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Randall got off a shot. And Dare did, too.
HE SHOT THE driver. He really shot the driver. He’s not going to stop.
That’s all Haven could think as she overheard the chatter on the radios and watched Joker and Blake try to keep Meat from bleeding out.
Her father wasn’t going to stop. Bunny. Jeb. Meat. This driver. Four lives. Ruined, because of her. How many more was she going to allow?
None. Not even one more. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself. Especially if anything happened to Dare.
Turning to Cora, Haven put her mouth up tight against her ear. “Don’t say anything out loud. I can stop this. I have to stop this. So I’m going. But you stay and be happy. I love you.” She threw her arms around her best friend and gave her every hug she’d ever wish she could give for the rest of their lives.
“No. No, Haven. No,” Cora whispered, tears springing to her eyes.
“At least I got to do so many things I never imagined, you know? I fell in love, Cora. It’s more than I ever hoped. Now I need you to let me do this,” Haven whispered, her throat so tight it hurt. Because the things she’d gotten to experience would have to be enough to last her whole lifetime.
“Haven,” Cora said on a shaky exhale, her expression shattered.
“Your friendship meant the world to me,” Haven said, blinking back tears. She didn’t have time for them. With a look over her shoulder to confirm that the men were too distracted to notice her movement, Haven took a few slow steps toward the door. And then she made a dash for it, shouts ringing out from behind her as the door closed.
Haven wasn’t sure where to go to find her father. But as he was looking for her, she assumed she just needed to go somewhere out in the open and he or one of his men would find her. She ran along the main concourse hallway, dodging groups of people and looking over her shoulder to see if she was being followed. The roar of the race was so much louder outside. Apparently, the crash hadn’t stopped the racing. When she got to midtrack, she stopped and stared down at the wrecks of three or four cars piled between the edge of the track and the center field, her stomach rolling. Because her own father had caused that. And, in a way, she had, too.
She walked up to the fence and stood there, willing someone to see her before anyone else got hurt. Almost everyone in the place was on their feet watching the pit crews and first responders pull people out of the crumpled cars. Then she turned in a slow circle, her gaze scanning for any faces she might recognize. Back to the field, Haven found herself looking down a hallway that cut out into the darkness of the lot beyond. She almost turned around to the field again before she realized she was seeing something on the ground out in the darkness.
Whatever it was moved.
On instinct, Haven took off, her gut telling her that was a person lying out there. No one else seemed to notice, because everyone was watching the race and the aftermath of the crash play out.
She was halfway down the hallway when she was close enough to make out what she was seeing. And it nearly killed her.
Dare. Lying on his back in the shadows. “Dare!”
His head rolled toward her, face painted with agony. He gave a shake of his head she didn’t take the time to process before she skidded to her knees at his side.
“Oh, God, Dare!” He was bleeding from his right shoulder and his left side, which he had his other arm curled around. His hand was shaking and bloody.
“And there’s my fucking little princess,” came a voice from her right.
Ice ran down Haven’s spine as she turned to find her father standing a few feet away, gun pointed in a shaking hand at her and Dare. With short dark-blond hair and a face that looked too much like hers, he was bleeding from his thigh but still standing.
“Leave him alone,” she said, noting that Dare’s gun sat at least four feet from his boots. She’d never reach it. “I’ll go with you willingly, but leave him alone.”
Her father jerked the gun toward her, his leg and hand shaking worse. “That’s right. You’ll go willingly. Everything that’s happening here, it’s your fault. Including this prick’s death. Now, get the fuck up.”
Haven leaned her body further over Dare’s, so far that she had to brace her hand on the other side of him, making sure her father didn’t have a clear shot at his head or abdomen. She wasn’t afraid of her father shooting her. She knew she was too valuable to him. “You’re not killing him.”
