King's Reign (Sydney Storm MC 6)

Needed to know she was okay.

“King.”

I turned to her voice, finding her standing where I’d left her near D’Amato’s body. She watched me with that same fierce look of determination she’d had before. So fucking strong.

I closed the distance between us and she moved into my arms. Wrapping hers around me tightly, she said, “I thought you were going to die,” right before her first tear fell.

I held her until she stopped crying. Hyde called Nitro who’d been out on a job all day, and asked him to organise a cleaning crew. The place would take fucking hours to clean, but that was the least of my worries. My only concern was Lily and getting her the fuck out of here.

“I’m taking Lily home,” I said to Hyde.

He nodded. “Yeah, brother. We’ll get this shit sorted. Don’t bother coming back.”

I cleaned us up and organised for Devil to drive us to her place. I sat in the back with her, not letting her out of my arms. The emotions coursing through me were unlike any I had ever experienced. For the first time in my life, I had felt fear. It was a foreign feeling to me, and not one I ever fucking wanted to feel again.

28

Lily

I’d always wondered if there would be a moment in my life that punched me in the gut and winded me so badly I would struggle to recover. I’d thought I had come close when I discovered Linc cheated on me. I then thought I’d come closer when we divorced. And then when Brynn had been shot, I knew I’d reached that moment. However, when that man had threatened King’s life today, I finally knew I’d found the moment that would wind me so badly I wouldn’t be able to breathe for a long time.

I’d wanted him to kill me instead.

It had been the most selfish moment of my life, because I never wanted to leave my children without a mother, but in that split second when I thought King would die with that man’s hands around his neck, I wanted to offer my life in exchange for King’s.

I hadn’t been able to breathe.

I hadn’t been able to think straight.

All I had wanted was to give my life for my man’s.

And then my brain had kicked into gear, and I’d done some straight talking and reminded myself I was a mother with responsibilities. I’d told myself to find a way to save both of us and then I’d done that.

I’d picked up King’s gun. I’d been completely focused on my goal. I’d killed a man. Something I never imagined doing.

That moment had winded me, and I was sure it was going to take a long time for me to breathe properly again.

Devil had driven us to my place, and King hadn’t let go of me until we were there safely. He’d told me to go inside while he went over some stuff with Devil. Brynn had gone out for the day with Jamie, so the house was quiet as I slowly made my way to my bedroom. My legs felt heavy, my heart, too. And my head was filled with a non-stop replay of that man’s gun pressed to my head. I felt the gun still now. Every time I saw it in my head, I felt it like it was still digging into my skin. It continued to make my heart race with fear. And as much as tears threatened, I refused to allow them. I refused to allow his actions today to make me run or hide away from the world. I was stronger than that.

I had just sat down on the edge of my bed when the front door slammed closed. I jumped at the noise in a way I didn’t usually jump, but I closed my eyes and breathed through it.

And then King stalked into the room, a rush of wild, angry energy that completely threw me.

Coming at me, his eyes ferocious, he roared, “Don’t you ever put yourself in harm’s way like you did today!”

My heart banged against my chest at his outburst, and I shot up off the bed. “What the hell, King? What’s gotten into you?”

“You!” he barked, jabbing his finger in the air at me. “You’ve fucking gotten into me. If you are ever in a situation like that again, Lily, you fucking run when you can. You do not fucking hang around and pick my fucking gun up and shoot someone. You get your ass out of there as fast as you can and you save your fucking life. You do not think abo

ut me.”

His anger bled into me. It combined with the adrenaline racing through me, and I slammed me hands against his chest and yelled, “I will never not think about you! And don’t you ask me not to. If your life is being threatened, I will do anything and everything I can to save you.”

He gripped one of my wrists, squeezing it tightly as he pulled me to him. If I thought his eyes looked ferocious before, I wasn’t sure what I’d call them now, because they blazed with more fire than I’d ever seen from him. “This is not something up for negotiation. You have never held a gun before. You have never shot a gun before. That situation could have turned out a whole lot fucking differently than it did today. You could have been killed. Do you fucking understand that?”

I glared at him. “Do you fucking understand that you could have died?”

His other hand snapped around my neck and his eyes bored into mine. “I live with that fucking understanding every day of my life. You do not. And I’ll be fucked if you’re going to start now.”