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“And I’m supposed to just accept that?”
“You’re a good girl, aren’t you? And good girls do as they’re told because they know what happens when theydon’t.”
“Screw you,” I hiss, creeping around the couch. “Who the hell is that, anyway? He doesn’t look familiar.”
I pull myself to my knees. Zak drapes the robe around my shoulders without answering. I slide my good arm into the sleeve and wince the entire time. Blood immediately soaks through the side now covering the gunshot wound. “I’ve read so much and seen so many videos about gunshot trauma but fuck, I never knew it’d hurt this much.”
Putting on the robe saps my remaining energy. I slump over the arm of the couch, panting from the effort.
“We’ve got to get to a doctor.” Zak loops his arm around my waist and lifts me to my feet. “You got any shoes other than heels to wear?”
I point to where my UGG slippers sit next to the door and right outside the pool of blood leaking from the intruder’s head.
Zak leads me over to where they sit and I slide my feet into them. He looks at my blood-stained robe and pulls off his jacket, slipping it over my shoulders to cover it up. Then he pushes open the door to the bridal suite and peeks his head into the hallway.
Conflict knots in my gut. For the millionth time since this sham engagement was announced, I ask the question that’s been plaguing me, the one that can’t change the past and will forever change my future.
How thefuckdid my father allow himself to get sucked into the Van Dynes’ toxic cesspool of evil?
Zak takes my hand, and with a small tug, pulls me toward him. He runs down the hallway, away from the cocktail reception and down another service hallway. There’s a door at the end of the darkened corridor. He pushes it open. Bright sunlight makes me recoil and squint.
Giggles and chatter break the tense silence. “It’s my bridal party. They were taking pictures in the rose garden.”
He glowers at me, daring me to so much as squeak out a word. But I guess he doesn’t want to take any chances that I’ll cut and run, so he scoops me up into his arms and runs toward a Range Rover parked nearby.
After pulling open the passenger side door, he dumps me inside, clearly not giving a shit about my injured arm, which shouldn’t surprise me since he’s never given a shit about me before.
“Hey!”
I twist to the side, clawing at the headrest for leverage. My brother Kylian darts out from the bushes near the rose garden, murder in his eyes. Zak stops next to the driver’s side door for a split second before opening it. Kylian runs across the road. A horn honks loudly and I jump, turning to stare out the front windshield at the Maserati that blows past us.
Zak jumps inside and starts the ignition. The Maserati’s tires squeal along the pavement, and the last thing I see is my brother flying backward into the bushes.
“Zak, stop! He’s hurt.” A sob bubbles in my chest. “We can’t just leave him.”
Zak peers into the rearview mirror, a grimace twisting his lips. He looks at me, malice dripping from his gaze, and then stomps on the gas. “Too bad nobody hadhisblind side.”
Chapter8
Zak
Igrit my teeth and swing the steering wheel to the left out of the Four Seasons parking lot. “Stop fucking punching me; otherwise, I’ll turn this car around and drive over your pathetic piece of shit brother to make sure he’s dead.”
“You are such a scumbag,” Skyla screams, shaking her fist in the air before slamming it into my shoulder one last time. Little Miss Know It All always needed to have the last word. I slow down for a stop sign and lance her with a glare. Her robe opens and slips off her shoulders, exposing the blood-stained bra and panties. Her tits bounce, chest heaving with rage.
“Why the hell should I have stopped to help him and risk my own ass? He deserves to have his career destroyed. It’s karma.”
Seeing Kylian again after all this time boiled my blood. Son of a bitch stole my glory right out from under me and is riding it all the way to the goddamn NFL. All because of what I did to Skyla.
But what my ex-best friend doesn’t know is that I never wanted any of it to happen. I didn’t want to hurt Skyla. It was supposed to be a one-and-done job, the one thing Val needed before I blew out of this town, and because he sabotaged me at the championship game, now these jobs have become my life.
Everything I wanted was in my reach, and then Kylian chopped off my hands and feet.
He yanked away my future, beat it to death with a tire iron, and then incinerated it until there was nothing but a pile of ash.
I slam my hands on the steering wheel. If that car hadn’t just run him over, I’d have done it myself.
“He’s my twin brother. He used to be your best friend,” she screams, punching me square in the jaw while I change lanes on the Turnpike. Her eye makeup runs down her face in black puddles. “How can you be so horrible? He could be dead.”
