AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And with a bullet hole in her neck and several in her chest, she’s definitely not getting up again.
Jonah spits on her body, glaring down at it. “I hope you rot in hell, you foul bitch. Finally, my brother can rest in peace.”
He curls his fingers into fists, and I let out a breath, leaning against Vic as we stand gathered around the body. I wonder if my mother—both of them, actually—will be resting easier now that Olivia is dead.
Silence reigns as the five of us stare down at the corpse for a long moment, and then Ransom clears his throat.
“We should get the fuck out of here,” he says. “This area is pretty dead after five o’clock, which I’m sure is part of why Olivia picked it. So I’m not sure anyone would’ve heard us, but we need to clean up the scene and clear out.”
Before we can make a move to go, Jonah makes a low, pained sound. Then his legs buckle beneath him, and he collapses to the floor.
“Shit,” Malice hisses. “Goddammit.”
We all rush over to him, crouching down to check him out. He’s the only one of us that still has a Kevlar vest on, but when Vic and Malice undo the Velcro and tug it off, I suck in a breath. That fight with two of Olivia’s guards ended worse than he let us think. His shirt is sticky with blood, and he has several deep wounds in his chest that look like they came from a knife.
“Oh god,” I breathe. “Is there anything we can do? We have to help him.”
“Ransom, bring the car closer. Maybe if we keep pressure on it—” Vic tears a strip from Jonah’s shirt and presses it to the wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood.
“Too fucking late for that.” Jonah shakes his head, letting out a humorless, pained laugh. “Don’t bother.”
His face is ashy and gray in the darkness, and he takes a deep breath that rattles in his lungs. He looked beat up and exhausted when he stepped into the room a few moments ago, but I realize now that it was so much more than that. My stomach flips over as it hits me that this isn’t a wound he can shrug off.
He’s dying.
“Listen,” he says, and it comes out raspy. “Listen to me.”
“Don’t try to talk,” Vic urges him. “We have to get you stabilized.”
“No.Listen.” Jonah’s eyes find mine, and they catch and hold. I lean closer, staring down at him. “Tell Quinn… tell her I love her,” he manages, a trickle of blood spilling past his lips.
I nod, my throat going tight.
His body shudders, and he drags in another ragged breath. Then another.
And then he goes still.
39
WILLOW
I standover Jonah’s body, and my heart breaks for him.
I’m glad he got to see his brother avenged before he died, but this isn’t how I wanted it to end. We would have been completely fucked without his help, probably already dead under a couple tons of concrete in that hole.
“Thank you,” I whisper, even though I know he can’t hear me anymore.
Tears well in my eyes as Ransom comes over, wrapping an arm around me. He kisses the top of my head, holding me close, and I let myself lean against him.
“He was a good man,” Ransom murmurs. “And he got his revenge in the end.”
Malice nods. “Some people don’t even get that.”
I know they’re right, but it still hurts to think that he’s never going to get to go home to his daughter.Fuck. Poor Quinn.
“We need to go,” Vic finally says, breaking the silence that’s settled over us. “There’s a lot of cleanup to do here.”
“What the fuck are we even going to do with all these bodies?” Ransom grimaces. “I’m pretty sure burning this building down would attract way more attention than we want. Besides, it’s bigger than the places we normally torch, and it’s all concrete. We brought cleanup stuff, but we don’t have any accelerant either.”
