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A gunshot.
Just a millisecond before I felt it.
Lodge into my back, the pain searing, nearly blinding.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Gritting my teeth, I turned.
And there he was.
Warren fucking Graves.
He looked worse for the wear. His skin was pale, the purple smudges under his eyes dangerously close to looking like black eyes.
Clearly, the man had been up obsessing while I’d been taking his ex joyfully to bed and helping raise his son.
His bitterness and rage made him ugly.
Not that it mattered what he looked like when he had a gun raised, finger on the trigger, ready to pull and put an end to me.
And an end to me meant an end to Claire. But not before he brutalized her first.
Sure, Judah would live. But what kind of life would that be? Without the only people who loved him just because, not for what he could do for them.
“Been waiting to be able to do this,” he said.
Then, before I could raise my gun to shoot, out of fucking nowhere, Claire came running out, full force, throwing her entire body into Warren.
“No!” she shrieked.
I watched in slow motion as Warren started to fall.
But not before his finger pulled the trigger one more time.
Missing his mark.
But landing just the same.
Lodging in me.
Shoulder?
Neck?
I couldn’t even be sure, the pain was so acute, so overpowering, taking over the area from my chest up.
“No!” Claire screamed again as the impact, or the shock, my brain wasn’t working quite right at that moment, had me falling to my knees, then dropping onto my ass on the floor.
“No no no no no!” she cried as she went to war with her ex.
I was in and out of consciousness then, and the moments awake felt like a fever dream, my thoughts thick and slow, not making much sense.
Until, suddenly, something did.
The men had been inside.
