Legally Hot, Leigh, Lora [freenovel24 .txt] 📗

“With everything in my soul.”

Her lips trembled. The scratches on her face still seeped blood, tears still filled her eyes, and she was the most beautiful thing in the world to him.

“I’ve always loved you,” she whispered. “I thought I’d never see you again, Casey,” she suddenly sobbed. “I thought I’d never get to tell you I love you. That I didn’t understand until I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, that the only reason was because you loved me.” Her breathing hitched as his lips touched her. “I wanted to tell you, and then there was glass exploding around me.”

He laid his finger against her lips. The horror of hearing that gunshot would live in his nightmares the rest of his life.

“I have you,” he swore. “I have you, Sheila, and I’ll never let you go. That son of a bitch will never get the chance to touch you again.”

Because Casey was determined to kill him.

His lips touched hers. Tears, a hint of blood, and the overwhelming knowledge of love filled his senses as her lips parted for him, her hands moving to his neck, his hair, as her lips met his.

“I love you,” he swore again before he kissed her deeply, licked her, tasted her. He let the knowledge that she was alive seep inside him. Let the truth of it wrap around him.

Because Casey knew, he couldn’t have survived otherwise.

  THIRTEEN

  One week later

  Ross Mason was led from his hotel room in Corpus Christi in handcuffs.

Once, years before, he might have been a handsome man, the man Sheila Rutledge had once believed she loved, though it was rather doubtful.

A weak chin, plain brown eyes, shaggy hair, and a plump midsection—it was hard to imagine he had ever drawn the gaze of a woman as lovely as Miss Rutledge.

Though, perhaps her once-deep shyness and the loss of her mother had caused her to look beyond the surface to that weakness beneath and unconsciously believe he would be the one who would not leave her, would not betray her.

That had nothing to do with looks. Betrayal came in all shapes, sizes, races, and creeds. Betrayal came when one least expected it, when one could be destroyed by it the most.

It was a lesson that only the strong survived.

Miss Rutledge had survived that lesson and lived to find a man who might or might not know honor. Who seemed to understand it, live by it.

There was no doubt now Nick Casey wasn’t Beauregard Fredrico.

Beau knew nothing of trust, honor, or true love. He knew nothing of holding a woman tight or of risking his own life to save hers, as Nick Casey had done.

No, Nick was not Beau.

The call had not been made before Ross Mason had been revealed as the attempted murderer of the young and lovely Miss Rutledge. There had been no reinforcements called out, no waiting army of loyal men willing to give their lives for the one their fathers had pledged to defend. And those sons would readily pick up arms now and travel across the seas if it meant the heir to the past would return and retake the legacy that had been meant to be his.

The past was truly dead and gone, though. There was no way to convince those men that there was no way to resurrect that past, that glory, or that wealth.

Not that the Fredricos had understood the business anyway.

Giovanni Fredrico, once known as Gio the Giant, hadn’t ruled the families as he should have. There had been no blood shed for infractions, just as the whores had not been punished when they fell in love and defected, and the drug dealers had not been murdered, painfully, when they stole the product that was the lifeblood of the organization that had once ruled with a steel fist.

Once, before Giovanni had taken the mantle of leadership.

Once, before his son Beauregard had turned his nose up at the legacy that he had been honor bound to claim.

The bastard.

A fist clenched, jaw tightened, and the familiar rage began to burn like a wildfire within a chest that had been ripped open, the very heart extracted so long ago.

No, Nick Casey was no Beauregard.

That suspicion had been there before Sheila had left the bar the night Ross Mason had followed her.

It was the reason only Ross had been following at first.

Realizing there was trouble following Miss Rutledge hadn’t been easy. Diverting suspicion had been even harder.

Casey had nearly caught sight of the shadowed figure moving through the darkness to take the pictures needed.

The one of Ross Mason pointing that gun at the girl’s head just seconds after firing into the car and causing the wreck would be a haunting memory.

But it was over now. The authorities had the pictures that proved Ross had been behind the assault on the woman Nick Casey now guarded so diligently.

Not that she seemed to mind. There was a smile on her face that hadn’t been there before, and a joy and youth to her that would stay with her for many years to come. Because the man she loved, the man who loved her, refused to let her out of his sight.

Just as Ethan Cooper loved his Sarah, Nick Casey loved his Sheila.

That left three: Jake Murphy, Iron Donovan, and Turk Rogan.

A weary sigh filled the inside of the truck that held the eyes of the past. A tired, disillusioned sigh. It wasn’t over yet. Not yet.

And there could be no peace until it was.

  FOURTEEN

  There was a heat surrounding him that Casey knew he would never escape. One he never wanted to escape.

As he lay with the woman he loved more than life itself and pulled his lips