“Get him,” Dirk squeals, voice distorted with the blood flooding down his face. “Fucking get him.”
They surge forward and I do the same, picking up a chair and tossing it so hard it shatters on impact, shattering a ribcage at the same time. I spin and grab a broken chair leg and use it to club another man in the belly, causing him to cough and splutter and fall like a sack of shit.
More and more, they push against me, each of them trying to get around me to the gun that lies on the floor at the edge of the room.
Somebody is screaming and Gizmo is barking furiously, but I barely hear them, only the rushing metal of violence in my ears, only the need to protect my woman and everything she represents.
My elbow smashes another jaw and a looping left hook sends another man’s face snapping sideways.
I spin and bring the momentum around, a back fist that makes a man even taller than me whine like he’s a scared child.
On and on, I fight, I roar, I smash and I protect until the men are either on the floor nursing injuries or standing warily on the other side of the room, too terrified to approach me even with their knives and their bluster.
Three men left standing—five incapacitated.
Dirk tries to stumble toward Kait and Tess, but I smoothly reach down and pick up the pistol. I fire a shot into the air, silently apologizing to Gizmo and the students when it makes an ear thrumming crack noise.
But the gunshot serves to prove to the men that I’m serious.
As if they didn’t know that already.
And it will serve the double-purpose of summoning the police.
A gunshot on campus will mean armed response.
“Enough,” I growl, my breath coming slow and measured.
It’s only now that I feel the trickle of blood sliding down from my shoulder to bicep, only now that I realize there’s a knife sticking jaggedly out of my flesh. I grit my teeth and push down the throbbing pain.
“All of you behind the desk now,” I snarl, gesturing with the gun. “Students, somebody call the police.”
Dirk and his men slowly move behind my desk, having to cram tightly in the narrow space.
I move across the room, keeping the gun raised, my instincts primed.
Distantly, I hear sirens, getting louder, closer.
“I’m so sorry,” Tess’s friend murmurs somewhere behind me, tears wracking her voice. “He said he had you. He said he was going to kill you. I don’t know how, but he made it sound like it was you.”
“Hush,” Tess murmurs. “It’s not your fault, Kait. He’s the monster.”
Gizmo has stopped barking, so I’m guessing she has him now. An eerie quiet has fallen across the room, making their voices sound louder than they are.
Dirk stares at the floor like a sulking child, one hand on his face to try and stop his nose from gushing more blood and the other bunched into a useless fist. The other men are the same, unwilling to meet my gaze. Because if they do, they’ll have to admit that for all their supposed toughness, one man beat them, one man showed them how weak and pathetic they really are.
I daren’t risk a look back at Tess, but I can feel her looking at me.
I remember what came to me in the fury of battle.
I love you.
I know it’s true, not just something that fluttered through my mind when I thought I might die.
I know I love her.
I know she’s the only woman I’ll ever need for the rest of my life.Chapter Twenty-ThreeTessKait and I sit cross legged on the couch, Kait sipping from a glass of wine as I move my hand through Gizmo’s fur, warmth blossoming through me when I hear his sleepy, contented purring noises.
“I still can’t believe he did that,” she murmurs, shivering despite the midday sun glowing through the airy windows, filling the apartment with its glorious light. “I mean, I can, of course, I can, but …”
“I know what you mean,” I murmur. “It’s horrible, Kait. He’s your dad and he betrayed you. But he’ll never be able to get to you again. He’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison.”
She nods, laying down her wineglass and looking at me with a certainty in her eyes.
“He deserves it,” she hisses. “At least now maybe I can get on with my life, you know? Rebuild. Something.”
“I’ll be here for you every step of the way,” I tell her.
We clasp hands for a moment and then just sit back, the TV playing in the background but neither of us really watching it.
It’s been two days since Dirk’s arrest and in that time we’ve learned that the FBI was looking for him on a murder warrant. They think his plan was to kidnap Kait and flee the States. It was only his desire for petty revenge that led him to confront Tanner in the classroom.