Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“No,” I said, holding my ground. My hands shook. “You come to me.”
Drake laughed and stepped toward me, away from Leo. As soon as he was close, his hand snapped out and grabbed me by the hair.
“Thank you for making this easy,” he said in my ear as he stepped in behind me. “I would have rather had you both, but once you’re gone, it’ll be easy to get little sister back. The courts put a lot of stock in blood relatives, you know.”
I kept my eyes down and refused to react as he pulled me backward toward his SUV. He’ll never get Olive. Even if it all went to shit, Mark would make sure of that.
As soon as we reached the back door, I put my hand into the kangaroo pocket of Mark’s huge sweatshirt and prayed.
Apparently, I did believe in God.
The next few moments happened in slow motion as he reached for the door handle with the hand holding his gun. Planting my feet, I twisted my body toward Drake.
The surprise on his face when the pistol inside the pocket of my sweatshirt went off would be etched into my memory for the rest of my life, but it only lasted a split second as I bent at the waist and tore my head away from his hand.
I ran as gunfire exploded around me and I threw myself over Leo’s prone body in the middle of the driveway, covering as much as I could.
God, it was loud. Men were running. And I watched detachedly as the door of the moving truck was slung upward and familiar men poured out the back of it, led by my cousin Will.
I couldn’t see Mark. It was so chaotic and surreal that I had a hard time focusing my eyes on any one person. Mostly, it was just feet and the bottom of a row of motorcycles.
It went on for too long, though later, someone would tell me it was less than five minutes. Maybe my memory was off. Because just as I turned my head and saw the barrel of Forrest’s rifle sticking through a hole in my little sister’s window screen, something hit me so hard in the back that I was thrown forward, my head colliding with the back of Leo’s.
Chapter 24
Mark
If someone had asked me what the scariest moment in my life was, it would’ve been a tie. The first moment was when I realized that the men who’d been torturing me had just pulled up in front of Cecilia’s house, where I knew her family was having a barbecue. The second was when Casper called to tell me she was hiding from a gunman in some house across town.
Neither of those compared to the moment when she stepped out from behind the truck and walked straight toward the man trying to kill her.
As I stared at her, laying on a pool table where the makeshift triage station had been set up, it took everything in me not to wring her neck.
“She needs to go to the hospital,” I said as Forrest checked out Cecilia’s back. “She shoulda never even come back here.”
“I don’t need a hospital,” Cecilia said with a hiss. “Forrest has the good drugs—I can barely even feel my toes.”
“You were fuckin’ shot.”
“It hit the vest,” she argued.
“Vests just stop the bullet from tearin’ through your insides,” I ground out. “You were still hit with the impact of the bullet.” I looked at Forrest. “Help me out here?”
“Sounds like you’re doin’ just fine on your own, Chief,” he said in amusement, still pressing lightly on Cecilia’s back.
“I’m fine.”
“You—” I clenched my jaw shut as Forrest gave her a tap on the shoulder before helping her off the table.
“She’s good,” he told me. “Black and blue, but it was small caliber and far enough away—”
“See? I told you,” she said tiredly. She looked at Forrest. “Whatever you gave me is really nice.”
“Your woman’s a lightweight,” Forrest said to me before turning away to help the next person. “Don’t worry—won’t affect your breast milk. Same shit they give after a C-section,” he said over his shoulder.
By the time the dust settled, every Ace and all of my team were still standing and none of Warren’s were, but it hadn’t given me any satisfaction until I’d been able to reach Cecilia.
“Is she okay?” Casper called as he raced toward us. “Is she breathin’?’”
My hands shook as I rolled her off of Leo and searched her, looking for wounds. She was covered in blood, but as I slid my hands down her body, I realized that none of it was hers.
“She’s out cold,” I said roughly, putting my fingers to her carotid artery to check her pulse.
“Let me through,” Forrest ordered, pushing past the Aces that had circled us.
“She’s breathin’,” I told Forrest as he dropped to his knees beside us. “Check him.”