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“You aren’t going without me,” Kieran said before Dare could finish giving his order, all while Jessica softly admonished Jentry that this was why he needed to leave—why he needed to run before he could get pulled in deeper—reminding me of Libby’s earlier warning.
Odd how they all seemed so at ease in this life they’d chosen but did everything in their power to prevent other people from choosing it as well. As if there weren’t devastations and dangers in the real world. As if innocent people hadn’t been the targets of this retaliation against them.
“I don’t have time to wait for you, and you were shot, Kieran,” Dare said in a tone that rang with finality, but Kieran just stepped up to him.
Challenging and ignoring the intermittent drops of blood dripping from his knives onto the glossy floor.
And I realized with a start that some of the blood was his. Slipping down his inner arm in thin streaks and curling around his forearm and hand.
“You aren’t going without me,” Kieran repeated firmly.
“Or me,” Jessica tossed out brightly before turning on her brother again, pleading with him to go home.
Dare stared Kieran down for a few seconds before nodding. “I’ll give Conor fifteen minutes to get you ready. We’re leaving with or without you.”
“Dare,” a feminine voice said from the hall Maverick had come from, and I turned with everyone else in time to see Einstein lift a tablet a few inches before heavily dropping it to her side.
Her defeated expression had my own lungs straining as I waited for the bad news she was clearly there to deliver.
And despite the day—the exhaustion and heartache and worry and battle they’d just come out of—Dare’s voice was a calm, dark confidence that boasted exactly what he was. “Explain.”
“We have a...” Einstein’s head bobbed unsteadily as a frantic laugh bubbled free. “Well, problem is one way of putting it.”
Maverick was at her side and looking at the tablet before she’d finished speaking. From the helplessness in his gray eyes as they bounced between the screen, his wife, brother, and boss, I wondered exactly how much worse this day could get.
“What kind of problem?” Dare asked her when Maverick started toward the front door, gait almost hesitant as he nodded for Diggs to follow him.
“The inevitable kind.”
WILLOW
Another laugh left Einstein that showed every bit of her worry and defeat, but then she gestured between Jentry and me, her lip curling in a sneer when she repeated, “Inevitable. That’s what Kieran said about bringing you in, except that should’ve never happened. This was never supposed to happen.”
I slowly glanced at where Jentry stood just a few feet from me, having moved closer once Einstein came in, and took in the bemused set of his brow as Dare demanded a better explanation.
“The rockstars are back,” Einstein ground out. “Here. Right now. Outside with dozens of bodies.”
“What rockstars?” Jentry asked when a whispered curse left Dare.
“Henley,” Jessica said as if he should’ve known that. “The band. They live here.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know that?”
“Because it was all over the news for months when it happened years ago,” she snapped at her twin. “It still is.”
Before Jentry could respond, the front doors were opening again to an angry man I’d only ever seen in celebrity gossip pictures before—Maxon James. Stalking across the great room, never once sparing a glance at the dead men as he headed right for our group.
Oh my God.
I wondered if I’d wake up tomorrow, only for the past twenty-four hours to be some bizarre dream. Hell, maybe even the entire past year would be nothing more than a horrifically bad one. Because how could all this be real? How could I run from one devastating life only to end up in this unbelievable one?
Where the man I’d fallen in love with was in the mafia, houses exploded, and mansions were covered in dead bodies. Where my boyfriend’s murderer wanted me as his, and famous rockstars were feet away because they were just as entwined in this world as I was.
“Where’s Libby?” Maxon demanded, his whiskey-eyed glare set on Dare.
“With the kids,” Dare replied easily. “Warning would’ve been nice.”
A bitter scoff bled from Maxon. “What the fuck?” he hissed as he blindly gestured behind him to where the rest of the members of Henley were being led into the house by Diggs and Maverick, looking equally panicked and horrified and confused. “They don’t need to know what’s going on, yeah? Fucking told you y’all make that hard. And a warning? I’ve been calling ever since we got word of the explosion.”
