I gaped at her. Surely she saw the gaping holes in her plan…but if not, I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her. I shook my head in denial, but kept quiet.

“Get over here, Leah, and take the gun,” she yelled.

I shook my head again, my body trembling from trying to hold myself so still for so long.

Victoria lunged to her knees, anger painting her face a dull red as she screamed, “Take this fucking gun right now and fucking shoot me! DO IT!”

A high-pitched, half-delirious squeal of laughter formed on my lips, bubbling free at the ludicrous reality that a woman was sitting in front of me, begging me to shoot her. “You’re insane, Victoria. You’re seriously fucking insane.”

She brandished the gun again, only this time, she was using it to gesture with. “You’re supposed to do what I say,” she whined, her eyes wide, lips pouting, poking the barrel of the weapon into her chest to emphasize her words. She sat like that for a minute and then said, softly, “I’ll just have to shoot you instead. I mean, you were coming at me. You were going to kill me, so I had to protect myself. I had to get the gun from you. Just such a shame that you died in the process.”

“Victoria…” I breathed, imploring her almost wordlessly not to do this.

A low moan had us both looking toward the floor where Ian was lying, still unmoving. But that sound gave me hope that he was alive, that she hadn’t hit anything vital, and that maybe, if this ended soon enough, he wouldn’t bleed to death before I managed to get some help.

I whispered Ian’s name, tears once more flooding my eyes as I saw his fingers twitch, and finally saw his chest moving slightly with his breathing, something I’d been unable to detect before now.

“Shut up, bitch!”

Her words brought my attention back to Victoria, who was now kneeling on the end of the bed, having moved closer to look at Ian.

“Well, that’s perfect,” she purred, giving me a sly, secretive smile. “Now he doesn’t have to die, and he and I will live happily ever after with you out of the way.”

She once again used the gun as an extension of her words, pointing it at different parts of my body to punctuate every word as she mused, “Where. Should. I. Shoot. You?”

Another groan sounded from Ian, but Victoria ignored it, pressing the barrel of the gun under her chin in place of her hand or finger as she adopted an exaggerated thinking pose.

Two things happened then, both of them seemingly in slow motion.

A loud bang sounded outside, startling me…

And it also startled Victoria.

The difference? I didn’t happen to be holding a gun pressed to the bottom of my chin when I jerked.

But she did.

Chapter 24

Two Months Later

I pressed tighter against my husband, reveling in the feel of him wrapped around me as we danced to Angel Eyes by The Jeff Healy Band in the middle of the dance floor at Griff’s.

Funny how things come full circle, sometimes, isn’t it? I rubbed my cheek against his chest as I remembered the moment I knew that this man would become my life; right here in this bar, on this dance floor, dancing to this song on the night we met.

Two months ago, I didn’t think I’d get a chance to talk with my husband ever again, let alone dance with him, because he’d been shot by a psycho bitch with a stalker complex. Luckily, it had hit him in the upper chest/shoulder area, missing his vital organs, and just barely missing his subclavian artery.

Thank God he’d survived, but if that artery would have been hit, he wouldn’t have. The wound had healed nicely, but we both still have nightmares every now and then about that night.

The loud bang that had startled us turned out to be a car accident that had happened almost right in front of my house. The neighbor’s dog had gotten loose and ran into the street, causing a car coming up the road to swerve to avoid it…only they’d ended up rear-ending a parked car instead. They weren’t hurt, thank God, but I could have kissed them regardless for being the catalyst that ended the nightmare we’d been trapped in that day.

Victoria wasn’t so lucky, though. When she’d jerked, her finger had tightened on the trigger and I’d watched in horror as she died, right there on my bed. I’d been frozen to the spot, tears tracking down my face as my brain tried to process what had happened, those few, crystallized seconds burned into my memory forever.

Another groan from Ian had broken my stupor and I’d rushed to him, dropping to my knees at his side and frantically trying to assess his wounds to see just where he was shot. There was so much blood, but that was to be expected, I supposed, since he’d just been lying there, bleeding as everything played out.

It seemed like those moments had stretched out into hours, a never ending loop of horror that was actually only fifteen minutes. Fifteen of the longest minutes of my life.

As soon as I’d checked Ian, I’d ran to get the phone, calling for help as I grabbed towels to press to his chest to stop the bleeding, as we waited for help. We left the house that night and only went back to pack up most of our stuff.

There was no way we were going to stay in that house with the ghosts that would haunt it forever now.

We’d put our belongings in storage and had been staying at Emma and Luke’s house, but thankfully, we’d managed to find a new place that we fell in love with a couple weeks ago. If everything went well, we’d be closing on it next month.

Christmas and New Year were spent with our closest friends and family that, surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), included Ian’s parents. They’d received a wake-up call for sure when they’d come close to losing their only son. Since then, I’d gotten a very heart-felt apology from them both and they’d made it a point to meet us for dinner at least once every two weeks, if not more often. I was still a little cautious around Margot, but she’d stopped the snarky comments altogether and seemed to genuinely want to get to know me better.

They don’t talk to or see the Jones’ anymore. No one does. They buried their daughter and moved to their home in France, leaving everything behind. I didn’t blame them; I don’t think I’d be able to bear the whispers behind my back. I also didn’t blame them for what Victoria had done. I think they truly loved their daughter enough to look past her faults, but it doesn’t change the fact that there was so much more going on with that girl that they should have seen.

Things have slowly gotten back to normal, though. Well, as normal as our family and friends could be…

Shaking myself back to the present, I tipped my head back to see Ian staring down at me.

“Hi,” he murmured, smiling softly.

“Hi,” I said, smiling back.

“Good?”

I nodded. “Yep. Perfect,” I replied, going up on tip-toe to kiss him.

We finished out the song and returned to the table where Chloe and Brandon were sitting with Allie and Jacks. Liam was with his Grandma Sarah, who was still happily seeing the doctor friend she’d met. Emma and Luke had stayed home tonight, because Everly had been sick, and Jenna and Noah said they were too worn out to go anywhere.

Calland had met up with us, but his eye had already been caught by an absolutely stunning, tattooed redhead standing at the bar, looking over everyone with a bored expression, but there was a sharpness in her eyes that said she didn’t miss much. I’d never seen her before, but I had a feeling my brother would not win with that one.