I couldn’t move. I felt Derick get up, but I couldn’t. Feeling sorry for myself, I lay there and wallowed in my bad luck and pitiful life. Why couldn’t anything go right for me?
“Jade, you can sit up.” Derick patted my back.
Shaking my head, I curled into a ball and cried.
“No, no. Jade, please don’t cry. We’re safe now. David, Brand, and Owen won’t let anything happen to us.”
Who was Owen? I only knew about David and Brand. “What’s happening?” I whispered.
“Argh, Stephan owes me big time.” Derick eased me up. “Are you sure you want to hear it from me? I mean, Stephan should be the one telling this to you.”
Derick was right but I needed something to think about other than what just happened—almost getting shot. “We have time.”
“Has Stephan told you what my family does for a living?”
“You buy things. I know your dad was buying an apartment building. Stephan said your family has your hands in a bit of everything.”
“That’s about right. The Silverman’s are an old money family. We originate from Russia. The story goes we fled with everything we could when the royal family was killed. We changed our name to English. The rest as they say is history.”
I raised my eyebrow. I knew he wasn’t telling me everything. “That’s why you need the bodyguards and people shoot at you?”
“Well, we sometimes piss people off when we buy things or sell something. Also people think if they kidnap one of us they can get a ransom.” Derick shrugged like everything he’d just told me wasn’t a big thing.
“So why were they shooting at me too? I’m not a Silverman.”
“Yes you are.”
“I may be living with you, but I’m not a Silverman.”
“You’re a Silverman now. Stephan claimed you. You’re his, which makes you a Silverman forever.”
“You do know your brother’s reputation?”
“Yep. But there’s another thing Stephan should have told you, but now it looks like I’m going to have to. When a Silverman finds their one, their soul mate, they never stray. The Silvermans have what Stephan calls a curse, I call it a gift. The story is in the old country we helped save a group of gypsies, and they gifted us with prosperity and the ability to know our soul mate. Great, you say, well they forgot to mention when we find our soul mate we turn into possessive cavemen.”
“So you’re saying I’m Stephan’s soul mate?” I highly doubted what Derick was saying, but it was keeping my mind off everything that happened.
“That’s what I’m saying. So when he was getting rid of that chick, he was doing it because there is no other woman now for Stephan other than you.”
“Uh-huh, if you say so.” I don’t know if I believed Derick but it would be nice.
*****
Stephan
I was alerted when the gates opened and stood waiting at the kitchen’s garage entrance. Brand was at the hospital with Owen, they’d been hit by bullets while protecting Derick and Jade. I was furious with myself for not being there. What the hell had happened? Who the hell had shot at my woman and brother?
Dad had been on the phone with my uncles for the last half an hour eliminating suspects. The annoying thing was the list of who it could be was growing quite large.
The SUV drove into the garage and parked. I didn’t even wait until David turned it off before I opened the back doors. Derick sat with his arms around Jade. I didn’t care he was touching Jade. I just needed to know she was all right. Derick got out and I gathered Jade to me, surprised when she clung to my body snuggling into my embrace. Lifting her, I cradled Jade in my arms, went to the family room, and sat on the sofa.
“I heard your evening got even more eventful. Are you hurt anywhere?” I ran my hands over her checking she was safe and needing to touch her, to feel her.
“Just grazed knees and shook up, otherwise unhurt. How is Brand and the other guy…Owen?”
“They’ll be fine.” I didn’t know how much she knew so I didn’t say they were shot but will be okay.
Mum rushed in. “Oh are you both alright?” She gathered Derick, who had just come into the room, to her looking him over. “You look safe. What about you, Jade?” Mum gazed at Jade.
“I’m safe. Brand covered me when the shooting started. I have lived in the neighborhood all my life. I’ve never been shot at before. I don’t even think I’ve ever heard shots.”
Mum came over and patted Jade’s legs. “You’re safe here, sweetie. I hope you never have to hear that sound again.”