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She’s gonna kill—
My body falls backward with her on top of me. I tumble into the grass. One of her hands shields my face while the other aims to the street. Gaze narrowed, Erika licks her lips and squeezes the trigger.
My eyes widen.Someone’s shooting at us! Shooting at us all!
Erika yells. Though I can’t hear her voice over the fireworks, her mouth enunciates every word. “Chevelle, stay down!”
Her body clambers over mine as the sound of more gunfire rips through the morning. It’s hardly seven a.m. Who’s this angry at seven a.m.? Who else is shooting?
I look up at Erika’s face. Tiny lines crease near her tensed mouth. With her teeth gritted, she stops shooting, but the firefight hasn’t finished. Warm, sticky blood seeps through my shirt.
“You’re bleeding!” I stutter.
“Aye,” she hisses, then slumps on top of me.
A spray of bullets rain through the sky. Erika’s body is heavy atop of mine.Oh, God, she’s dead. I press against her shoulders but can’t move. Part of me is afraid. The other half is frantically using all of my might to move Erika.
Brody lifts Erika from me. I couldn’t push her over, but he’s shooting with one hand and hefting her with the other at the same time as Leith descends on me.
He holds my cheek in the palm of his hand. Somehow, I’ve forgotten how my life imploded last night. The fissure in the center of my heart, which smashed into a bazillion fragments, seems ages ago.
Life as we know it shatters around us. Leith looks me deep in the eyes. His words warm my heart. “I’m not gonna let anything happen toye, hen.”
His mouth mops over mine in a kiss as bitter as dry vermouth, quenching my need for courage.
Maternal instinct kicking in, I ask, “Where’s Mia?”
“Safe. My otherbrathairstook her around the side of the house.”
A puff of grass and sod smacks the side of my face. That was a bullet. A bullet almost hit me!
He looks away from me, shooting a gun I hadn’t noticed was in his hand. Then the caring man I love returns. “Yer turn, Chevelle. Mia needs us.”
It feels like a century passes as Leith and I crawl with him half masking my body and still shooting.
At the side of the house, I lean against the brick wall, next to the same beautiful trellises Leith once used to sneak me up to his room. Nan would let me spend the night, just not in his room. Suddenly, Leith’s sincere face fades from before me. A thousand thoughts roam through my mind, namely one contradictory to the last.Inever saw Dad slay Mom nor himself. I never saw either of their dead bodies.
“Ye’re okay, hen.” Leith’s hand presses the center of my chest, drawing me toward the present. “Catch yer breath.”
“I—” With my chest pressed against his, I gulp on air,
Leith loops an arm around me. “Stay here with me. Nae thinking about them now.”
He doesn’t have to saytheirnames aloud for me to nod in agreement.
* * *
Time swirls tumultuously around us.Someone handed me a bottle of water that I have yet to open. The liquid has grown tepid in my fisted palm. I lean against the grand pillar that leads into a dark sitting room. The area has the aesthetics of a cigar lounge—leather scented and furnished with dark wood.
A blue suit leads the pack of uniformed police officers. Big Brody’s presence dwarfs what I’ve always felt was a humongous seat as he takes on a wide-legged stance. At his side, Nan’s a quiet but equally imposing figure. She drops a subtle hand on his shoulder, yet her attempts fail at calming the beast I never knew him to be.
Nan always dishes out the punishments, even to the youngest MacKenzie brothers. Now, Big Brody is the silent presence we all fear.
“Do ye need anything, Brody?” the suit asks.
“I need new sons.” His eyes are a dark pit of rage, flashing to Leith, Little Brody, then Camdyn. “I have seven of ‘em. Ye’re most welcome to the eldest three.”
Nan sighs. “My love—”
