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Stepping back, she forced me to release her yet again. “Did you mean it, Dad?” she asked Bash. “Do I really have a choice in this?”
“I mean it.”
She closed her eyes and blew out a heavy exhale. “Then I choose neither,” she told him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Lexa—” Bash started.
“Lexa, you have to,” Raven spoke over him. “Honey, Santino doesn’t bluff. He will come after you.”
She shrugged. “I’ll take my chances, but I’m not leaving you. You start chemo soon, and I’m going to be right here with you while you go through it.”
“I would feel better knowing you were safely away from that bastard’s grasp.”
“He said I have a choice. This is what I’m choosing,” Lexa stubbornly informed her mom. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Let’s get her moved to the clubhouse,” Bash instructed Masterson. ?
??Her, Raven, and Flick. Now.”
“On it,” the enforcer said with a nod.
“Felicity will pack them each a bag,” Jet said as he texted rapidly.
Her choice didn’t make me feel smug. She wasn’t staying for me, but fuck, it was a relief just to have her agreeing to stay at all.
“What do you need me to do?” Theo asked, still standing in the doorway.
“I’ll let you know,” Bash said.
My gaze went back to Campbell’s lifeless body lying on the floor, the blood pooled around him from the gaping slash across his throat. I didn’t know how the two Reid women had gotten Murphy to kill the DA, and I wasn’t about to ask. The less I knew of the truth, the better.
Murphy himself looked like he was about to vomit or pass out, maybe both. I didn’t know if it was because this was his first kill, or if he was just so scared right then, his body couldn’t take it. Either way, the pussy needed to man up.
“I have to deal with this, and then I’ll meet you at your clubhouse,” I told Bash, reluctantly agreeing to let him take Lexa with him.
I could get a statement from her and Raven later. For now, I needed to call the coroner and get Murphy dealt with too.
“I’ll let the men at the gate know you’re coming,” Bash said as he motioned for Raven and Lexa to leave.
Raven flipped him off as she passed him, then put her arm around Lexa’s shoulders and walked with her out to the SUV Bash drove. I’d called him when I realized neither Lexa nor her mom was in the house, and he’d nearly burst my eardrum when he’d started yelling and cursing. He told me where they would probably be, and somehow, we’d gotten there at the same time even though he’d been farther away at the Hannigans’ bar.
As the house slowly emptied of people, I pulled out my phone and called in the dead body, already thinking of how I was going to explain this so it would seem like a legit self-defense kill. I knew I could come up with a story that would fit everything. The problem was, would Murphy corroborate it?
“Are you going to be sick?” I asked him.
He shook his head, but no sooner had he’d confirmed he wasn’t, than he bent over, puking right into the puddle of blood at his feet. But vomiting wasn’t his only problem. He began to shake, and I caught him under the shoulders just as his legs finally gave out and he passed out cold.
Laying him down on the floor away from Campbell, I felt for a pulse, making sure he was okay. Vaguely, I remembered overhearing he had a heart condition. When I didn’t feel a pulse, I cursed and started doing CPR.
“Need a hand?”
I looked up, surprised anyone was left in the house, especially him. Theo crouched down beside me, nodding to the deputy I was trying to save.
“What are you still doing here?” I demanded.
“You’re my ride. I rode here with you, and since there was no room for me in the other vehicles, figured I needed to leave the way I came.” Shrugging, he didn’t seem all that concerned for the dying man beneath my hands. “Want me to call an ambulance, or take over compressions while you do it?”
Gritting my teeth, I let him take over while I called for an ambulance.
