Shane (Mallick Brothers 1)

All eyes, including mine, landing on the same person.

The one with a gun raised to the sky and a lifted chin.

Lea.EIGHTEENLeaOkay.

So it wasn’t the best of plans. Really, it wasn’t much of a plan at all. Chaos, that was the only real goal I had in mind. If I created enough of it, whatever was happening, whatever Ross and the guys might have been doing to Shane, would stop and he could maybe escape.

I stood in the middle of the field, weirded out by the silence there, having gotten so used to the noise of Navesink Bank, the constant foot and vehicle traffic, the TV sets and radios blaring, the sounds of sirens. After that, the silence actually seemed almost scary, threatening.

I felt it. I wasn’t some Superwoman. I didn’t have nerves of steel. The closer I got to the compound, the more my stomach twisted, my heart constricted, my lungs seemed to shrink. The fear of Ross was a real, palpable memory. If I let myself, I could still feel his hands on my wrists or his knees pressing down on my shoulders, his hands in my hair, his cock places I hadn’t invited it. But somehow, even more overpowering than the idea that that could easily happen again, the idea of what could be happening to Shane was even worse.

Was he still alive?

His truck was in the lot of Inky’s bar. So was the rest of the Mallicks truck. Their plates and VINs missing or covered, another thing that made me worry. I knew enough about Ross and his reign of terror to know they always did shit like that too, at least until they could move the cars, get them chopped and sold for parts.

Was it really possible that I had just signed the death certificates of the entire freaking Mallick family?

Honestly, I didn’t think I could live with that on my shoulders.

Maybe that was what had my raising me hand over my head in the middle of the back yard and squeezing off a round into the silence, the sound seeming to rattle through my body as it echoed off into the distance.

It was almost the same second, really I wasn’t even sure if it happened right before, during, or directly after, but I heard the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life. I heard Ryan call Shane’s name.

The relief was short-lived however because almost the exact same second, the door to the compound flew open and men started to pour out.

I knew them all, some since I was literally born. Others were newer, but not so new that I didn’t know them by sight. My father and brother were in the crowd, bringing a strange mix of relief, anger, and resentment into my system.

“Lea?” Shep, the VP called, brows knitted in his handsome face. He was the calm to Ross’ chaos, maybe the only truly wise decision Ross made as a president. When Ross was off in a fit about something, Shep was the voice of reason, the only one willing to stand up to him and hold him back when it was needed, when Ross was too close to putting the club at risk. He was the height of the Mallicks but with light features: short blond hair, deep blue eyes, a perpetual stubble, and an odd aversion to tattoos, despite being in an MC and the shitfit Ross threw when he refused to get the club emblem on his skin somewhere. “Babe, what the fuck are you doin’ here?”

“Get Ross out here,” I demanded, my voice a raspy sound, but it didn’t break or shake and that was all that mattered.

“Ross came out for a smoke half an hour…” Shep trailed off, focus on something behind me. I figured it was just the Mallicks closing in, trying to be the good guys, trying to protect me. But the way Shep’s eyes got a mix of confused and concerned had my focus turning.

And then there, walking a little too confidently out of the shed a few yards back, was Shane. It was Shane straight out of a horror movie really. I’d seen him coming home bloody before, but this wasn’t bloodied. This was like he got a bucket of blood poured down at him at the prom.

His eyes were on me, a little guarded, a little haunted, just a bit different than they usually were.

“Shane?” I heard myself ask. I caught movement behind him and, like I predicted, the rest of the family was coming in. Why? I had no idea since not one of them seemed to own a gun.

His lips tipped up ever so slightly as he got closer. “I met your ex,” he informed me as he stopped a few feet to my side, jerking his chin back toward the group of confused and armed bikers.