Bound for Nirvana: (The Bound Trilogy Book 3) (37 page)

I watched until they finally closed and the madness quieted. My body shuddered as I heaved in desperate breaths and turned to look at the destruction in what had once been my home, my haven. My father lay lifeless on the floor to my right, but as I turned toward where I’d stood a few moments before, when Rebecca had trained her gun at my head, my heart splintered into a thousand pieces.

Jackson was lying on the floor, blood spatter covering the wall and floor behind him. He’d pushed me out of the way of the flying bullet—he’d saved my life. I fell to my knees and buried my face in my hands, unable to look at the devastation around me, once again caused by my own evasion of death.

“Please no, please no, please no,” I whispered the prayer over and over, and then suddenly I heard my name.

“Angel? I’m okay.”

Daring to believe what I was hearing, I peered through my fingers as Jackson lifted his head and shoulders from the floor, trying to pull himself into a sitting position. The bullet had entered his shoulder and his hand was pressed to the wound in an attempt to stem the blood flow.

Relief flooded me, and just as I was about to scramble to my feet to go to him, I saw his eyes widen and focus on the space behind me. Rebecca.

“I’m not done yet.” Her words were staggered but steeped in unmistakable depravity and cold-blooded evil. “I’m going to finish what I came here to do.”

Angling my head to look, I watched as she pulled herself to her feet, the gun trained with a quaking hand, once again, at my head.

“And what’s that?” The sound of Ethan’s tremulous voice was like that of a divine entity, searing my heart with hope and love.

He entered the room slowly, body tense, hands fisting by his sides, jaw muscles bunching under his pallid, sweat-soaked face. With eyes wide with fear and fury alike, he glanced once at Jackson, before searching the room frantically until he found what he was looking for. He scanned every inch of me, his gaze taking in the injury to my head and my tear-and-blood-streaked face. When his eyes halted and locked with mine, his unspoken words were loud and clear. They were words of reassurance, a solemn promise that whatever happened, he was going to protect me.

A strangled sob racked from my overwrought body as tears of love welled in his eyes, and a fresh wave of terror filled my heart. He would protect me—but at what cost? Would the depths of Rebecca’s depravity drive her to tear us apart by whatever means? Even if that meant taking him from me in cruelest way possible?

“Ethan, you came.” Rebecca’s voice was almost giddily childish, as if his arrival was an unexpected but pleasant surprise. She straightened her posture, her expression and demeanor seeming preposterous in light of the circumstances as she attempted to smooth her dress and hair.

Ethan completely blanked her, his gaze never leaving mine as he began to walk slowly, but with purpose toward me.

“Stay back, Ethan!” Her voice was suddenly filled with panic. “I mean it, don’t you dare go near her.”

As if she hadn’t even spoken, he dropped to his knees before me, folding his arms around my trembling body, and I felt myself sag against him in utter depletion. His presence and his strength and the scent of him were an instant antidote to my fear, gently mitigating the ache of the horror surrounding me and preparing me for what was to come. The steady beating of his heart against my chest slowed the erratic pounding of mine, soothing me, grounding me, and I knew if my time was now, if I died in his arms right now—I wasn’t afraid.

As if sensing the restoration of my strength of mind, he tipped his forehead against mine, hands reaching up to cup my face as he leaned in to brush my lips with a gentle kiss. His searching eyes burned with intensity into mine, and I knew that what I saw was a request for my trust. Without hesitation, I responded, a barely perceptible, single nod of acquiescence.

“What are you doing?” Rebecca demanded, her voice laden with desperation. “Get away from her.”

Ethan’s gaze left mine for the first time, his eyes shifting to look up at her, but instead focusing on the unexpected sight of my father’s body lying in a heap on the floor. The shocking vision caused him to take a sharp intake of breath, his countenance reflecting the stark realization of the irreparable horror and destruction Rebecca was capable of inflicting. His eyes shot back to mine, something fleeting and unnamed passing through them.

“I said get away from her!”

“Nobody… comes… between… us.” Ethan’s voice when he spoke was acerbic, filled with a deep, resolute anger. “Not him…” he motioned to my father before fixing her in a stare “…and fucking unequivocally—not you.”

Rebecca blinked, her fury knocked out of her by Ethan’s murderous tone. “But you don’t understand. All this… is
for
you. To prove to you that you belong with me. I would do anything,
anything
to make you happy.”

“It’s you that doesn’t understand, you sick, twisted fuck. The only thing I think about when I look at you is how much I despise you. And if you think I’m going allow you to take away my sole reason for living, you are more fucking deluded than I thought. You’ll have to kill me first before you even get near her.”

The terror of his words sliced through my heart.

Rebecca shook her head, eyes filled with disbelief and panic. “No, you don’t mean that, Ethan, you can’t.”

“Don’t I? Try me.”

“She stole you from me. The fucking bitch deserves to die for what she’s done.” She sounded hysterical now, as if desperate to make him understand.

Ethan’s hand closed tightly around the back of my neck, forcing me to avert my gaze from her as he tucked my head into his shoulder. His arms closed tighter around me, his strong, formidable body creating a shield around mine. “Any bullet that hits her body will penetrate mine as well. You kill her, you kill me.”

“No! I could never kill you.”

“Are you sure? You’d better decide quickly, because the cops are closing in, Rebecca.”

She glanced nervously toward the door. “Leave that bitch here. Come with me, Ethan. I’ll make you happy. I’ll do anything, I promise.”

“You want to make me happy?” His voice was suddenly low and soft, tender almost. She nodded eagerly. “Then I need you to do something for me. Something that will make me happy. Do you understand?”

Again, she nodded. “Anything, I told you.”

“Turn the gun around, Rebecca. Turn it around… and point it to your head.”

“What? No!” I gasped at the horror of his words, fighting to raise my head to beseech him.

But his fingers tightened, his grasp around my neck growing firmer as he pressed my face into his shoulder to prevent me from seeing what was happening. “Do it,” he screamed.

Rebecca didn’t speak, the sound of her uneven breathing seeming to level out into some deep composure, as if the mere suggestion had finally freed her from the agitation clawing its way out of her crazy mind. Out of the silence, I heard Jackson cuss, the expletive hissing from his lips with incredulity.

I waited, my breath held and burning inside my lungs, until finally I felt Ethan nod. His words when he spoke them were a direct order, powerful and authoritative, but barely above a whisper.

“Now… pull the fucking trigger.”

Chapter Nineteen

Six Months Later

It was a perfect spring day. The sun shone from a cloudless blue sky, and a gentle breeze delivered mellifluous wafts of freshly-mowed grass and the promise of summer. The magnificent gardens surrounding Veronica and Richard’s house were inundated with the ever changing colors of the emerging flora. And apart from the muted tones of chatter and laughter coming from the terrace below, it was sublimely peaceful.

Yes, my wedding day was a perfect day.

Today was the first day of the rest of our lives—our married lives. The day I would become Mrs. Angelica Wilde. I smiled to myself, warmed by the thought of taking Ethan’s name. By finally becoming part of a family who welcomed me and who loved me. In a way, it was like taking the final stride away from my past. Accepting the cards it had dealt me and closing the door. At long last, I was moving on.

The last six months had been a steady climb to the summit of acceptance. Understanding and accepting, in whatever way we could, what had happened that day in my apartment.

I’d gone over it in my head a thousand times, wondering what might have happened if Rebecca hadn’t been lying in wait for me that day when my father had followed me back. Would I have given him the time of day or slammed the door in his face? And if I had heard him out, what would he have said? Were the words he spoke to me that day the words of a dying man, grasping his last attempt to make amends? Was the guilt of ruining my life eating away at him, or did it just reveal itself to him because he was bleeding out on my living room floor?

My father had loved me for one day out of my twenty-nine years of existence. On that day he’d asked for my forgiveness and uttered words I’d waited my whole life to hear. When faced with the possibility of me being harmed, he’d responded innately, it seemed. Rushing to my defense, going above and beyond to protect me, even at the cost of his own life. He’d responded like any decent parent. He’d taken the bullet, just like my mom had taken the hit. The irony wasn’t lost on me, that both my parents had died trying to protect me, but the rudimentary fact remained—one had died protecting me from the other.

My father’s dying words had soothed the ache caused by his relentless cruelty. But would they have sufficed if he’d lived? I guess I’d never know.

Under the same scrutiny, I wondered what the outcome could have been if my father hadn’t shown at all that day. Would the bullet that ended his life have ended mine? Would Rebecca have tired waiting for Ethan and killed me? Would Jackson be dead or… Ethan? Ethan had said that the second he’d walked into the apartment and witnessed the depths of her depravity he’d known there was only one possible outcome. He said she’d signed her own death warrant when she made her decision to kill me. The assault on me, her attempted murder of Jackson, and murder of my father were the final lashings of fuel on the already burning inferno of retribution. If she hadn’t pulled the trigger—he would have.

I’d never know what had spawned her madness and her hatred. I only knew that if she’d walked away with her life intact that day, it would most likely mean that I hadn’t. It didn’t assuage the regret I felt that anyone had had to die, but I refused to live another minute of my life with a guilt-laden conscience. Especially for someone who was a victim of their own transgressions.

No, this was the first day of the rest of our lives—it was time to start living.

I pushed away from the doorway of the bedroom balcony where I was leaning and breathed in the wonderful summery scent of flowers. A familiar, sexy-as-sin chuckle drifted up from the terrace below, where our handful of guests were waiting, and I felt an immediate urge to see him. We’d stuck to tradition, and I’d spent the night with Veronica, Abby, and Jia at the house while Ethan had stayed home in Manhattan doing whatever guys do the night before their wedding. Judging by the amount of texts on my phone, the majority of the evening had been spent messaging me.

Cautiously, I stepped out onto the balcony, hoping to catch a snippet of his conversation, just to hear the smooth, sexy tones of his voice. He was talking to Damon, the habitual exchange of banter and subtle, mirthful jibes reserved only for each other caused the edge of my lip to curl in deep esteem.

Suddenly, he was pushed playfully into view, no-doubt a score-evening tactic of some good-humored, sibling raillery. The sight of him took my breath away completely, and as if in a sixth-sense response, he angled his head, looking up to where I stood. I gasped and ducked back inside swiftly, determined that he shouldn’t see me before the wedding.

“What are you doing? You’re not allowed to see her. Stop looking for her, Ethan!” It was Abby’s voice, almost hysterical as she brought her brother into line.

“Jesus, dude, can you not wait ten minutes?
Oh, Angel, Angel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the mahogany stair.
” Damon laughed as he mocked Ethan and the famous story of
Rapunzel.

I covered my mouth to stifle my laugh. Suddenly, the group went quiet, their tones becoming muffled and more reserved, as if greeting someone who’d just arrived. Someone much less familiar. I strained my ears to listen, but my curiosity was soon satisfied when the whole group began to make their way slowly across the lawn and the new arrivals came into view.

Adam and Aaron—
they came
.

My chest puffed with sudden pride, my sense of belonging elevating to a loftiness I’d never encountered before. Building bridges with my twin brothers had been a complicated, arduous journey. Both had lost their dad in circumstances brought about by me. A little bit of history repeating itself—or at least, that’s the way I was afraid they might see it. Much to my surprise, both had been distraught when they’d heard the truth about Mom’s accident and the unfounded jealousy and misconceptions that had really lain behind my father’s mistreatment of me. Their horror had been exacerbated when they’d learned about my time at the pool house and what the depths of my despair had driven me to.

It’s not that I wanted to dole out the blame, and a show of remorse wasn’t what I’d been aiming to achieve by telling them—God knows, I was all too aware of how crippling guilt could be. But it was important for my own progression and state of mind to set the record straight.

Adam wasn’t a stranger to feelings of unease with regards to my ostracism. I knew it had never sat comfortably with him, but he’d never once outwardly stood up to my father, never protested about the unwarranted way in which I was treated. Turning a blind eye when you’re a child is understandable, but when you’re an adult? Not so much.

Aaron, on the other hand, had worshipped my father, and being his trusty sidekick had played a major role in championing my isolation from the rest of the family. By his own admission as a child he’d felt my exclusion had elevated him to a higher ranking position in my father’s affection. Acknowledging the damaging effect it had had on me had left him consumed with shame. He wore it with the same candidness as my father had done when he’d been dying on the floor, as if he alone was responsible for my stolen childhood.