Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Unless someone went through me.
With what little strength I seemed to have left in me, I raised my arm and forced my finger back to the trigger on the gun in my hand.
And waited.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Thank God.
Because I was pretty sure I didn’t have long left, not with the way my pulse felt hard, yet slow. With the way my mind was going all foggy.
But I heard the steady footsteps.
And there he was.
Our guard.
My man.
I wondered, a bit fleetingly, how much his betrayal had cost.
Not that it mattered.
Because he hadn’t been expecting me.
The second he saw me there, the gun raised, his face fell.
“You don’t understand,” he rushed to insist, trying to raise his hands.
Oh, I understood, alright.
He betrayed the Family, me, and worst of all, Claire and Judah.
For what?
Money?
The worst fucking kind of man.
Maybe I should have shown him some mercy.
But, at the end of the day, I doubted he gave a fuck that Warren would show none to Claire or Judah.
So when I aimed, I did so to kill.
Then I squeezed the trigger.
Once.
Twice.
The gun fell from my hand as my guard crashed to the floor.
With what little energy I had left, I reached into my pocket, stabbing my finger blindly at the phone screen, unable to focus.
There was a ring.
And a voice.
Then the world started to go dark.
So this was how it ended.
Protecting my woman and kid.
There weren’t many better ways to go, I guess…
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Claire
My heartbeat was a frantic tap against my ribcage as I stood inside Judah’s bedroom, trying to convince myself that it was likely nothing.
A tree scratching against a window.
A plane overhead.
A hungry bear or raccoon playing with the garbage cans.
We were safe.
It was a safe house, for God’s sake.
There was a guard parked out front, day and night.
There was no reason to think anything was happening.
Except, of course, the swirling, sick feeling in my stomach, the cold sweat that had spread across my skin, chilling me further as my gaze slid to my son sleeping peacefully in his bed.
Closing my eyes, I raised my hand to the cross at my neck, and said a quick prayer.
It felt like hours passed as I stood there, listening to the complete silence in the house as I tried to convince myself that silence was good. It meant that this was truly nothing, that Aurelio was just being paranoid and overprotective.
My pulse had just started to slow back down when I heard something that had me wanting to throw up.
A gunshot.
My whole body jolted as my mind raced, ping-ponging from one horrible scenario to another.
Aurelio out there.
No backup.
Against who?
Warren?
An army of his guards?
The second gunshot had a yelp escaping me.
“No,” I whimpered, lower lip trembling. “No no no,” I cried as more gunshots sounded, this time making Judah jolt and whimper.
“Shhh, shhh,” I half cooed, half pleaded, too worried about Aurelio to be as comforting as I should be to my son.
This couldn’t be it, damnit.
A shootout in a safe house.
Aurelio hit.
Me beaten, raped, and murdered.
My son left with no one to love him, to care for him.
Just a monster to mold him into one as well.
There was a moment of silence then, one that filled me with hope and dread, both of them battling for prominence as I stood there.
Frozen.
Not knowing what to do.
What the best move was.
Surely, staying there like a sitting duck wasn’t it.
If it was Warren and his men out there, wasn’t my best bet to try to fight?
My mind flashed with memories of the last time I’d been forced to, knowing damn well that, had the Grassis not shown up, I likely wouldn’t have made it, wouldn’t have been able to fight off Warren, let alone the rest of his men.
But did that mean I shouldn’t have tried?
Wasn’t it best to go down fighting?
Stomach in knots even at the idea of walking away from my terrified, hysterical son, I forced my feet forward.
Over and over.
Until the door was closed behind me.
And he was safely on the other side.
I didn’t overthink it then as the adrenaline surged through me, making me suddenly hot, and hyperaware of my surroundings.
Enough that I avoided that one creaky floorboard in the hallway.
There was no one in the living room, or the dining room.
But then, right there in the doorway of the kitchen, was a sight that made my blood ignite.
Warren.
With his gun raised.
A sick grin pulling at his face.
I didn’t have to stop to think who he was grinning at. Who he was aiming at.
Maybe my instinct then should have been to run. To go grab my son, crush him to my chest, and make a mad dash to the door.
It was right then, though, that I learned that when push came to shove, my instinct leaned a little more heavily toward fight than flight.