Mine to Have (Mine #5)(15)

Because if she wasn’t, if she turned out to be something, someone else…he wasn’t sure what he’d do.





Chapter Five


Elizabeth’s heart was about to race out of her chest, and she was about ninety percent sure that she’d be vomiting soon.

Wesley had just died. Right in front of her. She’d never seen anyone die before. Her parents—she’d seen them after the accident. Their bodies had been mangled, their faces barely recognizable. She’s been shaking and crying as she identified them. But they were already gone. Their suffering had ended.

When they’d burst into that condo and found Wesley, he’d still been struggling to live.

“What’s going on?” Saxon’s voice was flat. Dangerous. Rather scary-as-hell. Her gaze jumped from the floor of that elevator—she’d been staring at it rather blindly—to his face. He was staring at her with an unreadable expression.

She wet her lips and tried to swallow back her fear. “What’s going on?” Elizabeth parroted his words. “People are dying.”

“Taggert tried to kill you, so don’t act as if you’re grieving for him.”

His words felt like a slap. “I didn’t want to kill the man! I wanted him in prison, not hurting anyone else!”

“And Wesley?”

“I told you…he didn’t put the hit on me.” And Wesley had confirmed that, just seconds before he’d died. “He’s not the one who did this to me.”

“Wesley said that he knew who you were.”

“You know who I am, too. Elizabeth Ward.” Nothing special about her. Nothing that should make folks want to kill her.

The elevator doors opened. Saxon glanced around the area before they exited, and she noticed that he kept his gun close as they hurried toward their vehicle. Their stolen vehicle. He hadn’t mentioned that part to Victor—

Saxon pushed her back against a column in the parking garage. He caged her with his body, holding her there securely. “I see Gary…others must be coming.”

Who the hell was Gary?

But he wasn’t looking at her. His body—heavy, muscled, but taut with tension—was pressed intimately to hers. Every breath that he took, she felt. His rich, masculine scent wrapped around her. The warmth of his body also slowly penetrated, pushing away some of the horrible chill she’d felt ever since she walked into Wesley’s condo.

“Okay, we’re clear. Let’s go.” Then they were running toward the truck. Jumping inside. She expected him to gun the engine and rush out of there as if escaping from the gates of hell. But he didn’t. He just took them out, all nice and slow-like.

“We don’t want to draw any attention,” he said.

Right. No attention. At the scene of a murder. He’d removed all of the broken glass from the truck’s window earlier, so if anyone looked at it now, they’d probably just think the window was down. They were driving all Sunday-afternoon-slow, so it didn’t look as if they were terrified or—

“We’re getting away from the city.”

They were already out of the parking garage. But as soon as they exited that garage, she heard the scream of sirens. She looked up and saw police cruisers and an ambulance heading for her. Elizabeth forgot to breathe right then.

But Saxon just pulled the truck to the side of the road. When the line of rescue vehicles had passed, he maneuvered the vehicle back onto the street and kept driving. All slow-like still.

She didn’t speak for a few minutes. Mostly because she was trying to get her ragged emotions under control. Wesley is dead. Dead. He’s—

“Are you all right?” Saxon demanded. “Because you look like you might pass out any moment.”

She felt that way. Her cheeks were stinging, alternating back and forth between feeling ice-cold and red-hot. “I’m fine.”

He grunted. “Keep holding that shit together, sweetheart. You’re doing great.”

Elizabeth thought she might be in hell. “Who—who’s Gary?” Should that name have meant something to her?

“Gary is one of the FBI agents on Victor’s team. Only Gary usually plays back-up, staying out of the way while he works on his computers.” Saxon sighed. “For him to get pulled into an investigation like this, that means we’re in trouble.”

“Not you,” she said, the words too soft. “Me. Whoever is doing this…that person is coming after me.” But because Saxon was with her, he was being put at risk too. “Stop the truck,” she ordered him. “Just take me to the nearest police station.”

He kept driving.

“Saxon? Stop the truck!”

He stopped the truck. Luckily, no one else was on that street. “Do you want to live?”

“Y-yes.”

“Then you keep trusting me, because I’m your best bet, sweetheart.”

She tensed at the endearment, but it hadn’t sounded mocking. It had actually almost been—

“I’ve done things you can’t imagine. Things you don’t want to imagine.” His voice was a rumble in the dark interior of that truck. “But because of who I am…I know how to fight. Damn dirty.”

She’d seen him do it.

“I’ve kept you alive this long, and I don’t intend to let anything happen to you now. Stay with me, stay alive. It’s as simple as that.”