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Lana coughs and crawls to Jason. “Jason!”
“I’m here,” he mutters.
“For now,” I retort.
“Not now!” Lana barks back.
Fine. I’ll use the rage for whoever the fuck just dared to attack me in my own home. I turn around toward my own room and look up at the window. Something broke through it. A metal ball, which is still spitting smoke.
But the worst part is that Nessie’s glass cage has shattered, and she’s crawling across the floor like it’s no one’s business. No one touches my fucking snake.
Enraged, I slam my fist onto the floor. “Fuck!” I help Penelope off the floor. “Someone’s after us.”
Penelope pulls herself from my arms. “No, that can’t be right. They wouldn’t attack—”
Another bomb flies in through the bathroom window, and Lana and Jason duck for cover.
“Fuck, get out, get out!” I yell, grasping everyone and running through the hallway as fast as I can.
“What’s happening?” Lana asks as we walk into the main hall, which is completely covered in smoke.
“Dylan!” I scream through the house.
“Down here!” he yells. “I was in the bathroom. What’s going on?”
More bombs go off, and shards of glass fly through the building. Gunshots fill the house. People scream and run for cover. Alistair’s closest to the door. The blast flings his body against a big support beam, and he groans in pain.
Who the fuck would come for us in here?
Unless …
“Dylan!” I yell. “Open the fucking front door.”
“What?” he yells back. “Are you insane?”
“Do it!”
But before he can even take one step toward the front door, it’s blasted open, knocking him to the floor again.
As I clutch the staircase, my jaw drops when I see who’s in the door opening.
A chiseled bearded, gray-haired motherfucker with tattoos snaking up from his hand all the way into his trench coat steps inside the house with a gun pointed right at us.
An ominous voice booms through the hallways. “Get your hands off my fucking daughter.”
PENELOPE
My eyes widen at the sight of the man bursting into the Skull & Serpent Society.
“D-Dad?” I mutter, shaking in my boots.
Oh boy.
Felix, Lana, and Jason turn to look at me like I know what’s going on.
“Wait, that’s your fucking dad?” Lana’s eyes almost bulge out of her skull.
Felix grabs me by the shoulder. “Did you call him here?”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three concise shots push us apart as Felix ducks for cover behind a pillar. All three shots are buried deep into the stone.
Fuck.
“Penelope! I’m coming for you,” my father growls, and he turns his head only briefly. “Engage.”
More men pour into the building.
“Fight back!” Dylan yells from down below.
And out of nowhere, the boys from the Skull & Serpent Society start attacking the men my father brought.
All the doors open up, and knives and weapons are thrown around the room.
“Stop!” I yell, but no one can hear me through the onslaught of guns going off one after the other.
“Penelope, answer me!” Felix roars as he chucks one of his knives at one of my father’s men, who’s charging Dylan with a machete.
But I’m too occupied trying to find my dad in the haze of blazing guns and smoke bombs going off.
Felix suddenly grabs both my arms and shakes me. “Tell me!”
“No. I just told him I knew who caused my sister’s death. And I gave him a name …” My eyes widen, and I gasp out loud. “Caruso.”
Felix’s eyes immediately flick down to where most of the fighting is happening. Alistair and Dylan are both fighting off my father’s guards, punching and cutting their way through people like their life depends on it. But most of the men only seem focused on one thing.
“Dylan,” we both mutter in sync.
I run down the steps of the stairs, but Felix just jumps over the railing, his boots sidestepping the stone pillar for a safer landing. And as I come down the last step of the stairs, he rams his knife into one of my father’s guards.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
I have to do something.
BANG!
I duck for cover behind the pillar. A gunshot misses me by just an inch, but my hair is still singed.
When I take a peek at who shot, I notice more people coming in through a side entrance. But they’re not sporting the same type of gun my father’s people have.
What’s going on?
More shots are audible, and Alistair passes right by me, hiding behind the same pillar I was just behind. “Penelope. You gotta run.”
I shake my head. “It’s my father.”
His eyes widen. “What? Did you contact him?”
“I sent him a text, but I didn’t know he’d come for me.”
BANG!
The shot is so loud it makes my whole body shake.
“Then tell him to stop!” Alistair barks.
“I can’t fucking see him!” I retort.
Frustrated, he takes a peek behind the pillar, only to be shot at. “I can’t see a damn thing either. Too much smoke.”
