Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Disorienting.
High-pitched confusion that banged against the walls.
Haille slumped over in his chair, blood pouring onto his shirt from the hole in his chest.
Holy fuck.
Aster screamed.
I whirled toward Jarek.
Jud started to move faster, and Jarek felt him coming, and he swung the barrel at him. He fired off two erratic shots.
Jud had already anticipated it and ducked and rolled behind a piece of furniture at the wall.
Adrenaline pumped.
Sweat across my skin.
Desperation in my bones.
Jarek turned, yanked the chain, and dragged Aster back across the floor.
She screamed and shouted against the gag, and he jerked her up to hold her back to his chest.
The pussy was using her like a shield. “One step closer and she dies.”
A whine came from her soul.
Fire-agate eyes flaming with intent.
Together.
Together.
We were no longer doing it separate. We weren’t sacrificing us for the other.
Trent and Oz enclosed, but it was Aster who shifted in a blur of fury. She wrenched out of his hold, whirled around, and threw a knee to his groin before he could make sense of it.
Jarek howled, then he had her by the hair as I was jumping over the table. Aster kicked him again, the girl going rabid, fighting with everything she had with her hands still bound behind her back.
Trent went for him on the side.
Jarek felt it, fired another wayward shot.
Desperation flooded him.
He shot again, this time toward Oz, desperate to keep us back.
Another bullet pinged through the air.
A muffled scream tore from Aster, and she lifted her leg and kicked him with the bottom of her foot low in the gut.
He stumbled back a foot.
And my girl—she gave us our chance.
I pulled the trigger.
His eyes went wide with shock as he blew backward three steps.
Violence roiled through my being.
I’d hit him up high, close to where I’d struck him seven years ago.
“I’ll kill you,” he grunted, but it was the monster who was dropping to his knees.
He let the chain go to cover the wound with his hand.
Defiance filled his expression.
Hate and animosity.
“I will kill you and this bitch and your whole fucking family.”
Straightening, I took a step toward him.
My brothers came up to my sides, and Oz gathered beside Trent.
Fear blistered from Jarek’s flesh.
“You won’t get away with this,” he ground out, his words fractured. “You are all dead. I will see to it.”
My teeth ground as I angled forward, ignoring his threat.
Hatred boiled from my tongue. “That shot was for Aster. For hurting her. For the pain you caused her. For treating her as anything less than the miracle she is.”
Agony and contempt rasped from his breaths, and he tried to rebound, struggling to lift the gun that dangled at his side in his other hand.
I stood higher, and that time, I aimed the barrel between his eyes. Eyes that widened in terror.
“And this? This is for our kid.”
I fired.
Aster screamed into her gag.
She screamed and screamed as she backpedaled with her feet to get away from his body that toppled to the floor.
A gush of air wheezed from my lungs, a moment of shock, of relief, of sickness, of every mistake and sin that had ever been committed.
The gun slipped from my hold, and I rushed for Aster. I dropped to my knees in front of her and ripped the gag from her mouth.
I took her face in my hands, my attention racing over every inch of her, searching for any injuries. “Are you okay? Baby, are you okay?”
My thumbs frantically brushed over the tears that soaked her cheeks. The right one was swollen and bruised, and there was a cut on her lip.
Fury flamed again.
“Little Star,” I begged.
She gasped a cry, and I freed her hands, and she threw her arms around my neck. “I’m fine. We’re fine.”
I slumped to the ground on my ass, and I pulled her onto my lap and curled mine around her.
I held her tight as our jagged breaths heaved and jutted and our haggard hearts screamed.
I breathed out because I was never going to let her go. “It’s over, Aster, it’s over.”
“Logan,” she sobbed and buried her face in my neck. “Logan.”
“It’s okay. It’s over. It’s over.”
I ran my fingers through the tangled locks of her dark brown hair.
Hyacinth and magnolia leaves.
My breath.
My blood.
My life.
My Little Star.
“Well, shit,” Jud said, scrubbing a giant palm over his face as he looked around the scene.
Trent jutted his chin at Oz. “We need to dispose of these bodies. You have bags?”
Oz nodded. “Three of them. They were intended for you. They knew you would come.”
Oz shifted his attention to me where I held a trembling Aster on my lap, my lungs squeezing the oxygen up my constricted throat.
Questions rushed from me without sound.
He’d turned on Haille.
Had stood for us.
“Why?”
He swallowed hard. “You were not to walk out of here, and the girl was to be slain in front of her father. I would not let that happen.”