Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 124451 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124451 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Relief pounds through my chest, but Riley isn’t done with me yet. He grips my chin tight and forces my stare back to him. “Listen here, there were plenty of witnesses, each one of them able to clarify that Colby came here looking for trouble. It was self-defense. Nothing else. You saved Jax and protected Bri by keeping him down. You did what you had to do to preserve the lives of the people you love. You got that? This wasn’t cold-blooded murder, Tanner, it was self-defense.”
My gaze shoots back across to Colby’s lifeless body, and an ache squeezes my gut. Either way Riley looks at it, I killed a man, and that will forever live on my conscience.
A hand lands on my shoulder, and I whip around to find a paramedic standing over me. “Let me take over, son. You’ve done well.”
I scramble out of the way as the paramedic moves in, assessing Bri with a skilled gaze. “Stab wound to the lower abdomen,” he says as another paramedic moves in on her other side. They get to work, taking her vitals, and before I can ask how she is, they place her onto a gurney.
“Tanner?” Bri panics, her eyes wide and terrified.
“I’m right here.” I rush in, gripping onto her outstretched hand with everything I have. Up ahead, I notice the door of another ambulance closing on Jax, leaving Arizona and Logan behind.
“Hey,” the guy saving Bri’s life says, catching my attention. “The lights are on. That’s a good sign.”
I swallow hard and nod. “None of this is a fucking good sign.”
“Too right,” he responds as Bri’s gurney lifts off the ground, finally stable enough to move. We hurry down the hill as others run in the opposite direction, heading for Colby’s body, but I keep my mind locked and loaded on Bri.
She’s loaded into the back of the ambulance, and I scramble in beside her, trying to keep out of the way as I watch Riley race in beside Ilaria and scoop her off the dirty ground. He pulls her into his arms, holding her tight and letting her use his shoulder to cry on. Chanel weeps beside them, all of our friends just as terrified as I am.
Bri refuses to release my hand, and I’m fucking grateful, needing her touch more than I need to breathe. As they close the back doors, I watch Addison’s ambulance take off at top speed, the sirens and lights blasting through the night.
Letting out a shaky breath, I give Brielle a warm, encouraging smile. At some point, I will have to call my mom and tell her, for the second time, that her baby girl’s life is hanging in the balance.
Chapter 2
BRIELLE
Pieces of a murmured conversation trickle through the foggy images in my mind, and I let out a pained groan, refusing to open my eyes as reality comes crashing back to me.
The races, Jax, Addison, the knife … Colby.
Fuck.
Tanner.
Desperation to check on him courses through my body, and I strain to open my eyes, but the fogginess keeps me locked down. I must be on some pretty intense painkillers, maybe morphine. I’m not going to lie, it kinda feels good.
At some point, Colby’s knife slashed through my abdomen, and I know it must have hurt, but the adrenaline kept me going. All that mattered was Tanner, until I was laying in the bloodied grass with his hands pressed against my wound. That fucking hurt. I’d prefer to have my ass rammed at a million miles per hour with no lube than to experience the sheer agony of that stab wound again. Right now, I feel perfectly fine, though I’m not foolish enough to think this is going to last. The pain meds will wear off and when they do, it’s going to suck … a lot.
Despite my pain and blood loss, it was the devastation in Tanner’s eyes that nearly killed me. After watching Jax go down and seeing his sister in Hudson’s arms, he thought he was going to lose me too. I could see the fear in his eyes, but he did what he could to save my life, all while relentlessly promising that he wasn’t going to let me die.
He’s so strong. He’s everything a girl could ever want or need. He’s my whole world, and I owe him my life. Fuck, I love him so much it hurts sometimes. I just don’t know how he’s going to get through this. If Tanner did end Colby’s life, it’s justified, but the toll it would take on him mentally … I don’t know. That’s a lot for anybody to handle. I’d just hate to see him suffer like that, after everything he’s already been through.
My heart breaks for him. I want him to be happy and have the life he’s always deserved, but this might just have the power to destroy him. I’m not going to let that happen though. I will prove to him just how amazing he is. No matter what I have to do.