Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
I glared at Dru’s aunt and said, “I need you to leave. We can meet in the morning and discuss this at a decent time, but it’s not going to be now.”
Jennifer opened her mouth to shoot back at me but she never got the chance to say anything past the first word.
“I…”
Eugene reacted before I could blink.
He pulled a gun from his pants and raised it.
I had the door shut and locked before he could do anything, but the sound of two gunshots filled the air.
Seconds after that, a third.
I closed my eyes as I leaned against the side of the door, knowing without seeing what I’d find on my doorstep.
“What was that?”
It was Dru.
Fuck.
There was a loud murmur of Jasper’s voice, then he said, “I called 9-1-1.”
I walked to my panel beside the stairs and looked outside, knowing what I would see, but deciding that I needed to see it just in case.
I was right.
There were three dead people on my porch.
Dru’s aunt. Dru’s sister. And Eugene.
Fuck.
I reached for Dru, who was standing there, still as a could be, staring at the carnage on my front porch.
This time I explained exactly what happened as I stared into Dru’s horror-filled eyes.
I never expected to meet Dru’s parents like this, but there I was, standing in front of Dru’s parents’ house, as Dru’s parents drove up the driveway.
It’d been a solid three hours since the incident on my front porch, and this was the first time that Dru had been able to get ahold of them since it’d happened. Roman, Dru’s dad, had left work early to go pick up Julie, Dru’s mom.
And they’d promised that they would get here as fast as they could.
We didn’t leave the house until it was time for Dru to go.
She’d been ready to leave to go see her brother, but I’d done my illegal acts and gotten a special request put on Romeo’s file that gave him permission to be seen today despite it not being a visitation day.
Unfortunately, we had a lot of shit to figure out.
Like two more funerals.
Though, luckily, that wouldn’t be something that I would be directly involved with.
I felt worse for Dru, though.
She would have to do this with her own sister and aunt.
And she hadn’t cried once since the entire show had gone down.
Dru had stared blankly at the wall for the last couple of hours, unless it was to pull out her phone and dial her parents.
Eventually they answered, and Dru had given a very condensed version of what happened and asked them to meet us at their home.
It’d gotten them here, but Dru had checked out.
Leaving me to greet them when they got out of the car.
“Who are you?”
I didn’t beat around the bush, mostly because there was no point in telling her I was just a friend of Dru’s when I wasn’t.
I was way more than a friend.
Would continue to be way more to her if things kept going like they were.
I held out my hand to Roman and said, “I’m Finnian Reins, Dru’s boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” Julie asked. “You’re dating someone?”
“Yes.” Dru finally spoke for the first time in a while. “Mom, Dad. We need to talk.”
“What did she do now?” Julie groaned.
So they knew that their daughter had the proclivity to cause trouble.
At least there was that.
They didn’t quite know the extent of the trouble that she’d found herself in this time, though.
“I…” Dru trailed off.
When she couldn’t pick it back up again, I went ahead and explained what I knew.
“What do you know about your other daughter’s ex-fiancé?”
“Eugene?” Roman asked. “He’s some lobbyist and is gone a lot. Why?”
I rubbed at my neck, feeling the tension continue to build.
These last few weeks hadn’t been kind to me.
And my leg gave a throb, reminding me that I’d been impaled in that time, too.
“We found out that Eugene was living with your daughter here. Then when he went to DC, he was living with your sister, Jennifer,” I said. “Dru found out, told Daniella, and then left them to it to fight it out. Last week, Daniella came to Dru’s place, but I wouldn’t let her in because Dru was exhausted. She followed us home somehow, or got my information, I don’t know. Then she showed up at my door this morning with Jennifer and Eugene.”
“Oh, shit.” Julie pinched the bridge of her nose, the bangles on her wrist falling practically to her elbow, causing them to clink together as she did. “What happened next?”
I started to open my mouth to say exactly what happened, but Dru beat me to it.
“Eugene pulled out a gun and killed Jennifer and Daniella on Finnian’s front porch,” Dru explained robotically. “Then he killed himself.”
There was a stunned moment of silence before both Julie and Roman cried out.
“What?”
“He did what?” Roman cried.