Her Forgotten Betrayal(79)

Cole’s plan had gotten her this far, making her believe that she still had a shot of getting out of this alive. Now, tears streaming down her face, she stared down the demented specter standing in the office doorway. He had Cole’s gun. It was pointed at her heart. Smoke rose slowly around them. Light flickered from the front of the mansion, where the fire’s heat was consuming their childhood world, moaning faintly, hinting at the inferno it would become, gleefully destroying everything it touched. Just as her brother did.

“Why?” she demanded, her hand clenched around the key to the secret door behind her. She’d been so close. “Why end it this way? You hate me. Our mother died because of me. Why not just let me take the fall for everything you’ve done, so you can get back to the hideous life you enjoy so much?”

“What life? Look at me, Shaw. Look at what you did to me.” He jabbed the gun at the scars on his nose-less face and head. His sneer was a menacing, hate-filled thing.

“All I did was fall in love,” she said. The warmth of her feelings for Cole filled her. “When I was a teenager, and again just a day ago, I fell in love and believed my life could be everything it was meant to be, because someone finally believed in me. I survived your abuse when we were growing up, then years of loneliness because I was too weak to run after the man I wanted. And I survived you nearly killing me in that conference room, and all your stupid pranks around here, so that same man could come back and show me all over again what real passion is like. I’ve lived more in the last twenty-four hours than you ever will, Bastian. All of the destruction, including your ghoulish scars, is your own doing. I hope what you’ve accomplished makes you happy in the hell that’s waiting for you next.”

“You took my mother, then you took the life my father meant for me!” he screamed, the gun once more trained on her. “I was banished to the shadows after the fire, while you swanned around playing Cassidy Global’s pretty princess. You took everything from me. Now, by God, I’ve taken it all back.”

It was over. He was going to kill her. She could see it in his eyes. She thought of how close she’d come to escaping from Sebastian the way Cole had insisted she could, even if something were to happen to him. She hadn’t made it. Her brother’s rage was bottomless, and she was out of time. But she’d found the courage to stand and face her brother down, instead of cowering on the ground, as she had in her nightmare when she’d begged him not to hurt her. She’d like to think Cole would have been proud of that.

He’d have understood. She smiled into the thickening smoke. She smiled into the grotesque hatred consuming her brother’s face. Peace cloaked her at the thought of Cole’s arm curling around her. He’d be holding her, supporting her, if he’d been there, pulling her into the safety of his body.

“Good-bye, sister,” Sebastian said. A split second later, the shot rang out.

She froze, waiting for the pain, stunned as her brother’s head exploded and his lifeless body slumped to the floor. She screamed. A hulking shadow fell over the doorway, followed by the staggering bulk of a man holding her cat in an arm that was hanging at an odd angle, blood soaking through his T-shirt to run everywhere. He had her father’s revolver in the other hand.

“Cole!” She raced to him and relieved him of Esme. Her eyes streaming with tears, she threw her free arm around his neck. “How? How are you here?”

“No more giving up, darlin’.” He pulled her close with his good arm and buried his face in her hair. “I’ll never give up on us again.”

“Oh, Cole. I love you.” She kissed him, running her hand over his body, finding where the bullet had torn through his T-shirt and ripped at the muscles in his massive shoulder. “I thought you were dead! I thought I’d never have the chance to make you believe how much we still belong together. But I tried to make it out, for you, even though the thought of going on was killing me. Because I love you, Cole. I’ll always love you, no matter how hard that is for you to believe. I’ll never let you go again. You hear me? Oh, God, I really thought you were dead.”

He kissed her back, taking care with the cut on her lip, his blue gaze promising her the forever she’d dreamed of.

“I love you, too,” he growled. “You’re not getting rid of me, Shaw Cassidy. Not this time. Not ever again. You hear me? I don’t care what happens next, or how angry I make you, or how much you make me want to pull my hair out. I’ll never back off again. You’re stuck with me.”