Silas turned off the safety on the gun, his finger on the trigger. “So you see, if you take one more step toward us, I’ll shoot her. You don’t want that, do you?”
“What do you want?” said Gavin.
Silas sneered at Gavin. “I want this woman to apologize for everything she’s done. She led me on. She acted like she wanted me but she only wanted you. Some asshole with a crazy ex-wife and an equally crazy kid. What could you give her that I couldn’t? I want her on her knees, begging for her life.”
He took Kat by the arm and wrenched her down onto the ground, the gun now pointed at her forehead. “Beg, you stupid bitch. Beg for your life, and maybe I’ll grant you some measure of mercy.”
Kat panted, staring down the barrel of Silas’s gun. Gavin watched and tried to find an opening, but Silas wasn’t going to let Kat go without a fight. All three knew it.
“Is this about the game?” Gavin took one small step forward as he spoke. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re mad about a computer game?”
Silas rolled his eyes. “The game was just a useful tool. I thought when she started getting harassed, she’d come to me for help.” He pressed the gun harder into Kat’s forehead. “Why did you have to go to him?”
Gavin watched in horror as Silas was about to press the trigger. “If you love her at all, don’t do this. Kill me. I’m the one who ruined everything.”
Kat trembled even harder, but she didn’t say anything.
Silas seemed to consider, then he shrugged. “True, you are just as much to blame,” he reasoned. “So now I’m going to kill her first, and then I’m going to kill you.”
Gavin caught Kat’s gaze. Her chin was trembling, and tears ran down her cheeks. Gavin felt like his knees were about to collapse under him. The thought of losing Kat was simply unbearable. And to a man like this? A man who’d acted like he was her friend while he’d been threatening her and making her too scared to stay in her own home?
Gavin would go to his grave before he let Silas hurt the woman he loved.
“Baby,” he said to Kat, taking in her beautiful face. “I’m sorry for everything. I love you. I should’ve told you sooner, but I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you.”
Silas cried out. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up! You don’t get to talk to her like that!”
“Silas, you know you don’t want to do this.” Tears dripped down Kat’s face. “If you ever cared about me, you’ll let me go. I won’t even press charges. You can just go.”
Silas’s hand holding the gun began to tremble. “I don’t believe you.”
“When have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”
He let out a sharp laugh. “The day you started fucking this man!” In a fit of rage, he pistol-whipped Kat, and she collapsed to the ground.
Gavin let out a roar. He rushed at Silas, taking him straight to the ground with a grunt. Gavin heard distant shouting, but it barely registered. All his focus was on the gun in Silas’s hands.
“Run!” he yelled to Kat. “Go find Emma and get help!”
He didn’t wait for Kat to respond. He couldn’t let Silas use that gun, no matter what happened. The two men grappled for the weapon as they rolled on the ground, stuck in a life and death struggle. A rock dug into Gavin’s knee, causing a sharp pain to run up his leg. Silas was now on his back. Gavin got in two punches to the man’s face and then hit him so hard on his wrist that Silas finally dropped the gun. Before Gavin could grab it, though, Silas somehow managed to kick Gavin in the stomach so hard that the wind was knocked out of him.
Gavin bent over in half, gasping for breath. Silas, though, wasn’t done yet, and he rose and kicked Gavin in the ribs. Gavin curled in on himself just as he heard a man shout, “Drop your weapons!”
But the only thing on Gavin’s mind was survival. He rolled away from Silas’s kicks and got to his feet, panting. Silas’s face was bloodied, and just as Gavin was about to take him down again, the man ran toward the gun that he’d dropped. Gavin sprinted after him. He crashed into Silas from the side right as Silas lifted up the gun, and everything seemed to slow down when the sound of the gun firing went off through the clearing.
A woman screamed. Time seemed to stop. Gavin found himself lying on the ground, warmth spreading next to him. He looked to his side, and Silas lay there, gasping for breath.
“Gavin, Gavin!” Kat was kneeling beside him. “Can you hear me? Gavin!”
He had the strangest urge to close his eyes, but he couldn’t look away from Kat. He reached up to touch her face; he felt wetness on her cheeks. “I love you, Kat,” he breathed.
“I know. I’ve always known. You stupid, moronic, brave idiot.” She was sobbing now.
Her hands were also searching his body, and he didn’t understand why she was doing this now and here of all places. He cried out when she pressed hard against his side. His eyelids fluttered closed.
He’d been shot. He’d been shot. His mind was trying to accept this fact, but it seemed too crazy. Even as Kat pressed harder against the wound, the pain started to fade.
Kat gasped out, “If you die on me, Gavin Danvers, I will find your ghost and haunt you for eternity. Do you hear me?” Kat’s voice was ragged, and he wanted to tell her there was no way he was leaving her, but his voice didn’t seem to work anymore.
After that, more people arrived, and lights flashed, and there were shouts, and
