Total pages in book: 174
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
That he might have damned us all.
But I refused to let him.
With him distracted, I hurtled myself in the direction of the front door, frantic as I started to undo the locks.
Hysteria lit inside me, the blood whooshing through my veins just as loud as the flames.
I made it down to the second one when a fiery dart of pain sliced through my shoulder.
Agony filled my scream, and I bowed forward, trying to remain on my feet so I could get to the rest of the locks. Only it was futile.
Ethan was there, shoving me off my feet.
I could feel him rise over me.
A vapid, horrendous silhouette that towered.
The heat of the barrel of the gun directed at me when I tried to push myself back across the floor.
Grief sat on my chest like ten million tons of bricks. The fact that I’d done this. That I’d come to this place and invited evil in. Trapped these amazing women within the walls of Ethan’s hatred.
Their families. Oh God, those men. I couldn’t fathom what they would go through.
The suffering they would be stricken by.
I squeezed my eyes closed as I prepared to meet that same fate.
I allowed my children’s precious faces to invade.
Their smiles and their joy and their love.
I committed it all to Cash.
Prayed through everything he would find a way to stand.
A cry of terror ripped out of me when a crash suddenly boomed from somewhere near the kitchen.
A violent splintering of wood and fiber that reverberated through the tumult.
My eyes darted that way, trying to see through the disorienting smoke.
The ceiling.
It had collapsed, a gaping hole of sheetrock and wood dripping from the edges of the fissure, inciting a plume of dust and debris. No question, the cabin was being fully engulfed by the flames.
The smoke so thick there was no chance of seeing any longer, let alone breathing.
A dark, hazy coating clouded my sight, and I could barely make anything out.
Just the ghastly outline of Ethan.
A harbinger of death.
Only behind him a new form took shape.
An ominous outline that emerged from the shadows.
Volatile and intimidating and so completely right.
I could barely make out the way Ethan was ripped around, his entire body bowing as he was impaled, his body tossed to the side as if it were nothing.
Then those massive arms were around me.
Strong and sure as he picked me up.
A flash of hazel that looked down in the greatest relief.
Then he was at the door and tearing through, our breaths choked and rasped as he ran with me out into the crisp, night air.
I sucked and dragged the oxygen into my lungs as I clung to him.
Those big hands were all over me, the man murmuring, “I have you, I have you, I have you.”
Tears broke free, big gulping, gasping sobs that I expelled into his neck.
He set me outside the range of the fire, in the safety of the trees, before he went running back, an arm up to protect his face as he dove back through the door and into the flames.
Horror robbed my relief as I listened to the slew of gunshots rise up from all around. No question a war was happening between Cash’s and Ethan’s men.
It all blurred with the terrible memory of that harrowing night so many years ago running on a circuit. Battering my thoughts and tormenting my soul.
While I begged to the heavens for the rest of them.
That Cash would get them out.
Relief battered through me when I saw Theo rush out with Piper in his arms, her wrists and feet still bound.
River with Charleigh behind him.
Otto and Raven.
Kane and Emery.
They were there.
They all were there.
Dropping to their knees as they hugged the other piece of their souls to them. Rocking and swaying and crying in reprieve.
Fear drenched me, tears streaking through the soot that lined my face, and I began to crawl toward the cabin.
My soul pleading.
Begging.
Cash. Cash. Cash.
Heartbreaker.
I didn’t think I could survive the pain of it again.
Otto stood and started to run back toward the cabin. The flames now raging up the front side. Crackles spit and jumped, the whooshing roar warning of impending doom.
“Otto!” Raven shouted on a sob.
He started to run up the stairs when Cash came stumbling out.
Nearly bent in two and his shirt pulled up to cover his mouth and nose.
I choked and gasped over the gutting relief. The world tipping to the side. The surging and ebbing of the emotions sending a rush of lightheadedness swimming through my brain.
Cash and Otto turned and ran, jumping off the porch just as one of the supports gave. The cover collapsed in an explosion of shards and dust as they dove to the ground.
Rolling away from the inferno that ripped over the awning and swallowed the roof.
Cash barely made it back onto his feet as I crawled toward him, and he basically launched himself at me, curling his arms around my body as he rolled us away from the flames.