We were led out of the basement by Ryan and another member of the team, caging us both in. We went up several flights of dark concrete stairs until we came upon a wide-open metal door that led to a bright rectangle of daylight.
The two men maneuvered us over the blacktop and through a patch of parking lot that was littered with black SUVs, SWAT vans, and cop cars. They brought us to an ambulance with another set of paramedics.
One started to mess with my eye wound, but I waved them off. “Take care of my sister.” I lifted my chin to Addison who was now barely standing. She was visibly dehydrated, her skin green and grimy. The wounds up and down her arms would need serious treatment. For now, the paramedic simply wrapped her from wrist to bicep.
“Miss, you’re bleeding from your head. You have a rather large gash above your eye that will not only need stitches but could get infected if we don’t treat you.”
“I don’t give a fuck about me!” I roared in her face. My body got hot and then icy cold as I started to shake.
Out of nowhere, a presence unlike any other came up behind me. A masculine arm looped around my waist and tugged me back against a very warm, familiar, and beloved body. I felt him surround me in a bubble of peace and serenity as his lips came to my ear.
“Baby, let her take care of you, yeah?”
Tears fell from my good eye and I slowly turned around at hearing his voice.
Jonah was there. His expression was ravaged with fear and concern but still was more handsome and welcoming than anything else could possibly be.
One of his hands came up and tunneled into the back of my hair curling around my nape. The other hovered over my face tracing the damage. Tears filled his dark eyes but didn’t fall as he winced then let his hand curl around my waist. His voice was broken and barely a whisper when he spoke. “I was so scared I’d lost you, and I’d only just found you.”
That was it. All I could take.
It was all too damned much.
Tabby was dead.
Addison had been tortured.
Jonah had lost Helen.
I almost lost him. This perfect soul. The other half to my broken one.
And that was when I threw my arms around him, shoved my face into his neck, and soaked up his woodsy and fresh linen scent until there was nothing else but him surrounding me with protection and love.
Jonah Fontaine.
The man for me.
The man I loved.
And I wasn’t going to wait even a moment before sharing this revelation with him. It wouldn’t be right. Not after everything we’d gone through. Not after what Tabitha sacrificed in order for me to have this.
“I love you, Jonah.”
“Baby, Jesus.” He locked his arms around me. “Christ, Simone. I’ve loved you since you lost your mind on the ferris wheel, so wrapped up in kissing me you forgot where you were.”
He has loved me since our first date. I convulsed against his frame, body-wracking sobs pouring from me in endless waves. But he didn’t let me go. He held on tight. Gave me what I needed until I found enough strength to pull myself together. Once I had, he led me to the paramedics, but held my hand as they tended to me. Then Jonah got the paramedics to load me and Addy into the same ambulance, saying something about the FBI needing us together and he’d be our escort.
Whatever he had to do to keep us together, he did. Putting me and Addy as his priority, making sure we felt safe after the horror we’d just experienced.
I loved him even more because of it.
Turns out, getting whopped upside the head is the reason I’d been so nauseous. I had a full-blown concussion from taking the hit to the temple. I’d been seen, stitched up, bandaged, and given instructions on how to deal with this new ailment.
Not that I gave two shits. My focus was entirely on seeing Addison and finding out how Sonia was.
Dutifully, Jonah brought me to Addison’s room where my entire family was stationed. They’d put Addison in a private room instead of handling her in the ER because she was related to a senator and we were informed the news vans were already parked outside. I’d seen Mama Kerri when I was being checked out in the ER but not the rest of my sisters.
I was bum-rushed by Sonia first. When she wrapped her arms around me, I returned her hold just as tight.
“I love you, SoSo,” I croaked into her hair, emotion coating my throat.
She sniffed, nodded, and pulled back. “I love you more than anything.” She smiled half-heartedly but I figured for a long time the Kerrighan clan would be half-alive after sustaining such a loss.
Mama Kerri was next. Heartbreak and grief felt thick in the very air around her form. It would take us all a long time to find any sort of peace after Tabby’s loss.
Blessing, Liliana, Charlie, and Genesis each hugged me. I told every last one of them that I loved them, needing them to know it and hear it from my lips.
“Rory?” I scanned the space and didn’t see my niece.
“Aunt Delores has her at Kerrighan House,” Genesis confirmed.
After the round of hugs, I went over to Addy’s bed. She was staring vacantly out the window even in a room filled with her family.
“Hey, sis. How you doin’?” I took her hand, careful not to touch the bulky bandages running up both arms from wrist to bicep.
She blinked slowly and turned her head toward me as if she’d just realized someone was there and holding her hand.
“I’m alive,” was all she said. Though it sure as hell didn’t sound like she was any happier for it.
“Yeah. Me too,” I said flatly. There was no judgement. No score. No positives in any of it.
We’d made it out alive. Tabby did not. Now the two of us had to live with those circumstances.
“Do you remember her last words?” I asked softly.
She nodded. “My love will never die.” The phrase left her chapped lips as though each word sliced straight through her heart.
“And it won’t. We’ll make sure of it,” I promised.
A tear slipped down Addy’s cheek. “No. Her love will never die, and ours for her won’t either.”
I swallowed down the cotton lodged in my throat. “She died so we could live.”
Addy nodded.
“How do we live with that knowledge?” I whispered, not knowing how the hell to carry on without our sister there.
“I don’t know. One day at a time, I guess.” She sighed deeply.
I squeezed her hand. “One day at a time.”
And that is when Addison and I formed our own connection. It went beyond the sisterhood, beyond our family by choice. We’d survived something together. Something life changing. Our lives had been threatened, we’d suffered tremendous loss, but we’d made it out alive.
We’d been saved.
Spared.
When Tabitha sacrificed it all for us, she’d connected us in a way others might never understand. She’d given us a gift—one we could neither take back nor return. We’d have to carry it with us forever.
I looked at Addy. For a long time, we stared into one another’s eyes, both lost to thoughts of our fallen sister.
Mama Kerri walked to the side of Addison’s bed and sat down and took her other hand. Jonah came up behind me.
“You ready to go home?” he asked.
I frowned and a fissure of fear skated up my spine.