Bad Wedding (Billionaire's Club Book 9) Page 11

  Maybe that wasn’t all bad.

  He’d met plenty of people who’d blamed the world for all of their problems, and they weren’t exactly pleasant to be around. So, he’d buckled down any leftover hurt, framed his vision for the positive, and moved forward.

  That was a good thing.

  Except . . .

  How could it be a good thing when that buckling down meant that he’d hurt Molly?

  That he’d craved the kind of love and care she’d given him to such a degree that he’d only been able to accept her affection, rather than reciprocate in any meaningful way? Hell, he hadn’t been a total ass. He’d celebrated the holidays, her birthday, their anniversary, but last night had been the second time (sadly, both times having come in the last week) that he’d taken the time to shop for things that weren’t necessarily expensive or showy, but rather, a few items he thought would bring a smile to her face.

  Not buying something just because he thought it was the right thing to do, because it was what a man should give to a woman, but instead giving her something that showed he understood her, that he knew her. That he paid attention and cared.

  And that it wasn’t necessarily the right thing, but something that would make her happy.

  She was right.

  He hadn’t been capable of giving her that before.

  He hadn’t been able to look past all the expectations for how things should be between a man and woman, between people who loved each other. He’d only been able to give what he thought was the right thing.

  And the truth was that there was not one right thing.

  Not a certain engagement ring or eating dinner together or having a career that provided for them. Not even her favorite ice cream or a llama-printed scraper.

  Because nothing would be right so long as the wall remained.

  If he held on to that solid barrier between him and the rest of the world . . . it would protect him, certainly, but it didn’t discriminate. It separated him, just as effectively, from Molly.

  So, yes, he’d hated breaking things off.

  He’d hated not having her in his life.

  But he’d also been broken.

  Which meant he’d been able to keep a portion of his heart safely ensconced behind that wall.

  So, he had to decide, did he take a sledgehammer to those bricks, did he punch a giant hole in the barrier, grab on to what he wanted, and let her in—all the way this time—past, present, and future?

  Or . . . did he do what he did best?

  Throw himself on his sword in the name of making her life better, while his remained empty and cold and devoid of anything except peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  Fuck. That.

  Jackson closed his laptop, rose to his feet, and turned to Molly, who was singing softly to the music as she measured out flour into a giant silver bowl.

  He opened his mouth.

  Then saw the red dot floating across her chest.

  He didn’t think, just moved.

  The sound penetrated his senses when he was still too far away.

  Pop.

  “Mol—!”

  A burning pain.

  Darkness sweeping up.

  Yanking him under.

  The last thing he heard was Molly’s ear-piercing scream.

  Seventeen

  Molly

  Turned out that seeing one’s ex-fiancé getting shot was overwhelming.

  Molly remembered screaming and dropping the bag of flour, but she didn’t remember the men flooding into the room, didn’t hear the yells and gunshots that left holes in the bakery walls, had shattered glass and destroyed equipment.

  All she knew was that she came back to herself when Dan roughly yanked her off Jackson, shoved her to the side, and began administering first aid.

  She didn’t even know how she’d ended up on top of Jackson, covered in a pink paste-like substance . . .

  Pink. Paste.

  The flour. The blood.

  She shuddered, tried to hold down the bile that rose suddenly in the back of her throat.

  Blood. So much blood.

  On her hands. On her clothes. On her hair.

  On the floor and the table and—

  “Hey.”

  Molly blinked, glanced up at a tall blonde with startling blue eyes.

  “Let me clean your hands.”

  She started to lift them, swallowing hard when she caught a glimpse of her palms stained with that mix of flour and blood, but then a pair of firefighters burst through the swinging door leading to the kitchen, and she was shifted to the side again.

  Not delicately.

  Not gently.

  They needed her to move out of the way so they could help Jackson.

  Which cleared her head enough for her to get to her feet, to make her way to the sink, and to wash her hands.

  Soap and hot water, not looking at what was coming off her skin.

  But then they were clean.

  She grabbed a paper towel, dried them, then steadied herself and turned to see what was happening.

  The firefighters, along with Dan and several men she didn’t recognize, had surrounded Jackson’s prone form as they worked on him. Stained gauze, opened packages, pieces of wrappers from the medicine they were using littered the space between them.

  And all the while Jackson just lay there. Unconscious.

  But still alive.

  She had to believe he was still alive because they continued to work on him.

  She had to—

  As if Jackson knew she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, suddenly his head turned in her direction, eyes open and alert and riddled with pain.

  Molly didn’t stop to consider the ring of medical staff, the stained floors, or supplies. She just closed the distance between them and took up position by his head, bending and telling him, “You’re okay. Everything will be okay.”

  His face evened out.

  His expression softened.

  But then his eyes rolled back, his chest arched off the floor, and she lost him.

  Right there.

  Someone coaxed her back as sharp questions and answers rang out, as more equipment was brought in, as gauze and IV fluids morphed into a defibrillator and CPR, a stretcher and then a rushed trip back out the door with Jackson strapped to it.

  Molly wanted blackness to come up and claim her.

  She wanted to go back and find out what he’d been about to tell her just a few hours before.

  She wanted to demand they close the bakery and that Jackson haul himself off to an armored house where he would be completely out of reach of the mafia.

  She wanted . . .

  Him to be okay.

  “Mol,” Dan said, coming over to sit next to her where she’d scuttled back out of the circle of healthcare workers, not needing to be moved brusquely this time, knowing they had needed the space to help Jackson, not her in the way impeding them.

  But she also thought that perhaps she should have stayed.

  Because Jackson had been so pale, so still . . . and she wasn’t sure she would get a chance to touch him, his skin, his hair, smell the spice of his scent, see him smile, or watch those chocolate eyes melt.

  “I should have closed the bakery,” she said. “I should have locked him in his condo, not have allowed him out to put himself at risk, and—”

  Dan set his hand on my shoulder.

  “If we’re taking blame, it falls on me,” he said. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be protecting you both, making sure you are safe. And I’ve done a shit job of that.”

  “Yes, you have!” she snapped, turning and glaring at him. “You promised it would be okay. You had all of these plans, and not a single one of them involved Jackson getting hurt or dying and—”

  He tugged her against his chest.

  Well, she didn’t want to be comforted, didn’t want to be coddled or held. She was scared and angry and . . . just wanted Jackson to be okay.

  “Le
t go of me,” she snapped, beating on his chest. “Let. Go.”

  Dan didn’t, just held her as she continued to struggle and said, “I could tell you all of the reasons why what the Mikhailova are doing doesn’t make sense, that I’ve never seen them be so fucking careless or stupid before, that this doesn’t fit their M.O.—”

  “I don’t care,” she growled.

  He slid his hand to her nape, tilted her head so her eyes met his. “I could also tell you that our intel is so fucked right now when it comes to them and how they’re acting because the pieces we have are somehow fitting together and yet the puzzle they’ve formed is all kinds of fucked up.” He shook her lightly. “I could tell you that we’ve taken down bigger and worse groups of bad guys and come out with everyone who we’ve protected along the way alive. I could tell you that I would have never knowingly put either of you at risk if I seriously thought they come in here again with loaded guns.” Her gut sank, eyes sliding closed. “But—” He waited for her to open them again. “All I can honestly say is that I’m going to do everything to keep you safe, not just because I promised Jackson that, but because I’m promising you that.”

  “And Jackson?” she asked coldly. “What kind of promise can you give him?”

  His expression clouded, and his eyes turned scary. “That we’re going to take these motherfuckers down, once and for all.”

  There was a box of with a dozen lemon poppy seed muffins, Ronnie’s newspaper, and a note for her favorite patron taped to its top sitting outside the bakery’s front door. This was paired with a sign in the window saying that Molly’s was closed for unexpected repairs

  Lies.

  But she figured it was better for her patrons to think a pipe burst or some ovens went down rather than knowing that there were bullet holes in her kitchen. Thankfully, Dan’s team was handling the investigation quietly.

  Not that there was much to investigate.

  They had tape of the man entering the bakery, of Jackson getting up from his stool in the kitchen, glancing from her to the door, then sprinting toward her, and . . . going down.

  It hadn’t been him they were after.

  It was her.

  She’d demanded to see the tape, much against the advice of pretty much everyone, but eventually Dan had relented and shown her, and it had taken everything in her to not throw up.

  He’d fallen to the ground like a sack of bricks.

  Like a dummy.

  Like a dead body.

  Shuddering, she kept her eyes on the road, focusing on the traffic rather than those slightly pixelated images on the screen of Dan’s cellphone.

  She hadn’t gotten in the ambulance with Jackson, hadn’t ridden to the emergency department. She hadn’t been thinking straight enough for that. And by the time Dan had felt things were secure enough to drive her over, he’d gotten a call from one of his team that Jackson had already been taken in to surgery.

  She’d still wanted to go to the hospital and wait.

  They hadn’t let her.

  She got it, or at least, part of her did. Jackson had taken that bullet for her and putting herself at risk, acting like a sitting duck in the waiting room and making it easy for someone to come in and finish the job was not part of the plan.

  Jackson was alive.

  That was most important.

  But it was absolutely killing her to not be there.

  So, she’d spent the time cleaning up and shutting down the bakery then diverting the impending food delivery and outstanding cake orders to her other locations. Once the hour had reached a reasonable one, Molly had called her staff and informed them of the sewer line break—Dan’s idea—telling them they’d work as much as possible at the other locations, but even if they didn’t get the hours, they’d still have two full weeks of pay. While she was thankful she had enough in her reserves to actually be able to afford that without the business going under, she still couldn’t believe she’d been focused on her business when Jackson was unconscious in the hospital.

  Still, none of it had been distraction enough to completely erase the images of what had happened from her mind, what was happening with Jackson.

  Then she’d gotten word he was out of surgery.

  That he was alive.

  That he was awake.

  And she was thankful Dan had pushed her to get her affairs in order. Because her mind had needed the distraction while things were uncertain and because after the news had come in she wasn’t in any way capable of doing it.

  The adrenaline had faded.

  Molly felt shaky and frightened and one push away from losing it completely.

  Part of that was because she still had crusted, sticky flour in her hair. Her clothes were . . . ruined was probably the simplest description because even if she did manage to get them clean, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to put them on without thinking of what happened.

  Destined for the trash.

  Just like all of her dough.

  The rest of her just needed to see with her own eyes that Jackson really was awake and okay and—

  Her phone rang and she glanced to Laila, the driver of the vehicle she was riding in, the blonde who’d kindly wanted to clean her stained hands that morning, and who was currently escorting Molly to the private hospital where Jackson had been transferred after he’d gotten out of surgery.

  “Who is it?” Laila asked.

  “My friend, Shannon,” Molly told her. “She works for me, does marketing and accounting, and—” She stopped her explanation there, seeing Laila’s eyes start to glaze.

  “Go ahead and answer it,” Laila said, flicking a switch on a box positioned on the dashboard. “No details of where you are or are going.”

  “Okay.”

  She swiped a finger across the screen, and Shannon’s cheerful voice filled the airwaves. “I saw a missed call from you. Did you burn an oven full of goodies and need me to ride in on my white stallion and save the day?”

  “There’s been a sewer leak.”

  “What?”

  “A main burst and flooded back into the kitchen. The whole bakery is shut down,” Molly said, repeating the lie she’d perfected over the morning. “It sucks, but I’m going to take advantage of the time to tackle those outstanding repairs we budgeted for.”

  “What?” Shannon said again.

  “Consider yourself to have the next two weeks off,” Molly told her. “Let’s touch base about details in the next couple of days. I’m too tired to break everything down again today.”

  “Okay, hun.” Shannon’s voice was concerned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. It’ll all be fine.”

  She hoped.

  “Well, I’m around if you want to come over later and share a pizza.”

  “I’ll let you know, but I think I’ll be at the bakery until late.”

  “I can bring—”

  “What? Hold on a sec.” She covered the receiver, made some muffled noises then got back on with Shannon. “Sorry, Shan. They need me to go look at something. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “I—”

  She hung up before her friend could get out the rest of her sentence, which was just as well. Molly had been lying all day and, sadly, they were starting to come easily, almost without having to really think about it.

  That wasn’t the kind of person she wanted to be.

  She didn’t want to be able to lie as easily as breathing, or to have to keep track of some complex web of half-truths.

  And yet, here she was.

  “You’re doing really well,” Laila said. “Most civilians would have fallen to pieces if they’d been through what you had today.”

  “No offense,” Molly muttered. “But I’m not sure I want that particular compliment.”

  Laila grinned. “Noted.”

  She changed the subject. “How long have you worked for Dan?”

  Brilliant blue eyes flashed over then back to the road, the grin widening. “
Dan works for me actually.”

  “Now we’re talking.”

  Laila snorted. “I’m just kidding. Kind of, anyway. We’re more like equals. He and I both head teams. Mine is the one that was called in for extra support.” She glanced into the rearview. “Though I am sorry to say that we didn’t make it in earlier. Otherwise, the response time this morning would have been much quicker.”

  Molly frowned, not sure what she meant.

  “Our plane was delayed because of fog, and we were just arriving at the command post when the cameras picked up on the intruder. If we’d been there, we’d have had more bodies on the ground, and he would have never got that far.”

  Molly’s frown deepened, for two reasons.

  One, it hadn’t occurred to her to even think about the man who’d shot Jackson or where he’d ended up. Two, she wondered if the reason that they’d come into the bakery that morning was less about the Mikhailova breaking protocol and more about the fact that they’d somehow known reinforcements were coming.

  Had they taken a chance to act before Dan’s team had gotten back-up?

  “What happened to the man from this morning?”

  Laila scowled. “He must have clocked our guy on the corner because he slipped out the back door and got away”

  “There wasn’t anyone there?”

  A shake of the other woman’s head. “There was supposed to be, but he’d been knocked unconscious. Serious laceration that took sixty stitches and a handful of staples to close up.” Laila scowled. “He’s lucky he’s not beside Jackson, recouping in a bed for the foreseeable future.”

  “I see.” But what Laila told her made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

  “What’s put that expression on your face?” Laila asked as she steered the car off the freeway, coasting along an exit ramp that wrapped through a large grove of Redwoods.

  Molly shook her head. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “I’ve been in this career for too long to think that nothing is really nothing.” She turned the car to the right. “Tell me.”

  Knowing it was unlikely she’d thought of something the agent hadn’t already analyzed six ways to Sunday, Molly told her what she’d been thinking. “I just . . . none of this really adds up. First, why take a shot at me if they want Jackson to cooperate? I’m not trying to be an egotistical asshole, but Jackson doesn’t have a lot of people in his life that he cares about, and if they killed me, I can’t imagine he’d be motivated to help them.”