Brendon helped her down to the couch, but he didn’t let her go. Cheyenne held on tight to Brendon, the noises of the scene taking place just a few feet away echoing in her head, but making no sense whatsoever.
“It’s over, baby,” Brendon told her, his lips pressing against the top of her head. “It’s all over.”
That was so hard to believe, but Cheyenne was grateful. She knew she’d been lucky. Victor—clearly unstable—could have done something unthinkable. He was obviously not right in the head if he had gone out of his way to threaten her life because he was pissed at her about his career, or lack thereof.
Even now, as her heart rate slowed, her sobs becoming less frantic, Cheyenne still couldn’t figure out what he’d been referring to. Although three years was a long time, she didn’t recall ever making any promises to him. Oh, she remembered how animated he was when he would talk about his future—usually masked as her future—but Cheyenne had never been in a place to make any promises.
Regardless, that still didn’t give him the right to torment her for the last year.
And her parents … Fresh tears came as she thought about what they’d done. How could they? She’d known they were selfish, but she’d never expected that they would give her up to a madman to make a buck. Not in a million years.
“Is Scrap okay?” Cheyenne asked when she could get her voice to work.
Brendon chuckled, the sound vibrating through her skull because she still leaned against him.
“He’s fine, baby. Perfectly fine.”
That was good. She wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself if anything had happened to Brendon or Scrap in this whole ordeal.
Wait.
Sitting up, Cheyenne looked at Brendon. “Why’d you run out of the house?”
Initially, she’d thought he had heard something the same as Scrap had, but the subsequent events just didn’t add up.
“Because I’m an idiot,” he told her bluntly.
Cheyenne’s confusion must’ve been plastered on her face because Brendon sighed, then pulled her head to his chest before he spoke again, this time his voice lower, his mouth closer to her ear.
“Z called. That was the instruction. I didn’t know the plan, had no idea any of that was going to happen. Trust me, if I had, I’d have met that asshole at the front door, not run out the back like a fucking pussy.”
Cheyenne giggled, as did someone else in the room. She recognized the voice as Z’s.
“You didn’t run like a pussy,” Z informed him. “You did exactly what I needed you to do. It was the only way to handle it.”
Cheyenne pulled away again and looked up, meeting Z’s serious gaze, waiting for more information.
“Martin McDonald, the guy who’d been set up by Victor, was in the yard. Clearly Victor thought that diversion would work again, but we’d seen him coming a mile away. It also helped that Austin had finally tracked him down—somethin’ about bouncing IP addresses. Shit I know nothin’ about.”
She had no clue either, but whatever it was, she was grateful that Austin knew what he was doing.
“Anyway, we sent Brendon out the back for two reasons. One, that was what Victor expected, and two, I needed to get in the house without Victor seeing me. Scrap had been perfect, but Brendon was the icing on the cake. His abrupt exit scared the shit out of McDonald, sending him right into our trap. Endsley had been ready for him. So, he’ll be keepin’ your parents company tonight. The sheriff’s takin’ ’em down to the station for questioning.”
“Will they be arrested?” Cheyenne questioned.
“Don’t know. Depends on intent,” Z explained.
Arrested or not, Cheyenne still couldn’t believe what they’d done. Her heart ached from the deceit.
It made her long to see her grandmother, wanting to hear her voice, see her beautiful face. She needed to see a family member who actually cared about her.
In the meantime, she had Brendon, a man who’d proven to her that he cared deeply. And she, in turn, had fallen head over heels in love with him. So much so that she couldn’t picture the rest of her life without him anymore. Nor did she want to.
BRENDON WASN’T SURE he would ever be able to take his hands off Cheyenne. Knowing she was okay … he was overwhelmed by emotion. The devastating amount of love he felt for this one woman was enough to have him tempted to break down and cry—something he hadn’t done in … well, ever.
After all she’d just been through, she was still worried about others, including her own parents who’d sold her out to some crazy little fucker with a vendetta. Brendon still couldn’t believe her stalker was a pissed-off ex-boyfriend.