Love's Protector: A Maverick's Shield Novel (33 page)

“That was me that hired them stupid!” Angela said as she wiped her face again with the back of her hand. “Since I had no intentions on ever letting them see who I was I figured I could set her up again by telling them I was her just in case they snitched.”

As more tears formed in Amour’s eyes, this time fueled from anger, Pierce began to walk in her direction. “Oh sweetheart, don’t cry. Daddy’s here…”

Jason stepped in front of him blocking his path to her. “Move any closer to her and I’ll kill you right where you stand!”

“I just want to talk to her.”

“Do it from right here and
you’d better watch what you say to her because I have very little patience for you right now.”

“Honey, none of this matters anymore. We can now be a family and you can come live with Caroline and me now.”

“Daddy, no!” Caroline shouted from behind.

“Shhh sweetheart.
Daddy’s talking to you sister now.”

“She’s not my fucking sister! I hate her!”

“Don’t you dare say that again Caroline! Now you apologize to your sister!”

Jason looked as if he’d had enough. “Look! Here’s what’s gonna happen here. Alex and I are going to get Amour out of here and the three of you are going to prison or if it were up to me the psych ward because all of you are crazy as hell.”

Jason waved his gun in all three of their directions. “Now whoever has the key to those chains on Amour, give it to me now!”

Angela laughed softly. “There isn’t one.”

“What do you mean there isn’t one?”

“I destroyed it,” Angela said with a smirk.

A loud bang at the door took them all by surprise causing their attention to go towards it. “It’s us boss! Open up!”

Pierce smiled. “Come on in guys!” When the door swung open, Pierce looked at Jason again.  “No son, you’ve got it all wrong, I’m not going to prison or anywhere else for that matter and neither are my daughters; you and your buddy are.”

Jason glanced at the three large men that entered the room carrying guns and then back at Pierce. “Is this supposed to scare us? We have guns as well.”

“Yes but you’re outnumbered. Face it son, you won’t be able to touch me because I’ve got connections all over this state. If I do get arrested I’ll be out by tomorrow morning. How do you think I’ve manage to keep a murder under wraps for almost thirty years? I did it then and I can do it now. All it will take is a little cash and a little “evidence” being planted in certain places. I’ll have the two of you looking guilty as sin in no time.” Pierce squatted down to pick up Angela’s gun and pointed it at Jason. “Take their weapons and frisk them. They may be hiding more.”

Two of the men confiscated Alex and Jason’s guns and spent a few more seconds searching them. Jason was frisked first. “Nothing else on this one.” The other man then frisked Alex and found his other gun in his waist band and confiscated it. “This one has another piece boss.”

Pierce took the gun from the guard and tossed it across the room. “Good, now shoot them.”

The three men pointed their guns again well prepared to kill them at any second. When Jason and Alex glanced at each other, Amour could tell that they had something up their sleeves but it didn’t stop her from being scared to death and shaking so much the chains on her arms rattled.

Pierce walked up to Amour. “Say good bye to your boyfriend honey.” When she turned away from him, he ran his finger down her cheek. “Don’t worry princess, you’re Carly’s daughter. You’re exquisite just like her, they’ll be plenty more men to choose from.”

The hammers of the three guns pointed at Jason and Alex clicked and they took one more glance at each other. A few seconds later, they abruptly charged at two of guards grabbing their wrists and twisting them hard causing them to drop their weapons. Gun shots were fired causing everyone in the room to duck for cover. Amour heard a series of screams and items being knocked to the floor. Since she was chained to the wall, all she could do was scoot towards a large medal table next to her and cover herself with it as much as the shackles would allow her too. It was so much commotion going on; she didn’t even know if Jason and Alex were okay. Even though Jason would’ve wanted her to stay covered, she had to see what was going on. She opened her eyes to see Jason whipping a switch blade out of his waist band which she had no idea he carried and slitting the throat of one of the men. Alex followed suit by slitting the throat of one of the other two.

Pierce fired another shot at Jason as he bent down to pick up one of the guns. He quickly dropped to his knees and fired two shots in Pierce’s direction with one of them hitting him in the chest causing him to fall to the floor. The third man managed to get three shots off before Alex landed one of his own into the man’s neck severing his jugular, but not before a bullet pierced Alex’s thigh causing him to fall in agony.

Caroline rose to her feet and ran to her father’s side kneeling beside him. “Noooo! Daddy!” She looked up at Jason giving him the most evil look a person could ever give to another human being. Her breathing became rapid as she rose back to her feet and slid her hand in the pocket of her jeans. “I’m going fucking kill you!” She ran towards Jason in a fit of rage nearly knocking him over when they collided causing his gun to fly out of his hand and onto the floor.

He pushed her off of him but she continued to scream and charge at him again and again. Amour had never seen a woman filled with so much rage in her life. She was completely out of control. Tears ran uncontrollably down Caroline’s cheeks as she continued to attack Jason. She clenched on to his forearm with her fingers digging her nails into it as she lifted her other hand to his bicep. Jason gritted his teeth and groaned in pain. Amour could see that Caroline was holding something when her arm fell to her side. After she’d seen the item partially sticking out of Caroline’s closed fist
and she’d managed to hop on Jason’s back, she knew exactly what Caroline was about to do.

“No!” Amour screamed as she watched the needle penetrate Jason’s skin and Caroline pump the liquid inside of him before hopping off of his back. Jason stood quietly as he began to lose the use of his muscles; then after about twenty seconds, he fell to the floor. Everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion to Amour. She gasped for breath knowing that Jason only had about twenty minutes to get medical treatment or he was going to die. Her heart once again started to beat so hard it felt like it would bust straight through her chest. “Jason!” she cried out before suddenly feeling another slap across her face but this time the pain felt like it seeped into her brain.

“Shut up! You killed my father! So now I’m going to kill you!”

Angela came from out of the corner and ran towards Caroline. “Do it! Do it now!”

She looked at Angela with the same evil expression she’d given Jason. Shut up! I hate you too! You’re nothing but a slut just like Carly!”

Amour looked over at Jason lying on the floor. She watched his eyes close as life slowly began leave him. “Please don’t die…” she mumbled to herself. The fact that she knew he could feel every bit of the suffering he was going through instantly made her cry even more. She tried to emotionally send him enough strength to hold on before focusing her attention back to what was going on.

Caroline was now pointing her gun at Angela. “Come on sweetie.” Angela said.  “I’m your Aunt Angie, remember? You don’t want to do this.”

Without saying a single word, Caroline fired one shot straight through Angela’s head and she dropped to the floor. She turned to Amour and pointed the gun at her again. “You’re next bitch!”

The door swung open again causing it bang against the wall and in came five uniformed cops along with Mack and Jax. Alex tried to lift up by couldn’t so he laid back and clenched his teeth. “It’s about time! What took you so long?” 

“Hey we got here as fast as we can. You didn’t call us until you were almost here.” Mack said.

All of the cops pointed their guns at Caroline. “Drop your weapon!” one of them said. Caroline said nothing; she just continued to point the gun at Amour. Anger along with tears filled her brown eyes as she just stood there, gun in hand staring at her target. “I said put it down!” the officer screamed.

After a few seconds, Caroline looked around the room, down at Angela lying dead on the floor and then at her father in the same condition. She looked at Amour again as more tears filled her eyes but this time it
wasn’t anger she saw in them, it was sadness. Suddenly, a strange calm seemed to have come over Caroline and she took a deep breath and blinked once. “Lots of people think that I’m so lucky.” She shook her head. “No, I’m not. You’re the lucky one because Ted was smart enough to rescue you. What no one told you was that your mother broke up with my father years before she died. She didn’t want you to be a part of his lifestyle because she saw what it had done to me. I hated you for that, for being rescued, I still do.” She took another deep breath.  “Angela lied to me and Beatrice at that time and told us that my father had started sleeping with her again. Now I know it wasn’t true but I will never accept you as my sister.” She chuckled. “Too bad the baby died right along with Carly because you probably would’ve actually had a real one.”

Amour frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“She was knocked up by Ted when I killed her.”

Amour became instantly lightheaded and soon felt as if she were going to pass out. She began to feel so many different emotions that she didn’t know which one to act on. This was all too much. She felt like she was in the Twilight Zone. When she heard the ramblings of what sounded like medics approaching, she quickly snapped back into reality. Thank god. As much as she wanted to call Caroline ever swear word in the English language, Amour knew that she was obviously unstable and the slightest thing could set her off. She had to keep her cool especially for Jason’s sake. He had to get medical treatment and he didn’t have much time to do so. “Caroline, please don’t hurt the medical workers. Please let them save Jason.”

She lowered the gun. “Whatever, I don’t’ care if he dies.”

Two of the cops moved two steps closer to Caroline as the medics rushed in and lifted Jason onto a stretcher. “Ma’am please put the gun down or we’ll be forced to use excessive force!”

Caroline looked at her father’s body again and then her eyes went back to Amour. Raising the gun up again, Amour knew without a doubt that she would surely kill her now but instead, she pointed it at her own head. Amour’s eyes widened as Caroline looked directly into them. Her lips parted before she softly spoke. “So, very, lucky…” Before Amour could take another breath, Caroline pulled the trigger and she also fell to the floor.

* * *

Amour paced back and forth in the waiting room of the E.R. scared to death that Jason wouldn’t make it out of there alive. When the ambulance had arrived with him, he was completely unconscious and his heart rate was very low. It had been about an hour since the doctor had come out and told them that it was a very good chance that the drug had done too much damage to save him. The thought of him leaving her after everything they’d gone through made her whole body start to tremble.

“Hey,” Mack said softly in her ear after touching her on the shoulder. “He’s gonna make it okay. I know Jason and if anyone’s a fighter, it’s him.”

“But the doctor said…”

“Doesn’t matter,” he interrupted. “Jason will be fine.”

“This is my fault Mack; this and Chandra’s death as well. I’m so sorry I caused all of this.” Tears formed in her eyes. “Because of me you’ve lost her and now you’re going lose one of your best friends.”

“That’s not true Amour!” He lifted her face to his. “If you had just simply hired him for a job then it probably would’ve been the same outcome. It comes along with what we do. Chandra’s death had nothing to do with you. She made the choice to help you because she thought that it would bring her and me closer together. If anybody needs to take the blame for that it’s me. I should’ve just been honest and not led her on.”

“Didn’t you love her?”

“I did, but not in the same way that she loved me. I used to but after she cheated on me, I just couldn’t fully give my heart to her again because I couldn’t trust her. I should’ve just let her go but I guess the selfish part of me wanted to keep her around because she provided me with what I needed most of the time. Sometimes, she was the only person I could count on.”

Alex and Jax approached them with four cups of coffee and a large box of donuts. “Any word?” Alex asked.

“Not since the last time,” Mack said.

The four of them grabbed a cup and sat on the sofas in the corner of the small room. Amour sat her coffee on the table because she just couldn’t bring herself to drink it, her stomach was in knots. She dropped her face in the palms of her hands. “I can’t lose him.”

Alex put his arm around her shoulders allowing her to rest her head on his chest. “You won’t, just have faith okay.”

Two hours of agonizing waiting had passed before the doctor returned to update them. The four of them quickly rose to their feet and waited for him to speak. “It was a very close call but I think we’ve managed to stop the progression of his muscle paralysis in time to save him. It turns out that whoever injected him with the drug didn’t put as much in him as we previously thought. Don’t get me wrong, had not received medical intervention for any longer then he did, he wouldn’t be alive and there’s still a strong possibility that he could go into cardiac arrest but for now he seems to be stabilizing.”