He tightened his hold.“We’re alive,” he confirmed, resting his cheek at the top of my head, tucking me closer.Butterflies warmed my stomach at the simple sound of his voice, the relief of his presence overwhelming my senses.
We stood like that for several minutes, just breathing each other in and ignoring the irrelevant world around us.Devastation gripped me when he finally pulled away, but it was abruptly replaced with love when I looked up into his warm, comforting gaze.
“He told me he killed you,” I said, my eyes scanning his body for what Darren might have considered a fatal wound.
Jason shook his head.“He threw a knife at me that landed in my chest, but I was already falling backward, so it didn’t go deep enough to do any real damage.”
I narrowed my eyes in confusion.“Then why would he think you were dead?”
“Probably because the floor had collapsed under me at the same time.I woke up under a pile of rubble stacked in near perfect formation for me to just barely fit between without getting crushed,” he explained.“The guys found me after they took over the warehouse with our drones and pulled me out.Then we rushed to get here as fast as we could because no one could reach Romero or Derick.They were supposed to extract you.You haven’t seen them?”
I shook my head at his question, wondering what Matt had done to sabotage them.“The only two people I’ve seen are Matt and Kayla.”
Jason’s face went white.“Where are they?Did he take Kayla?”
I quickly shook my head again.“No.I hid Kayla in one of the panic rooms, and I’m pretty sure Matt is dead.She has a busted ankle and a likely concussion, but she’s safe.”
The visible relief on his face concerning my friend was endearing to see.“Oh, thank God.She was told to stay at the rendezvous point, but she’s clearly stubborn like you,” he said and then nodded down to the floor.“I see Camaro found you.”His smile brightened the room as he reached down to jostle her ears like they were old friends.
“How is she alive?Darren shot her twice.”
“My team and I had been watching the property from the water for weeks.We tracked the yacht and observed from a safe distance.But when we saw the attack, we mobilized as fast as we could to take advantage of the situation and maybe get you out sooner than planned.But by the time we got close enough, the fight was over and we saw who won.And then we heard you scream when more gunshots rang out and we saw what happened to your dog.We managed to pull her from the water and got her to a good vet just in time.She recovered faster than I thought she would.”
I sighed with immense relief.“You have no idea how grateful I am that you were able to save her.”
But then I watched his gaze rise above my head to look on behind me, and his jaw clenched.
“It looks like she might have saved you too,” he murmured, nodding behind me.
I smirked.“She had her own vendetta to carry out as well.”
“By the looks of it, I’d take it you were both pretty successful?”he asked, tilting his chin as his gaze fixed on the body I had just recently decimated.
I nodded without looking back.“Yes.”
Jason’s gaze dropped back down to me, the warmth emanating from him giving me all the peace in the world I could possibly need right now.
“Then it’s over,” he declared with finality.
I shook my head.We weren’t quite out of the woods yet.“What about here?Has the estate been secured, or do we need to form another exit strategy?”I asked, kicking myself for not prioritizing the thought sooner.
“The rest of my team and Matt’s people already have the place mostly locked down.It’s just a lot of ground to cover.The only thing that’s left is to burn this place to the fucking ground.It really is over, Jaden.”
“The hell it is,” came another croaked voice coming from behind him.
Spinning around, Jason instantly pushed me behind him before I could even see who it was.
“Where is she, Jaden?”the voice asked, the furious tone becoming familiar.
Peering around Jason’s arm, I nearly dropped my jaw at the sight of Matt hunched against a cracked wall with a gun pointed at both of us.His throat was black and blue, and he truly looked like the corpse I had believed him to be.But apparently, Darren had failed to kill two people today.He’d clearly gotten sloppy in his haste.
“Where is she?”Matt asked again, his voice rising with unhinged frustration, and causing Camaro to snarl in his direction.
“We don’t know,” Jason answered cautiously, lifting his palms in pacification.
Matt jerked the gun in our direction.“Bullshit!She was here!We had a deal, Jason!Now where the fuck is she?”
“I’m right here, motherfucker!”