Derek, Bowen, Erin, Sera, Polly, Austin, Connor—moving like ghosts people catch just before falling asleep, in that space of semiconsciousness. Voices droned from different corners of the room, but he wanted to hear only one voice. Just one. And if they hadn’t gotten Ailish to the hospital in time, he might never hear it again.

Misery blanketed him, rendering his limbs useless. He could only replay what had taken place in the kitchen, again and again, because reliving the horror is what he deserved for letting his girl get—

Fuck. She’d been shot. Her blood had been spilled when he’d been only a couple feet away. How? Henrik buried his face in his hands and let the scene gather for the thousandth time. Caine’s weapon had been down. Out of his reach. Connor had already been in the process of handcuffing Gordy. Ailish’s father had been almost subdued, his body slumping, one hand reaching up to cover the bullet wound Henrik had inflicted. But then he’d just…come to life. He’d dived across the floor and fired the shot in under a second. And the quickest one to react had been Ailish.