Mine To Protect (Mine #6)(54)

The elevator jerked. He swore.

Being so close to him was too painful. “Let me go.”

“Baby, please…listen to me.”

She didn’t want to listen. Was it so wrong that she wanted to lick her wounds? “Michelle.” Saying the other woman’s name helped to stiffen her spine. “She’s what matters now. We have to find her. We—”

“Tom knows where she is. That guy is in this mess up to his eyes.”

Yes, she was afraid he was.

“But I can’t take him down. If I fight him right now, he’s going to expose Elizabeth. She’ll be a target. Do you want hitmen hunting her, the way they are you?”

No. No, she didn’t. “I wouldn’t wish my life on anyone.” Being Luther’s daughter was its own brand of hell.

The elevator jerked again. “Tom wants you,” Victor said again, the words so dark and rough. “And if he doesn’t get you, when this elevator stops, I’ll be charged with assault.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have attacked the guy!”

“I know! Shit, I know! But he knew my weakness. Going in, he f*cking knew…knew about Elizabeth. Knew that I would attack to try and keep him quiet. He used that. He planned that whole scene up there. We were here, looking for the bastard who has been pulling all the strings, looking for the man who was going to swap Michelle for you, and I think we found him.”

“Tom?” Tom had always been low on the totem pole. Not a power player in her father’s organization. Hadn’t that been why he’d wanted to marry her?

Once more, the elevator lurched. Only this time, it didn’t stop with that jerk. It began to descend.

“I have to walk away,” Victor said. “It has to look as if I’m walking away.”

“I don’t understand.” He was leaving her now?

“If I go to jail, I can’t protect you. If he releases what he knows about Elizabeth…she’s next on the kill list.”

They were almost at the lobby level. Above the elevator doors, she could see the shining lights counting them down.

“He’ll take you.”

What?

“It’s part of the deal. I am so f*cking sorry.”

“You’re…leaving me?” How could the pain keep getting worse?

“When this elevator gets to the ground floor, I have to walk away. But I am coming f*cking back. There’s no way I’m giving you up.”

Walking away…it sure sounded as if he were giving her up. “I was a case.”

“No.” Hard, rough. “You are everything. Remember that. To me, you are everything. Fuck the case. Fuck the FBI. Fuck Luther Bates.”

The elevator dinged. The doors opened.

“You are everything.”

Then he kissed her. A deep, hard, desperate kiss. One that made her ache for the things that they’d had. For what could have been. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold tight but she didn’t move.

Well…didn’t move except for the tear that slipped from her eye and slid down her cheek.

“Boss wants to know…”A nasally voice grated. “You make your choice?”

Victor’s head lifted. He looked over his shoulder. She saw the two men standing just past those open elevator doors. More guards with ear pieces.

“She’s my choice,” Victor said. He turned back to stare at Zoe. “She always will be.” He put his forehead against hers. “I am so damn sorry. I wish I could start over again. I’d do everything differently with you. Everything.”

The guard said, “Boss is going to—”

Victor let her go. He whirled to confront the guards. “Tell your boss we aren’t done. When it comes to Zoe, I’m never done.”

Then he strode forward. The guards slid away, opening a space for him to pass.

And he just…

Left her.

Left her standing in that elevator. Left her all alone.

Zoe pressed her lips together so that they wouldn’t tremble, and she tasted him. She could still feel him. Even though he was…gone.

Gone, without a second glance back.

She straightened her shoulders. Marched forward, but the guards didn’t let her pass.

They blocked her way. “Boss wants you back upstairs.”

“I don’t really give a shit what he wants.”

One of the guys grabbed her arm, tightly, in a grip that bruised. “Funny, we don’t really give a shit what you want, either.”

The other guard jammed a gun into her side. “You’re going back upstairs.”

“Victor!” she yelled.

He stopped.

The guards pushed her deeper into the elevator.

Victor had swung around to face her. She saw the fury and the pain on his face. So much emotion, but he wasn’t moving toward her.

“Victor,” she whispered.

“Those earrings are f*cking gorgeous on you.”

The elevator doors closed.





Chapter Fifteen


He’d never wanted to destroy someone so completely. Victor stood in the casino lobby, people all around him, the whir of slot machines and the too high peal of laughter grating in his ears.

She loves me, and I have so f*cked everything to hell and back.