Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
“And yet, you shot him,” Adam presses.
“No,” I say.
“Yes,” Savage counters.
“Just hear me out.” I hold up my hands. “Trevor, one of the men that worked with Luke and Kasey, met me at my house, or rather, at The Ranch. Luke and I were both living there at the time.” For a moment, I’m back in time as I open the door and find Trevor standing there.
“We need to talk,” he says.
My heart had stopped. I’d been sure Luke and Kasey were both dead. “What is it? Where are they?”
He crowds me and pushes in through the front door and I let him, eager to hear what he’s going to say. His hands are on my shoulders. “Kasey is dead. Luke shot him.”
I blink in disbelief. “What?”
“You heard me. Kasey and a couple of the other guys are dead. Luke was running some illegal package and when Kasey busted him, he shot him and the others.”
I blink the room back into view. “When he told me Luke had killed Kasey because Kasey caught him running an illegal package, I knew that wasn’t true. That’s not Luke.”
“You knew your brother was a fucktard, but you shot Luke,” Savage replies. “I might need a bottle of vodka for the rest of this story.”
I feel the pressure to get my story out, but I keep my voice steady. I force myself to speak calmly when there might as well be an earthquake rumbling inside me right now. I’ve never told this story to anyone and it’s emotional to get out. “I was shaking all over. I was angry with Luke. Couldn’t he have shot him in the leg or the arm? I know what a master shot he is.”
“You had to know that answer,” Adam interjects. “You had to know Lucifer did what he had to do.”
“Logically, yes, I don’t disagree, but I had a human moment, despite how much those had been trained out of me. I didn’t want to be logical. I wanted my brother to be alive. I wanted Kurt to be alive. I didn’t want Luke, the man I love, to be the man who shot my brother.”
“Go on,” Adam urges softly.
“I made Trevor leave and when Luke showed up a few minutes later. I held a gun behind my back and my mind started going crazy. The minute I saw him and I felt all the familiar things you feel when someone you love comes home from the kind of missions he ran, I was scared. What if I loved him so much that I couldn’t see the truth? I felt like I didn’t know the man who would shoot Kasey dead. Which was unfair, because Kasey was always struggling in life. He was susceptible to trouble, but keep in mind, I’d lost Kurt the year before. I was a wreck. And Luke was my person in life. He’s always been my one person, if that makes any sense?” I grab my beer and take a big slug.
“You said you didn’t shoot Lucifer,” Adam says. “What does that mean?”
“I pulled a gun on him, which was another mistake because I was trembling all over. I had no business holding a weapon, but nevertheless, I was, when suddenly Trevor was back inside the house, holding a gun on Luke, promising to kill him. Luke pulled his gun—and keep in mind he never pulled his gun on me—but he did on Trevor. When he turned to faceoff with Trevor, he hit my trembling hand holding the gun. I tried to catch it, afraid it would go off if it landed on the ground. Instead, when I caught it,” I draw a breath, “it went off.”
“Shit,” Savage murmurs.
“I was angry with Luke,” I say quickly, “even confused about why he would kill Kasey, but I didn’t want him dead. I loved him. I still do. And Trevor was going to kill him. I saw it in his eyes. I grabbed my gun.” I squeeze my eyes shut and for a moment I’m back there again, reliving that moment, holding my weapon on Trevor when I wanted to be on the ground, tending to Luke’s wound. “I will kill you if you even think about shooting,” I promise Trevor.
“He deserves to die,” Trevor snaps.
I blink Adam and Savage back into view, tears burning my eyes despite Kurt training me to never cry in public. “I shot his weapon out of his hand. I had no choice. I could see it in his eyes. He was going to kill Luke. I retrieved his weapon. He ran and I immediately called 911 and then went down on my knees and wrapped Luke’s stomach.”
“What happened to Trevor?” Adam asks.
“I never saw him again. A couple months later I discovered he’d been killed in a car accident not long after the funeral.”