Page 159 of Captivated

Joe took in the man on the ground, too. The belt tight around his neck, and the back of his skull beaten in with a broken lamp beside him.

Apparently, she hadn’t needed him to save her.

She fucking saved herself.

“Liliana,” Joe said.

To him, it was a murmur.

To everyone else listening in the comms, it must have been a shout because they all quieted at once. Like they weren’t even there to begin with.

Or maybe that was just his world tilting back on its proper axis.

Who was he to say?

“Liliana.”

Joe set his gun aside, and rushed into the room. She was finally looking at him then—all bruised eyes, and bloodied lips. He reached for her, but she was already reaching back. She held on to him for dear life—it was in those moments when he couldn’t breathe from how fiercely she was hugging him that he finally learned what that really meant.

But he got it.

And it was okay.

Because he was holding her like that, too.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmured against her bruised cheek, dotting soft kisses to the same spot. “Sorry it took so long; sorry it happened at all. I’m so sorry, Tesoro.”

Liliana just kept shaking her head.

Shaking all over, really.

His hands found welt marks on her jaw and throat in the same shape as the width of the belt around Rich’s dead neck, and the man was fucking lucky.

Lucky that he was dead.

Lucky Liliana had done it.

Lucky he never had to meet Joe when he was fucking inspired, and had a damn good reason to kill.

Oh, the rosary around his throat never felt as light as it did in those moments. He wouldn’t even have apologized or confessed for that one. There wouldn’t have been a need.

“Get them off,” Liliana mumbled in his neck. “Please get them off.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about, but her hands were fumbling between them, and her legs kicked against his form. He figured it out then when she sobbed, and shuffled her feet like she was trying to kick off the goddamn pointe shoes.

“Get them off!”

“Okay, okay,” Joe whispered.

He made quick work of removing the satin ribbons tied around her calves and ankles before he pulled the shoes from her feet. As soon as they were gone, Liliana sucked in a deep, ragged breath of air.

It sounded like freedom.

“We have to go.”

It shouted in his ear.

It also came from the doorway.