Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 129681 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129681 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
To live clean.
That I’d never again have a man’s blood on my hands.
The devil screamed, and I heard the strain of the chains when they finally snapped.
There was a car parked on the curb, and I ran for it, took a fist and put it through the glass on the side that was hidden from the street. Pain barely even registered as the shards fell free.
I swiped them away, pulled open the lock and opened the door, and placed this little girl who owned me heart and soul into the backseat. I took her by the face. “Lay on the floor. Do not get up or show your face until either me or Trent come to get you. Do you understand? I need you to be the best hider in the world right now.”
Furiously, she nodded. “Okay.”
“Good girl.”
Then I shut the door, gave a furtive glance around to make sure no one saw where she was before I was back on my bike and speeding over the hump in the road that gave way to the plateau where Salem’s house sat on top of the hill.
Ahead, I saw it, the blacked-out BMW sitting in the same spot where it’d been the day Trent and I had been teaching the kids to ride their bikes.
Then my mind spun with dread when I saw the carnage spread out up ahead.
Bodies were strewn all over the front lawn.
Trent was across the road in front of Eden’s house with his gun drawn.
And Salem…Salem was angled to face him, Carlo behind her with a gun to her head, the piece of shit using her as a shield.
And me?
I pulled the gun from where it was strapped to my back, and I let the demon go.
THIRTY-SIX
SALEM
The air wheezed down my constricted throat.
Pain fractured through my being.
Mental.
Emotional.
Physical.
The dread and the fear so intense I couldn’t see.
A cold sweat clogged my pores and saturated my soul as I mourned for what I could only process as loss.
Darius.
Mimi.
Jud.
Juni.
Juni. Juni. Juni.
Silently, I prayed that her little feet had carried her someplace safe. That she’d escaped this Hell. That someone good and kind and right had found her and come to her rescue.
Carlo rammed the barrel of his gun into the back of my head. He pressed it hard to my skull, the metal a painful threat.
I tried not to cry out.
Not to give him the satisfaction as he curled his fingers deep into my skin.
He faced me toward Trent who was across the street with his gun aimed our direction, fierce and hard and dark.
It was a stand-off.
Carlo was using my beating heart as a shield because if he killed me then, there was no question Trent would take him out.
Trent who’d slain the two men as if he were simply checking off a to-do list. The men caught unaware before they were on the ground.
“Let her go,” Trent ordered, “and I’ll make this easy.”
The threat curled through the atmosphere.
Carlo laughed an incredulous sound. “I think you’ve forgotten who I am.”
“Didn’t care then. Don’t care now.” Trent said it offhanded, though I could hear the venom that lined his voice.
The way his words were calculated. Meant to distract Carlo’s anger from me and place it on himself.
As if he were buying time. Precious moments for Juni to escape.
My spirit flooded with gratitude. With a small hope that after all of this, my daughter would be okay.
Then my ear tipped into the distance. To the savage roar of an engine that approached from somewhere beyond this trauma.
Out of place.
In perfect time.
A wicked savior I’d wanted to spare.
Behind the grumbling prowl of the motorcycle, I heard the whirring of sirens.
I immediately knew how Trent had shown at the precise moment we’d needed him.
Jud.
My pulse sped as a shred of hope pushed through the fissures of dried ground.
Sprouting.
Swelling.
While the fear and torment spun.
As if Carlo sensed the coming disorder, he held me tighter against his body. “Move and she’s gone.”
Trent scoffed. “And you and I both know what happens then.”
Trent moved to the right, and Carlo matched him, step for step.
The two circling.
A stalemate.
The motorcycle engine howled, carried on the wind, that hope springing higher while fear battered against it. The need to protect this man. The man I loved wholly. Trusted wholly. One who’d also been caught in the snare of my brother’s foolishness.
Then the sound of the motorcycle slowed and stopped.
No.
I wanted to weep when I realized I’d only conjured it. Imagined something that wasn’t there.
When I had to accept it wasn’t Jud.
That I’d stumbled deeper into the fantasy where I could be his and he could be mine. Where two broken souls could come together. Where they’d find a home.
Agony crushed.
Carlo and Trent continued the writhing, malignant circle.
“I guess I’ll have to take my chance then.” Carlo snarled it as he rammed the gun harder against my skull.