Emma’s eyes go wild. She wrenches against my grip with everything she has, and I almost lose her. “I won’t do it!” she screams. “Leo,I won’t!”
She’s fighting me like a cornered animal now. Her free hand claws at my wrist, her nails drawing blood. She tries to stomp on my foot and throw her weight backward; she tries everything she can think of to break free.
It reminds me of the first time I took her. The way she fought, kicked and screamed and refused to submit. The wildness in her eyes, the absolute refusal to give in.
Funny how things have and have not changed. Emma’s become as indispensable to me as breathing.
“I need to help!” Emma gasps out between struggles. “He’s my father! Let me?—”
“No,” I say, and I hate how cold I sound. I really do hate that I’m doing this to her. But I wrap my arms around her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides.
Emma bucks and thrashes, nearly breaking free. “This is exactly like before!” she shouts. “You’re doing exactly what you did when you took me! You’re not listening, you’re not giving me a choice, you’re just?—”
“I’m keeping you alive,” I grit out, half-carrying, half-dragging her toward the panic room door. She’s kicking at my shins, trying to hook her foot around the doorframe, fighting with everything she has.
“I canhelp!” Emma’s voice is raw now from all her screaming. “Leo, please, I can stop this! I can save you!”
“You’ll get yourself killed,” I tell her, and we’re at the door now. “And I won’t—I can’t—Emma, please?—”
“Then let me fight with you!” Emma twists in my arms, managing to face me. Her eyes are streaming with tears, her face flushed with exertion and fear. “Don’t lock me away! Let me stand with you! Let me?—”
“I love you,” I interrupt, and my voice is shaking. “That’s why I’m doing this. Because I love you more than anything and I need to know you’re safe.”
“If you loved me you would let me face him with you! Leo, please—please?—”
She’s clawing at me now, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer even as I’m pushing her through the doorway. “Don’t do this,” she begs. “Don’t leave me in here. What if you don’t come back? What if you die and I’m locked in here and I never get to?—”
“I’ll come back for you,” I promise, and I mean it with every fiber of my being. My hands cup her face, forcing her to look at me. “When this is over, I’ll come back for you. I swear it, Emma. Iswear.”
Her hands come up to cover mine, her eyes desperate. “Take me with you,” she pleads. “Let me stay with you. I don’t care if it’s dangerous, I don’t care if?—”
“I care,” I say roughly, and then I tell her, “forgive me” as I shove her backward. She stumbles back, giving me enough time to step back and slam the door shut.
The sound of steel meeting steel is the worst noise I’ve ever heard.
Emma throws herself against it immediately, pounding on the steel. “Leo! Don’t do this!Leo!”
I can hear her screaming and the sound of her fists hitting the door, and it takes everything I have not to open it again.
But I can’t.
Instead I key in the lock code—eight digits that only Dante and I know—and the steel bolts slide home with a final, terrible click.
It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
It’s harder than burying my brother or falling in love with her despite knowing it was the worst possible decision I could make.
But at least she’s safe.
I press my palm against the steel door for just a second, wishing I could feel her on the other side. I should have told her everything I thought this morning when we were in bed. God, that feels like a lifetime ago. That she’s everything to me. That loving her has changed me in ways I’m still discovering. That if I don’t make it through this, she should know that she was the best thing that ever happened to me.
But there’s no time.
Connor Brennan is at my gates with fifty armed men, and I have a war to fight.
I force myself to turn away from the door, away from Emma’s muffled screaming, and head back downstairs.
Dante’s waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his face grim. “East door is holding but barely. And Connor just showed up himself—he’s at the front gates with about a dozen men. He’s asking to talk to you.”