We stay down, and the minutes drag on…and on…and on.
Slowly but surely, we venture out from our hiding spots, confident the shooter took out the target he intended and fled the scene.
“Fucking hell,” I bite off, staring down at Caleb’s lifeless body. I reach down, feeling for a pulse, but find none.
Right then, someone I don’t expect to hear comes over my earpiece. Alex begins talking so fast I can barely make out the words, but soon some become all too clear and all too real.
The senator. Shot.
Like a giant puzzle all coming together after struggling to make the pieces fit, I stare down at Caleb’s lifeless body resting at my feet, blood pooling below his head onto the boat’s deck, and I realize a plan far greater than what I could’ve imagined has been carried out tonight.
All of this. The video. Hadley. Even the photograph of Hadley and me in the tabloid. It was all a distraction so I wouldn’t be focused on the senator or guarding him. They must’ve been waiting for the senator to drop his guard. And I wasn’t there to stop him from making that error.
I’d been played…and played well, and I wasn’t particularly fucking happy about that fact either.
But the stress and strain my body endures is incomparable to when I pull my phone from my pocket to call Hadley, instead finding a text from her.
I need you.
Chapter 14
Hadley
The blue and red lights illuminate the dark sky as emergency crews rush my father out of the house and into the waiting ambulance. I don’t remember when they got here, nor do I recall when Ryder’s team arrived either, and I can only vaguely remember talking to the police. I just know that right now my father is on a gurney on the edge of dying.
I drop to the foyer floor, as grief in the purest and rawest form rips through me. But it’s grief that’s hidden behind a wall of shock. I cannot move. I can’t think of what I should do next.
There’s movement all around, but I hear nothing until I recognize a voice that breaks through the cloud of disbelief drowning me.
Then I see him.
Ryder’s standing in the doorway, the lights of the ambulance now gone, but he’s there and I sag in relief at his presence.
“You called me.” His emotional shield is down, and raw and heady emotions fill his eyes.
“I did,” I whisper. “I knew something was wrong.”
“I…” His mouth shuts and then he’s picking me up in his arms, his warm breath a comfort in my neck. “Fuck, Hadley, I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you. I should’ve been here.”
My throat tightens, and I want to say I wish he was here, too. But how unfair of me would that be? He can’t be everywhere, and I know he’s doing all he can to protect me. My heart just doesn’t seem to accept that.
Ryder finally leans away and his gaze drifts downward. I follow where he’s looking and only then do I see it.
Blood.
And now it’s all over me.
“Oh, God.” I push away, standing up, suddenly aware of why I’m here. Dad…“I need to go.” I take a step forward.
“Stop.” Ryder grasps my wrist, tugging me back into him, pressing my soft curves against his hard planes. “There is nothing you can do for your father now. Let the doctors help him. You need to get cleaned up. There is media outside.”
Again, I look down and reality finally hits home. I’m not sure why it didn’t register before like it’s hitting me now, but blood—my father’s blood—covers my gown, and that same dark stain covers my neck, my arms, all of me. “Oh, God…” I glance at my trembling hands…it’s just everywhere, and now I begin to feel the warm stickiness against me. “Ryder.” I look into his warm eyes. “Oh, God…”
He swoops in as I’m about to fall to my knees again and gathers me tightly in his arms. It’s the one place that doesn’t feel out of control. I hope he never lets go, as he begins to bark orders, “Shawna, get her some clothes from her mother’s room. Lee, unless it’s a cop who needs to be here, no one steps foot in this house.”
I hear both Shawna and Lee respond to Ryder’s orders, but I don’t care to process the words. I lay my head against Ryder’s chest, the warmth of him somehow the comfort I need right now. I’m cold, I realize, and I’m shaking from head to toe as Ryder carries me up the grand staircase.
Once we’re in the main bath, only one door away from my childhood bedroom, Ryder kicks the door shut with his foot and removes my gown before he gently places me down on the closed toilet. Silently, with slow touches, exactly what I need right now, he reaches back and unhooks my bra and slides it off my shoulders. I don’t see where he places my clothes, I can’t look away from his eyes; they’re tender, grounding me in a way I don’t understand but know right now I need more than anything else.