Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
His scream shook the heavens.
“Oven!” he sobbed, thrashing side to side like he could create a wind to blow the bullets away. “IT’S IN THE OVEN!”
“Who has the trigger?” I ducked, cursing when a shot took out the headrest—taking a piece of Edwin’s ear. I wasn’t sure whether to call these guys good shots, or bad shots. “Trigger, Eddy? Now!”
“You fucking ran him over!” he screeched. “Help me! Stop shooting and help me! Get me away from this bitch!”
“You don’t need them to help you.” Leaping forward, I grabbed the wheel and jerked sharply away from the porch, the brothers, and the bullets.
We raced through the gunfire raining down on us, speeding fast for the tree line and the scant cover it’d grant us.
Edwin sobbed the whole way. “I’ll k-kill you, you filthy Merchant... cunt. I’ll kill you for this!”
I laughed. “Save it. Your threats would go down a lot better if I couldn’t smell your urine-soaked pants from here. So much for dying before you ever helped a Merchant. You—”
The car heaved.
Insults lodging in my throat, I choked on them as the car leaped off the back wheels, ejecting me through the windshield. It crossed my mind as my head banged across the hood that the brothers weren’t as empty-headed as I assumed. They finally got smart, and blew out the tires.
I crashed onto the ground, pain jarring my bones and making every nerve in my body sing with agony.
“FGH?” voices reached me from far away. “FGH?!
Noise, sound, light, stars, thudding stomps, and piercing bullets twisted and spun in the air, chasing me into dizzying darkness.
“Get me out... stupid fucks... Help me!”
I strained to sit up. To figure out which way was ground and where was sky, so I could get my hands on the right one.
“FG— Argh!” Shifting shapes scrambled in my vision. “Get off me!”
A thud rumbled the ground. Something, or someone, fell down beside me.
“—find my finger! I need to get to the hospital,” Edwin bleated. “Take me to the hospital!”
“What do we do with them?”
“Kill them!” Edwin bellowed. “Bury their bodies in the fucking woods, then bluff Hunt’s fucking, disgusting, shitbucket of a family. We’ll tell them we have her, and they’ll have no reason not to believe us, so KILL HER!”
My vision cleared. Three—five—ten men surrounded me and Bee, their guns trained on our heads.
As quick, and clever, and resourceful, and beautiful, and perfect as I was... not even I could see a way out of this one.
“One last ride, Bee.” I held my best friend since middle school’s hand. “I’m glad we made it our best.”
She smiled. Lips parting, she made to say—what? I’d never know.
Gunshots rang through the night, ending our last goodbye.
Chapter Six
Kenzie
Sienna pulled away from the hangar, putting an end to our adventure in New York.
River, Laurel, and I sat in the back. My baby was between us, kicking her feet and cooing at nothing, while my boyfriend leaned against the window—bearing the same silence that followed him on the plane ride.
“River?” I spoke up. “Is everything okay? You’ve been really quiet since we talked to Damien.”
“Can’t help it,” he replied, voice soft. “We went there to prove what a dick Frost is, and instead he showed me what an ass I am.”
“You? What are you talking about?”
He sighed. “I’m talking about Sacred Heart church, school, and charities. I’m talking about the school that hired Mom as a teacher, let her enroll me in the school with free tuition even though we weren’t Catholic, gave her such amazing benefits she jumped up and down gushing and laughing when she read the employments doc in the kitchen, and then covered all of her medical expenses when she was diagnosed with the cancer that took her away from me.
“All of that,” he croaked, “was Sacred Heart.”
“Oh, River,” I breathed, clapping my hand over my mouth. “Adeline? But... But all of that was from before—”
“The paternity test.” River’s voice was flat. Dead. “She did all of that for me and my mom before she knew I was her brother. Back when she thought my mom was nothing more than a cheating, gold-digging liar.
“What is that, Kenzie?” he burst out. “What do I do with that?”
“Well, I...” I reached for him. “You did say that Adeline had been keeping track of you two. She was the first one there when you lost your mom and had no one. I guess it’s not a surprise that no matter how she felt about your mom, if there was any chance that you were her brother, she had to make sure you two were okay.
“For her sake and for her father’s sake,” I whispered, seeing the muscles in his neck tense. “Loyalty, baby. She couldn’t have lived with herself if she let you or your father down in that way.”