"Who the fuck is doing all this?" I raged. I was close to punching a hole through the motherf*cking wall. If I'd turned up a little earlier, maybe I would have stopped whoever put the bomb collar around her.

I touched it and tried to get it free but I knew that it was hurting her.

"It's no use, I tried." She explained.

Vicky wasn't crying, and it seemed to me like she thought her faith was sealed. She was strong and had made up her goddamn mind. I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. How could she think I would let her go like this? As long as I lived, Vicky was not allowed to leave this universe!

"Look at me, baby," I grasped her chin and made her look at me, "Tell me who did this to you..."

Her eyes were filled with tears, she was trying her best not to show me her weakness but all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around me and cry. I'd been her support system for so long, we'd been with each other since the very beginning and then we'd been pulled apart by faith. Now that she was here with me, and things were finally going back to normal, how could I possibly loose her?

"I don't know..." she whispered as she bit her lip and kept herself from trembling. "I was held at gunpoint and then I was drugged. When I woke up, this thing was around my neck." She explained, "You were right, someone's trying to frame you. And if this bomb goes off, Ty...I don't want anything to happen to you."

Even with death looming over her, she was thinking about me.

Fuck!

"They want this. They want you to be framed for my murder. We can't give them that!" she said, clenching my shirt in her fists, "Leave."

"The hell I will," I snapped at her.

The ticking sound continued.

"There has to be a way to defuse that thing, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get it off you. If it doesn't then we die together."

"TYLER!" She exclaimed, obviously frustrated that I wasn't doing as she'd asked me.

The only difference between her and me was, I wasn't afraid to die.

I was afraid to lose her. Again.

The sound of slow claps made us both turn in the general direction of it. Even before he walked out of the shadows and showed his face, I knew it was him. We were well played. He had me in checkmate this time.

Noah stood leaning against the wall, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Don't mind me guys, please continue with the theatrics, and I like seeing that look on your face, Lockhart. The complete despair."

"Why am I not surprised?" I laughed, "I had my doubts about you being dead, just didn't think you had a motive to play dirty. You would stoop so low as to put a collar bomb around your friend's neck?"

Noah sneered, showing us his true shades—the uglier ones that I knew he'd kept hidden inside. All these years he'd been scheming, holding a grudge, masquerading his true feelings behind a thick wall of trust. Everyone fell for it. Good-Boy-Noah was never good.

He was probably as bad as me.

Maybe worse.

At least I had an excuse.

Noah's revenge had been purely driven by vengeance.

"You really think that I care what happens to Victoria? Sweet saint Vicky with a masochistic streak for a Lockhart."

"Why?" Vicky asked silently. The shock was still evident on her face. I could tell that Vicky was beyond hurt—she was shattered. She'd trusted Noah as a friend and when I was gone, she'd leaned on his shoulder needing a friend, but his friendship was nothing more than a sham.

All because he wanted to get back at me.

"You know Vicky; this wouldn't have happened if you'd just agreed to marry me," Noah explained and my gaze swung to the device he was holding in his hand.

I needed to get that.

"I planned to make your life miserable; it would have been nice to see Tyler fucking himself over, thinking about our nights together after our marriage," Noah said, an evil smile stretched his lips. "And then you went ahead and changed your mind."

"You said you liked me..." Vicky whispered, the betrayal finally hitting her.

Noah recoiled in disgust. "I used to like you, past tense, I won't deny that, but it just transformed into hate soon after. You were Tyler's whore and all I ever wanted to do was destroy you!" he spat the words.

He probably didn't see it coming. I punched him in the face hard.

"I have a tick you see, when vermin start talking, my hand keeps slipping."

I needed to buy some time even if every fiber in my body wanted to throttle this bastard. As far as I could tell, we didn't have enough time left. I had to get the device out of his hand and find a way to defuse the bomb before we were blown to smithereens.

"So like that's it?" I decided to rile him up a little, "You did all this because your male ego couldn't handle that I was better than you?"

"YOU FUCKING STOLE MY FUTURE!" He screamed like a mad-man. Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his hair. "Hockey was everything to me! Everything! And then you became captain of the team, stole my goddamn spotlight when you were never interested in playing the sport. You didn't even try enough and I spent hours on the ice, Lockhart, FUCKING HOURS but when they came to scout the players they chose you, someone who didn't care, who had everything, who threw it all away because you had your daddy's money."

"If you wanted it that badly, Noah, I know it could have been arranged. You had to say the word."

"Fuck you! I don't need charity from the likes of you." He yelled, going red in the face. "I will destroy you, Tyler Lockhart! That's all I want! When Vicky dies, I'll tell people how you kept us captive and then tried to murder me because you were as crazy as your entire lunatic family. And they will take my word for it."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vicky taking a side step as she made a lunge for what was in Noah's hand. Unfortunately, he saw it coming and backhanded her. "You bitch!"

I saw red.

How dare he hurt her?!

My fists connected to his jaw as I pummeled him until he grabbed my fist and twisted it. He had the upper hand, but not so fast. I kicked him back hard in the shins and locked his head between my elbows, squeezing his neck. I grabbed him and threw him against the ground. He choked. I crushed his body with mine, sitting on top of him, punching until my fists were numb. He went limp beneath me, but he was still breathing.

I grabbed for the device and all I needed was to press that green button and Vicky would be free! But Noah was pretending, so he slammed my hand back throwing the device away into the dark. I growled in frustration. And when I'm beyond irate, sometimes my mind stops working. My fingers had been there, the end goal and he was making this so much harder.

In a power grapple, we kept switching to beating the shit outta each other until his face was bloody and he'd broken my nose too. I reached for my gun and aimed it at him, although it was hard to keep a steady target.

I had to do this!

I loaded the gun and was about to pull the trigger when he tackled it down, reaching for a sharp dagger of his own, he raised it to plunge it into my chest, but I was fast enough and grabbed the blade in my fist and squeezed, not letting the knife cut my shoulders. The blood from my fingers made the knife slippery. He finally gave up and punched my face so hard, I went reeling back.

I lay on the ground, injured but alive...

Still alive.

Vicky...

Noah stood up and started walking away from me, "Any minute, the bomb will go off. You'll finally get your wish, Lockhart. Vicky and you can be together..." he chuckled evilly, "...in death."

Something black glimmered on the floor. My eyes couldn't see clearly and even though my body was hurt, I crawled on the floor and reached out for it, slamming my hand down on the green button. The bomb was defused, take that Noah.

And in that exact moment, the sound of a gunshot reverberated through the empty warehouse.

I sat up, frantic that Vicky was hurt.

She was standing near me—gun in her hand.

She'd shot Noah.

The bullet was lodged in his leg, but the asshole hadn't died. Well, bad luck for him. Prison was going to be worse than death and I tried to feel bad, but couldn't. He'd hoped to take his revenge on me by marrying Vicky, making her life miserable and then making me suffer through her pain. And when it hadn't worked, he'd decided to kill her and frame me for her death. The FBI agent was planted as well, he wasn't a real FBI and Noah had known that I would find out about the fake and kill him. It went according to his planning but too bad for him, I didn't go down without a fight.

Vicky and I stood in the corner, watching Noah being cuffed and taken in an ambulance. He threw us a look filled with contempt. She and I waved at him, mockingly. I even flipped him the bird—Immature but whatever.

Archer came rushing towards his sister and wrapped her in his arms fiercely. "Vicky, what happened? Are you alright?"

Hazel was in tow, and it was the first time I'd seen Hazel cry. "Archie was saying that you were kidnapped!"

Everyone was talking at once until I told them to shut up because my head was hurting. My sister came up to me; her eyes brimming with tears. She put her arms around me, and I hugged her close. We rarely showed each other affection, and I guess it's always been difficult for me due to my condition. I wasn't a brother like Archer who wore his heart on his sleeve and loved and cared so openly. Archer hardly raised his voice with his sisters. On the other hand, Maya and I never started the day without bickering, and even though we loved each other, we also spent most of the time trying to kill one another.

"If something would have happened to you, I would bring you back from the dead just to kill you again in the most painful way, you know that right?" She cried, looking up at me. She looked so much like our mother.

I smiled, "I love you too, sister."

Archer slapped my back and it was painful but I let it slide. "Thanks for saving Vicky, I owe you."

"You owe me nothing," I said. Vicky and I had a brief eye-contact, "she saved my life this time."

Archer's eyes resembled tennis balls, "You shot Noah in the leg?" he asked his sister, clearly impressed.

"Yeah, I did," Vicky said.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her towards me, "I'm going to steal your sister for some time, Archie." I teased him with his nickname that his sisters had given him.

He laughed, "She's yours."

Damn straight!

I hugged Vicky, burying my face in her hair. She stayed in my arms that way, and I kissed the top of her head.

I wouldn't let her go this time.

***