Carter Reed Part 19

There was no answer. Carter took my hand and led the way. When we stepped inside a s.p.a.cious foyer, he pulled me into a back room and closed the door. "I need you to do me a favor."

"Why are we here? Why aren't we home?"

He stepped close and dropped his voice, "That's part of the favor I need from you. I don't trust your friend. I can't let her go on her own and I couldn't bring them to our home, so this was the next best choice. Everyone's on lockdown for the next twenty-four hours. There's no cell phone or internet connection here. I have one television, but that's it." He turned my shoulders so that I faced him squarely. "Emma, I need you to watch your friend for me."

"Theresa?" Alarm rose in me. "Why?"

"I killed a man. She was already in the car, but she could've seen. I need to know what she saw and what she's thinking about it."

"You mean if she'll report you?" No, she wouldn't. I frowned. She couldn't, this was Carter. My Carter. "She knows you're friends with Noah and she knows about us."

"You said yourself that she's never approved of my connections and she doesn't like my friendship with Noah." He frowned a little and touched my hip to pull me closer. His head dropped to my neck, his favorite spot. His lips brushed against my skin as he murmured, "I killed a man in front of her. I know she considered him a friend. I'd kill him again."

Shivers coursed through me, but they weren't the bad kind. They should've been, but they weren't. I held my breath, closing my eyes as his hand explored under my shirt. It traveled up, nearing my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It stopped underneath my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His fingers slid under my bra and rested there. My chest rose as I wanted him to continue touching me.

He grinned against my neck and moved back to meet my gaze. His eyes were lidded, heavy with desire. "I would do it again in a heartbeat. He was sent to kill you, Emma."

The image of him holding his gun flashed in my mind. A heavy feeling rested over my chest. "Why? He worked for you, didn't he?"

He hesitated, removing his hand and stepped back.

I was cold without his touch. "Carter."

He grimaced. "I forgot he was friends with Noah and Theresa. I had hoped to keep him away from you." He paused for a beat. "He was selling information to Franco."

"What? Why would you-how long have you known that?"

"It's why he was working for me. We were watching him and Octave was the best place for him to work. All of my businesses are legit, but he didn't know that."

"Wait. You stuck him at Octave so that he could give information to Franco?"

He chuckled, shaking his head. "No, we stuck him there because there was no information to give. Anywhere else and he would've been suspicious, but Octave doesn't strike people as being vanilla. That's what it is, though." His grin fell flat. "He's the one who told Franco where you were. He's why we were attacked the first time."

"But..." That meant that they had been looking for me...not Jeremy's body anymore...

"Yeah," he sighed. "They knew, Emma. They knew it was you."

Ben gave me enough money.

Ice ran through my veins. My mouth fell open as my breathing slowed.

He looked happy last week. He thought he was hot stuff.

I stopped breathing. It couldn't be, but it had to be. No way. I felt gutted. Someone had taken a knife and slid it across my throat before they reared back for one deep thrust. A sick sensation started to fill me and I began to tremble.

"Emma?"

I shook my head. It couldn't be, but he said it himself.

"Emma!" His hand grasped the back of my head. He forced me to look at him. "What's going on?"

"You," I gasped out. I couldn't talk.

"Me?"

"You said-it was Ben. Ben told them." Ben gave me enough money. Oh G.o.d. I closed my eyes. A raging headache had started. It was going to split me open. Mallory and Ben are gone. Panic overwhelmed me and I couldn't breathe. I opened my mouth to draw in oxygen, but none came. My lungs had stopped worked. I pounded on my chest, blinded, feeling more and more panic suffocating me. It was taking over me. I couldn't see.

Carter cursed and lifted me in his arms. He was taking me somewhere. My mouth was gaping open as I desperately tried to draw in oxygen. Nothing. I started to thrash around. Oh G.o.d. Oh G.o.d.

Then water hit me. It was freezing, but it dosed the storm inside of me. Screaming, I lunged away from it, but Carter held me in place. He bent to change the temperature with his arms around me. His body trapped me in place and I tried crawling over him to get away. A second later the water warmed and my chest rose up and down at a steadier rate. I was calming down.

"What's wrong with her?" Theresa asked from a distance.

Mallory and Ben are gone.

I shook my head. I couldn't get Amanda's voice out of my head. It was him. He had sold me out.

Ben gave me enough money.

He gave her money to take care of my things.

My feet gave way as I realized what that meant. He knew-he wanted my things put away. He paid for my things, mine and Mallory's, to be stored away. Did he know what they were going to do? He had to know.

"Emma?" Carter held me now.

I looked up at the concern in his voice. He was gazing down at me, his eyes already knowing. What did he know?

"Emma? Are you okay?" Theresa stood at the shower door. She was pale and her bottom lip was quivering. She held onto the door handle, but her hand was shaking.

I spoke, raw of emotion, "You told me he would sell me out."

Carter closed his eyes. His shoulders dropped and a breath left him. He knew.

He'd been right. I had even hoped for it, but knowing it happened-feeling it now. It was different. I couldn't have been prepared for the betrayal.

"Who sold you out?" Her hand started to rattle the shower door know. "What's going on?"

I held Carter's gaze. The world fell away underneath my feet. I didn't feel the water anymore. "He told them, didn't he?"

He nodded.

Reaching for him, my hands held onto his shoulders and he lifted me from the shower. He walked us both out and into a bedroom. Setting me back on my feet, he walked into the bathroom. Theresa touched my hand, her eyes grew wide when she felt my coldness.

She whispered, "What's going on, Emma?"

Carter came back with towels. He handed one to me as he took a second to wrap around my body. Then he started drying off himself as he went back out the door.

"Emma?"

Ben sold me out. He was paid to sell me out, but what about Mallory? They were gone. Where had they gone? Was she okay?

Theresa inched closer and dropped her voice, "I know he killed Scott. Don't worry, Emma. I'm going to call the police. I know you're infatuated with him, but he's not good for you. I'm going to take care of it. I'm going to get you away from him."

I looked at her, but felt detached from myself. It was like I was watching us from a safe distance, outside of my body. I watched as I said to her, "He was going to kill me."

"No." She shook her head. "I won't let him. I won't let him hurt you."

"Scott Graham was going to kill me. Carter saved my life."

Her eyes widened. Then narrowed. "You're in shock. I can see that. You don't know what happened-"

My hand latched onto her arm and held it in a death grip.

She cried out and then tried to pry my fingers off her arm, one at a time. She glanced to my face and back again to her arm, back and forth, back and forth. Her eyebrows furrowed together and she bit her lip. "Emma, you don't know what you're saying. You think you're in love with him, but you're not. You're blinded by his looks and his power. He's dangerous, Emma. He's very dangerous."

"He's my family."

She got three of my fingers off, but they latched back on. She sighed. "Okay. Okay, Emma. I can see this is going to take longer than I thought. Don't say anything to him. He's going to come back any moment-"

"I killed someone."

My words silenced her. Her arm dropped to her side and she staggered back a step. "Wha-what did you say?"

"I'm protecting her."

She whirled around to see Carter in the doorway. A grim expression was on his face and he held dry clothes in his arms. Then he walked around me and peered close. "Her eyes are glazed over."

"She's in shock. She thinks she killed someone."

"She did," he snapped at her and tossed the clothes on the bed. "Leave and I'll take care of her."

She snorted. "Yeah, right. You might be buddies with Noah and you might've known Emma in a previous life, but I'm not leaving you alone with her. Not one second-"

"Noah." Carter turned to the doorway.

"What?!" she squeaked as she was lifted in the air. Noah had been waiting in the background. He stepped forward, grabbed Theresa, and left the room with her. Carter called after them, "She can't leave. Not yet."

"I know," Noah's voice lashed out at him, over his shoulder.

The door was slammed shut a second later, and I turned towards Carter. I was still detached from my body, but he lifted his hand to my face. He cupped the side of it and ran his thumb over my cheek before he murmured, softly, "Come back to me."

I shook my head. It was safer where I was.

"Come back to me." He moved closer. His voice was a sensual caress against my skin. "Come back to me."

I shook my head. It was better not to feel. There was no fear. No one betrayed me when I was like this.

Then he rested his forehead against mine and breathed out, "Please, Emma. I need you with me. I love you."

I closed my eyes and the hurt seeped back into me. Everything hurt at once. It was too much, but I opened them again and I saw the relief in his. His hand closed around mine, and he tucked some of my hair behind my ear. I couldn't handle it, not all of it, and I felt myself numbing again. Then I stepped back. I couldn't do this if he was touching me. And I knew that I needed to hear it all. "Tell me what's going on."

He nodded, a look of surrender coming over him. "You're not going to like some of it."

"I have to know."

"Okay." He waited until I sat and then he started. "I told you before that I had an inside man with Franco, but I stopped hearing from him right before our first attack. He texted me that Ben sold you out so I doubled your guards after that, but I don't think you noticed. Then when we were attacked, I knew something had happened to him. He would've let me know ahead of time."

"They killed him?"

He nodded. "His body surfaced yesterday. It was delivered to one of the Mauricio houses."

I sucked in my breath. There was more. I knew there was more. "What else?"

He hesitated, tense, and then asked, "Are you sure you want to hear all of this?"

"I have to." I had no other choice. "Mallory's gone, Carter. I'm really hoping that Ben took his money and split with her, but I need to know for sure. That means that I have to know everything. You have to tell me everything. Please."

He didn't wait another second. "Your friend Ben went to Franco and told him that you were the killer. He didn't know about me or what happened with the body, but they'd been looking for Mallory. They knew Jeremy Dunvan had been seeing a regular girlfriend. He knew it was only a matter of time before they found her, so he gave them your name for some money and her safety guaranteed." A hard look came over him. His wolf eyes turned into ice. "He was stupid. They're planning to kill him anyways, if they haven't already."

"You know this from your inside guy?"

"And we know that Scott Graham told Franco you were at the club. He didn't know that I'd be there too or that you'd be going home with me. They can't get to you when you're in my buildings. It's why we've been attacked twice on the streets. After the first attack, we were going to take Scott to the warehouse for an interrogation." He stopped for a second. "That's what we do before someone's killed."

They were going to kill Scott, but they didn't. "What happened?" I never blinked.

"We needed to know more and I figured my guy was dead so we left Scott where he was. He was being kept around to see if he'd be useful to us. His time ran up tonight. Gene came in to take him to the warehouse, but he got free somehow."

"Why tonight?" My heart sped up.

"Because everything was going to be done tonight."

"What?"

He started to pace as his hand raked through his hair. His wet shirt had started to dry, but it was lifted up from the movement. It stuck to his skin and remained there. As I watched him go back and forth, his muscles tightened with tension. Suddenly dread started to fill me. Aside from the attack and stampede that Scott's gun had started, there were other events going on. Events, I was starting to realize, that had been in the making for awhile.

I stood slowly, dismay filling me more and more until I was standing in front of him. I stopped him, holding onto his arm. "What was supposed to happen tonight?"

"Franco Dunvan was supposed to die tonight."

"By you?"

He shook his head, his jaw clenching and unclenching. "By his own family."

"Just tell me. Explain it to me."

"I've been in Chicago since last weekend." He paused for a beat. "Do you know who lives in Chicago?"

"No."