Stepbrother Thief(117)

“It's the least I could do,” he tells me, voice dropping, eyes half-lidded and focused on my face. When he scoots his chair forward and pulls mine out to face him, I feel a small smile creep over my mouth. “After everything I put you through, I definitely owe you.”

I raise a brow as Gill leans in and cups the back of my head, brushing a scorching kiss to my lips.

“Are you offering to make things up to me with your body? Because if so, I'm in.”

Gill's grin is bright enough to chase away the shadows of the past, to put a smile on my face and send my heart racing. Oh God, this was so worth it. I run my tongue over my lips and watch as Gilleon follows the motion with his eyes. I think I'm short a few self-talks today, so I throw some in for us for good measure. We're going to be so happy together. We're going to have a good life, a great one.

I'm about to give in and let Gill try really, really hard to make things up to me when he pauses, his entire body going stiff as he raises his head up and looks toward the front of the house. All I can hear is rain, rain, and more rain, but I'm not about to question my stepbrother's razor sharp instincts. It might just be our neighbor again, but it also might … I shake the thought away and sit quietly.

I don't speak, don't even move. Whatever it is that's piqued Gill's interest, I'll either hear about it after he decides there is no threat or …

“Go upstairs,” he tells me, his eyes darkening as our gazes meet. “Get Cliff and Solène, lock the door to her room and use the attic access to get upstairs. There's a padlock on the inside.” Gill rises to his feet, drawing his gaze away from me and towards the front door. “And take your phone,” he adds, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “Call Aveline, and if she doesn't answer, then call Ewan. I programmed his number into your phone.” Gilleon takes a big breath and blinks those dark blue eyes at me, the color more akin to a midnight sky than anything else right now. “If I don't come get you in ten minutes or less, call the police.”

I blink back at him in shock for a second before setting my wineglass down on the table. Like I did that time in the SUV, I follow his instructions, trusting that in this, at least, he knows what he's talking about.

Pistols still in place in his shoulder holster, Gill stands up and moves around me towards the front door, muscles tense and hard beneath the fabric of his shirt. He moves like a jungle cat, all grace and agility. I stand, too—much less agilely, I might add—turning to watch him for a second before I start up the back staircase.

Just a false alarm, I tell myself. That's all this is. Wishful thinking on my part, I'm sure, but I can't help but pray that I'm right.

As my fingers curl around the railing, I hear it: a knock at the door.

Crap.

I guess when you live in Gill's world, a knock at midnight is never a good sign.

I start up the stairs, pausing when I hear the front door open, Aveline's voice drifting to me along with a gust of cold air. If she'd sounded even the least bit normal, I'd have backtracked down the stairs and poured myself another glass of wine, started some water boiling on the stove and cooked up some pasta.

Nothing that normal's going to happen here tonight.

I retreat a few steps, just enough to glance around the corner.

My heart stops dead in my chest.

Holy. Shit.

I watch in disbelief as Gill slams and locks the door behind Aveline, his gaze narrowed in on her bloodied body as she leans heavy against the wall near the staircase, smearing a hazy red shadow across everything.

“You did it anyway, didn't you?” he asks, and my heart stutters back to life, pounding with a sudden rush of adrenaline. I know I should head up the stairs, grab my stepfather and my daughter and hide, but I can't stop watching as Aveline slides to the floor with a groan, her right hand curled around her waist, staunching the flow of blood. And oh my God, the blood. It's everywhere: in her hair, on her clothes, streaking down the wall behind her. There's so much of it that it's hard to make sense of the mess her face has become. Somebody really laid into Aveline tonight, took some teeth, left some bruises, turned her eyes into swollen lumps of blue-purple flesh.

When she doesn't answer Gill's question, groaning instead, blood spilling over her lower lip, he bends down and takes her by the shoulder. “How much time do we have before they get here?”

My stomach roils, and I clamp a hand over my mouth.

“Should I call an ambulance?” I mumble past my nausea, snapping Gill's attention back to me. His eyes are wide and the skin on his face is tight and strained.

“Upstairs,” he growls, his face twisting into a snarl—not at me but in fear for me. I try not to take offense. “Go, now, please.” It's that last word that gets me, spurring me up the stairs as fast as my heels can go.