Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) (39 page)

Moments later, the soldiers brought out three men from the bathroom. Powell and the man with the beard had both regained consciousness and the one Kian had injured was being carried out on a stretcher. They carried the injured one outside, presumably to an ambulance, but the other two were pushed to their knees and restrained along with the others.

Powell looked up at me and smirked, unafraid. A chill went through me. Hadn’t we won?

That was when the Secret Service agent approached us. “Ma’am?” he said. “You’re to come with us.” He gave me his arm to lean on, because I still couldn’t put any weight on my injured ankle. But when Kian stepped forward to follow, the agent shook his head. “Not you,” he said.

Kian and I looked at each other in confusion.

The Secret Service agent sighed and shook his head. “I’m on orders to take O’Harra into custody,” he said. Then he looked down at the semi-conscious Miller. “You, too, sir,” he said sadly. “You’ve been declared enemy combatants.”

I gaped as it hit me. I’d been so focused on surviving the firefight, I’d forgotten that Kerrigan was still in charge. “No,” I said. “No, Kerrigan is behind all this!” I pointed at Powell. “The evidence is right here: search that man, he’ll have a cell phone with a text message from Kerrigan. You need to get hold of his phone, too, you can match them up and—”

The agent was shaking his head. He looked apologetically at Miller again and I realized he must have served under him at the White House. That bastard Kerrigan was making him arrest his own boss. “Everything will be taken as evidence,” he said. “The President’s already promised there’ll be a full enquiry.”

“You asshole,” slurred Miller from the stretcher. They must have given him something for the pain. “This is wrong and you know it.”

“I’m under orders, sir!” spat the Secret Service agent. “Ma’am, come with me!”

Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
Kian and I looked at each other. Now I knew why Powell had been smirking: he’d go to jail but so would Kian and Miller. There’d be some long, drawn out enquiry spanning years and no doubt vital evidence would be conveniently lost along the way. Kian would be painted as an accomplice—maybe we could persuade a court of his innocence, maybe not. But whatever happened, Kerrigan wouldn’t be linked to any of it. He’d be free to rule the country. “No!” I said desperately. “You
can’t do this!”

The agent gripped my arm and pulled me away from Kian. “It’s for your own protection, ma’am.”

They’d take me right back to the White House... and with Kerrigan still in control and his thugs everywhere, I wouldn’t last more than a day. How easy would it be to arrange an accident, or another sniper attack they could pin on a lone gunman. “No!”

Kian growled and seized my other arm, tugging me back to him. Immediately, both the Secret Service agents and the soldiers swung their guns up to point at him. “Let her go!” snapped the Secret Service agent.

“Not happening,” said Kian.

I heard guns being cocked. I knew how this would end. Kian wouldn’t let me go, not again. “Please!” I begged.

“I’m sorry,” said the agent. And he looked as if he genuinely was. But he was still going to carry out his orders. “I’m on direct orders from the President.”

The main doors crashed open. Harlan, pushing a wheelchair, closely followed by a team of doctors.

“
I’m
the goddamn President!” bellowed my dad.

Everyone in the room gaped at him. His entire chest was wrapped in bandages. He had an oxygen tube in his nose and his skin was gray. But he was still a hundred times the leader Kerrigan would ever be.

“All of you men stand down!” he snapped.

The Secret Service agents and soldiers hesitated, unsure whose orders they should be following. So my dad made the decision for them. “
Stand the hell down!”
he yelled, his face turning purple.

Every gun swung away from Kian. The Secret Service agent dropped my arm like it had burned him.

I ran towards my dad. Two steps in, I remembered my injured ankle as pain shot up my leg, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I reached the wheelchair and threw my arms around him. “Are you—How are you
here?
Are you going to be okay?” I babbled. Kian ran over and slipped his arm under my shoulders to support me.

My dad tried to speak, but grimaced instead, tensing in his chair. A monitor attached to the wheelchair started bleeping and the doctors raced to surround him. One of them adjusted an IV line. “That should help with the pain, sir,” the doctor said. “But we need to get you back to the hospital!”

My dad panted through the pain for a second, his eyes closed. Clearly, those few seconds of shouting had taken everything he had. Then he relaxed a little as the medication hit and shook his head. “After we get all this straightened out,” he grunted. He opened his eyes and looked at Kian and, after a moment, he managed to speak again. “I never got a chance to thank you, Mr. O’Harra.”

Kian nodded. “Not necessary, Mr. President.”

My dad narrowed his eyes. I realized he was looking at the way Kian was standing, pressed right up against me. And I realized he must have heard from Harlan about Kian running off with me and my mom’s suspicions. A little more strength returned to his voice. “There something you want to tell me, Mr. O’Harra?”

It was the only time I’ve ever seen Kian embarrassed. He shuffled his feet, then straightened up. “Uh... I have intentions towards your daughter. Sir.”

My dad took a long look at him. “You going to treat her right? Protect her?”

Kian looked at me. “
Yes sir!”

My dad made him sweat for fully five seconds. Then: “Well, then I guess that’s okay.”

My heart swelled and I had to grab Kian’s hand to stop from tearing up. “What about Kerrigan?” I asked. “Where is he?”

“Aboard Air Force One,” said my dad. “They got him airborne as soon as these bastards shot me.” Then, through the pain, he managed a smile. “But I called the pilot on my way here. They’re landing at Andrews now. He’s about to get a real nasty surprise.”

I turned to Kian, grabbed his shirt and pulled myself to his chest, resting my cheek on those warm slabs of muscle. Over his shoulder, I saw the Secret Service agent we’d had the stand-off with go over to Powell... who wasn’t smirking anymore. The Secret Service agent patted down his pockets... and pulled out a cell phone. He held it up to show me and nodded respectfully.

We had him. We had Kerrigan.

And suddenly, I felt myself just
wilt.
Kian felt the change in me and caught me before I could fall, scooping me up in his arms. “
Whoah,”
he said. “It’s okay. I got you.”

I looked up into his eyes. There was so much I wanted to say but I hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours and had barely eaten in thirty-six. I’d been drenched, frozen, tortured and I’d walked God knows how many miles. I was utterly, utterly exhausted. So I hauled my head up to his and put my mouth to his ear for just long enough to say, “
I love you,”
because I couldn’t wait even another minute to finally say it back to him. And then, as he grinned, I just flopped in his arms and my eyes closed.

“I got you,” he said again, stroking my cheek.

He got me.

Two Weeks Later

Emily

“Your tie is crooked,” I said out of the side of my mouth.

Kian looked down at the blue silk tie as if he wanted to rip it off and shred it. In fact, he looked as if he’d happily just tear off the whole Armani suit and do the photo op in his pants. I doubted he’d ever look fully comfortable in a suit.

But he still looked amazing in one. All those sharp lines only emphasized the power of his arms and back, the soft white shirt stretched tight over the firm slabs of his chest and the tie set off his eyes.

Come to think of it,
I
wanted to rip the suit off him.

But photos first. I straightened his tie. This was going to be our first group photo together and I wanted it to go well.

The first twenty-four hours after the hotel had been insane, the two weeks that followed only slightly less so. Kian and I had been taken to the hospital so the doctors could check us out. My throat and chest were swollen but the doctors said I’d recover within a few days. My ankle injury turned out to be a torn ligament, from twisting and straining against my bonds so hard. They gave me crutches but I preferred to lean on Kian’s powerful shoulder, as I was right now. Both of us had about a million little cuts from the glass in the museum, plus the wound where my tracking chip had been removed and the bullet wound in Kian’s arm. But nothing that wouldn’t heal.

And the psychological wounds? Everyone expected those to be devastating, given what I’d been through. But something had changed in me. Maybe it was that moment behind the table in the hotel when I’d forced myself past my fears. Maybe it was knowing Kian was with me now, forever. But that night after the hotel, I slept like a baby. I still had the occasional nightmare, but nothing like as bad as after the park. The fear would always be there—I’d have to be crazy
never
to be scared. But it didn’t own me, anymore.

My mom swept in from the hallway. We were in the Oval Office, waiting to step out into the Rose Garden for the photo op. “You look great, honey,” she told me. Then she turned to Kian. “Kian, you brush up well.”

“Ma’am,” he said in that deep, Irish-tinged growl.

My mom had come around to Kian pretty fast when she discovered what really happened, including giving him a tearful, spontaneous hug when she met us at the hospital. She didn’t necessarily
approve
of him in the same way she’d approve of a billionaire CEO. But that was okay: if Kian had thought she approved of him, he’d probably have been quite offended.

The door from the hallway opened again and my dad strode in. He was still under orders from the doctors to take it easy and he was still ignoring them. “We ready?” he asked. Then he looked at Kian. “
You
ready?”

Kian nodded. “Yes, Mr. President.” But I could tell he was nervous. Very little scared Kian, but he didn’t want to screw this up and embarrass me, or my folks. I grabbed his hand.

We stepped out into the Rose Garden and turned towards a solid wall of photographers. Camera shutters started clicking at the rate of a hundred a second, almost a continuous buzz.

The media had been going nuts ever since the attack on the museum but, when Jessica gave a press conference the next morning and announced that Edward Kerrigan had been detained in connection with the assassination attempt on the President, they went
insane.
And the entire world wanted to read the story: several news websites actually dropped off the internet for about an hour, unable to cope with the massive increase in traffic.

By mid-morning, every news channel was filled with footage of Kerrigan’s arrest. My dad and Jessica had made damn sure that the reporters were there to watch Air Force One touchdown and Kerrigan walk down its steps... straight into the arms of a squad of US Marines. When a couple of Military Police step forward with cuffs, you can see Kerrigan turn around and start spitting orders to his Secret Service detail, only to find them shaking their heads in disgust. My dad had already spoken to them and they were taking orders from their real Commander-in-Chief again. It’s a very satisfying moment: I’ve replayed the clip many times.

No one was sure who had jurisdiction over a White House conspiracy, especially when it involved terrorism. Nothing remotely like it had ever happened before. Eventually, a special team formed from Homeland Security and the FBI took control. The investigation and trial would take months but, whatever happened, Kerrigan was going to jail and the death penalty was a real possibility.

As the initial shock of the conspiracy died away, the media started looking at Kerrigan’s plan and Rexortech. Of course, there was a cover up. The Rexortech CEO went on TV to say there’d
categorically
been no involvement whatsoever from anyone at the company. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of giving the speech in front of the Rexortech HQ and if you watch the footage there’s a wonderful moment where an FBI agent interrupts him at the podium and hands him a warrant, and then the cameras all swing around to the main doors of the building and you can see about a hundred FBI agents begin to raid the place. Within twenty-four hours, they’d arrested the CEO, three other executives and twenty staff for aiding in the conspiracy. Within forty-eight hours, the company had been delisted from the stock market. Across DC, Rexortech surveillance cameras started coming down.