Total pages in book: 227
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
“Cindy, Barbie!” Pearl yells, breathless.
I gasp on a wracked sob when she catches Anya, grabbing the handle of Maggie’s car seat and wrestling with her hold. Anya’s not giving up, and neither is Pearl. But it’s the dogs that force Anya to release Maggie. They come charging around the corner, barking as they run.
“Oh my God,” Beau whispers, holding on to me—holding me up. The sneer Anya fires at Pearl tells me everything I need to know about Anya.
She’s the enemy.
How the hell didn’t we see that?
Pearl backs away calmly with Maggie, and I raise my gun, as Anya runs toward the Mercedes and jumps in, getting the door closed just before Cindy and Barbie reach the car. They jump up at the side, barking, snarling, as Anya starts the engine. I begin to move again. Running. No. She does not get away after trying to take my baby. I yell for the dogs, and they dart back, coming to me.
“Rose!” Beau yells. “Oh, God, Rose, please don’t!”
I pick up my pace, my feet pounding the concrete to make it to her, Cindy and Barbie now flanking me.
Anya pulls off, heading for the closed gates. “No, Len,” I whisper, seeing daylight break through the middle of the two wooden panels. They’re opening. “God damn it,” I yell, slowing, knowing I’ll never make it to her. I look back, seeing Pearl handing Maggie over to Beau. I come to a stop. She’s safe.
I send the dogs back to guard Maggie as Fury and Tank barrel out of the doors, taking in the scene, both of their huge, muscled bodies pulsing. Apprehension. Anger. Disbelief.
“Stay where the fuck you are, Rose,” Tank warns.
I slowly turn my gaze back to the fleeing car, making a mental vow to find Anya. Find her and make her regret she ever stepped foot in my house. But I frown when the car starts to slow until it finally come to a standstill just short of the open gates. Why has she stopped? Has she seen sense? Has she surrendered? I start to walk toward her, looking back when I hear Tank calling me.
“Stay where you are!” He pulls his gun, taking the steps faster than his body should allow, his brother by his side. “God help me, Rose.”
I hold up a hand, telling him I’m fine, and return my attention forward.
“No, Rose!”
The reverse lights come on. The wheels screech, and the car comes speeding toward me.
“Move, Rose!”
I freeze, my brain not working fast enough to tell me what to do.
“Rose!” Tank bellows.
I blink, smoke from the tires bursting up into the air.
“Rose, move!”
What is she doing? Why is she doing it?
“Rose!”
Air gushes into my lungs, waking me up from my trance. The car’s too close. I’m frozen by shock. And suddenly flying through the air like a ragdoll, landing in a heap on the grass to the side of the driveway.
I cry out, dazed, disorientated, struggling to sit up.
And my heart jumps into my throat when I realize it wasn’t the car that hit me.
It was Pearl.
“Pearl!” Beau screams, as I take in her lifeless body on the ground, her eyes closed, blood seeping into the hairline cracks in the concrete, her arms and legs splayed unnaturally.
“No,” I choke, scrambling up to my feet, dizziness capturing me, making my path to Pearl’s lifeless body a clumsy zigzag. I drop to my knees next to her, my hands patting hesitantly at her body. “Get Doc!” I yell, looking at Beau, seeing Esther taking Maggie. “Get Doc now!”
I stare down at Pearl, stunned, and at the back of the Mercedes when it pulls away again. I stand up, watching her drive off. And on autopilot again, I pick up my gun and start walking down the drive after her as she drives toward the closing gates.
“Rose,” Tank yells. “For fuck’s sake, Rose, what the hell are you doing?”
I don’t stop.
She will pay.
56
DANNY
* * *
We pull off the freeway, and I check behind us, just as Phil Collins hits the speakers with In the Air Tonight. I cough over my smoke, casting an ironic look James’s way. He shakes his head mildly, looking up at me in the rearview mirror briefly before returning his attention to the road, raising his own smoke to his lips and pulling. He’s given in to the lure of a relaxing cigarette again. I can’t blame him.
Brad remains silent in the passenger seat, his focus set on the world passing, the air from the open window breezing in, mixing the track with wind. I look at the weaponry surrounding me. On the seat, in the trunk, on the floor, on my lap. We’re loaded. Literally. The whole fucking bunker is split between the cars as we drive back from the boatyard in a convoy of four. I’m certain not one of us without some kind of stressed sweat going on. Brad’s not murmured a word. James is pensive. Goldie and Ringo were without their usual irritating banter as we loaded the cars, and Otto obviously hadn’t found anything that could help us because he was persistently silent too. Even Leon read the room and remained mute as he and Jerry helped. Bernard King, or someone associated with him, had been at the boatyard. Too close for comfort. So close, they got one of our own.