Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 90919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
“Myla!” Cian bellowed.
“I got her,” Otto yelled back, rising.
He got to me in an instant.
“Where are you hurt?” he asked, falling to his knees in front of me. His hands pressed against my chest and stomach, searching.
“It’s not my blood,” I croaked. “It’s not mine.”
“Whose is it?”
I stared at him. “I don’t know.”
“He’s over there,” Otto pointed into the darkness.
“I don’t give a fuck,” my dad spat back. “Myla? You okay, baby girl?”
“I’m okay.” I wanted to stand up and show him that I was—I just didn’t have it in me.
“Baby,” Cian said gently, his hands still searching. He ran them down my arms, my hands, my hips and back, my thighs and shins. “What happened?”
“I came for the cake,” I replied distractedly, my eyes on the men who were moving as a group toward the carport.
They were going to see. They were going to see what I’d done. Oh, god. The moon wasn’t bright, but there were some forms in the darkness, some voices that I would know anywhere. My gramps. Dragon. Uncle Will. Leo. Cam. Brody and Bas. Gray.
My brothers came toward us. Titus, Micky, and Rumi crowded around me.
I struggled to inhale. My throat was so tight that I started to panic.
“What?” Cian asked desperately. “Baby, what?”
I scratched at my throat.
“She can’t breathe,” Cian yelled, panicked. “She can’t fuckin’ breathe.”
Then Uncle Mack was there, inches from my face.
“Slow, Myla,” he ordered, pulling my hands from my neck. “With me.”
I shook my head.
“Right now, Myla,” he said firmly, gripping my chin. “With me.”
I wheezed in a breath, copying him.
“That’s it. Now out. Slow, honey.”
“It’s not workin’,” my dad said.
“It is,” Uncle Mack replied. “In again, Myla. Slow.”
It was agony. I wanted to gasp so badly, but I trusted Uncle Mack. More than that, I trusted that my dad would tear him to pieces if he was wrong—so I inhaled slowly.
“Back out.”
I exhaled.
As Uncle Mack walked me through it, I looked over his shoulder. The men were talking in low voices. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“Better,” Uncle Mack said, leaning forward to kiss my forehead. He got to his feet as Dragon and Gramps reached us.
I couldn’t even look at them.
“Point blank. Center mass,” Dragon told my dad. “Myla?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes, so I just turned my head in his general direction.
“Good job, kid.”
I nodded, looking away again.
“I need to get her home,” Cian said, his hands on mine, rubbing them. “She’s fuckin’ freezin’.”
“Someone get Myla a blanket,” my dad ordered.
“Can we move this inside?” Gramps asked Cian.
“Yeah,” he said, tossing Otto his keys. Sliding his arms beneath my knees and behind my back, he lifted me and followed my brother into the house.
When the lights switched on inside, I winced.
“Oh, fuck.”
“Holy shit.”
“Jesus.”
“Goddamn it.”
Some of it was murmured, some of it was shouted. All of them were surprised.
“Get her a shirt,” Titus ordered, pushing through the men who’d crowded into the room.
I stood like a mannequin as Cian yanked off his cut and hoodie. My brothers created a wall around me as Cian pulled the sticky shirt away from my body and cut it down the middle, gently stripping it off. My bra followed. Then I was wrapped in Cian’s scent as his hoodie was pulled over my head. It hung to my thighs.
He helped me into a kitchen chair.
“Hawthorne boys, Wanker, and Gray can stay,” Dragon said firmly. “Everyone else out.”
The room cleared.
“What happened, sweetheart?” Gramps asked, sitting down at a chair across from me.
“I came to get the cake,” I replied. “Ashley forgot Saoirse’s cake.”
Cian made a noise behind me, and his hand found my shoulder.
“All right,” Gramps said. “Then what?”
“Ashley told me where she kept the spare key, so I found it.”
“Yeah.”
“And I got the cake,” I replied.
Gramps looked at my dad.
“Where’s the cake?” Dad asked.
“I dropped it.” My voice wobbled.
“Why’d you drop it?”
“Because there was a man in the yard.”
“What was he doin’?”
“He was just standing there.”
“Did he say why he was there?”
“He said he was looking for Richie,” I replied.
Cian’s hand tightened. “He was lookin’ for Richie?”
“I told him that Richie was dead, but he just laughed.”
“Then what happened?”
“He said he knew me. That I was the brother’s girlfriend.”
The hand on my shoulder disappeared.
“He said we could have some fun.”
“Lock it down,” my brother Mick ordered. I turned to see what he was talking about.
“Myla,” Dad said. “Eyes on me.”
I turned back.
“I told him to leave.”
“Did he seem like he was going to leave?”
“No, he came closer.”
“What did you do?”
“I told him to leave again.”
“Okay.”
“And then he just—” I gestured with my hand, holding it far from me and then back toward my chest quickly.
“He ran at you?”
“He wasn’t that far away.”
“He rushed you?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do?”
My ears were ringing. How long had they been ringing?
“What did you do?” Dad repeated.
“I pulled the trigger.”