“Her knee is busted up really bad, Mad. It doesn’t look right at all,” he informed me, as he slowly reached into his pocket which involved lifting his crotch up, putting it in closer proximity to my face. It only took seconds for him to remove his cell and lower it back down to the chair, but the whole time it had been so close that I’d stopped breathing just in case.
“What do you mean busted up? Did that fucker shoot her in it?” I’d kill him if he’d hurt her. In fact, I was going to kill him anyway, but I’d do it twice if he’d hurt her.
When he didn’t answer, I twisted my neck so I could see what he was doing and found him pressing the screen of his phone. I could hear when it was answered without him putting it on speakerphone and alerting the psycho with the gun to it.
“Do you see her knee?” he whispered into it, keeping his eyes on what was going on. I could hear Parker’s voice confirming it. “I don’t see any blood and there aren’t any holes in her pants.”
“Looks like her kneecap’s dislocated,” Parker muttered back, making me close my eyes.
She had to be in agony.
“Shit, and he’s dragging her around like… wait… what’s he doing?” Levi’s voice rose in volume suddenly and his entire body tensed tight, making me shoot up into a sitting position with my eyes facing forward in the direction I knew Dahlia was.
Just as I got into a position to jump out of the door, a shot rang out and I saw Dahlia’s torso jerk forward as her head dropped backward before she fell to the floor.
If the hand that grabbed me by the neck of my t-shirt hadn’t done it, one of the bullets from the five weapons that discharged probably would have hit me, if not more.
As it was, they all hit their target making Nick’s body jerk like Dahlia’s had, before he dropped backwards onto the grass behind him.
With a roar, I launched myself forward, ripping the material of my t-shirt and allowing me to run toward my woman who wasn’t moving, even with Rich crouched down beside her, yelling her name.
All the hopes and dreams, the discoveries I’d made, everything lay on the ground with a bullet hole in her leaking her blood out onto the ground.
That thought made me grind to a halt about six feet away from her body, allowing Parker to overtake me with a bag in his hands as he yelled at Rich to lift her shirt up. When he skidded to a stop beside her and dropped to his knees, the first thing he did was check her pulse. Gulping in oxygen now, dreading the head shake I was sure he was going to give me, my world narrowed down to this one moment. It was all I could see, all I could think about, all I knew.
It felt like I waited hours as he frowned and moved his fingers around, still searching. Then he stopped and his eyes shut as his head dropped forward and I stopped breathing. Nothing in, nothing out.
Just as black dots started dancing around, he lifted his head and grinned, allowing me to take a deep breath in, making my lungs scream with relief. When he nodded his head, my knees stopped holding me up and I would have fallen flat on my face if two hands hadn’t taken my arms either side.
“She’s alive, Madix,” Cole said from my right, saying the words I needed to hear, even though Parker’s face had said it all.
When my left arm was squeezed, I looked over and saw Levi glaring at the other body lying on the ground. When his eyes cut to mine, a lot was said between us, none of it verbally. Then, at the same time we stalked over to where Nick was lying and started kicking him.
It wasn’t big to kick someone when they were down, or in this case dead, but the bastard deserved it. Before we could land another hit though, arms pulled us back and dragged us away from him.
“You’re done, dude,” Cole warned me.
And that’s when it hit me – man I was a melodramatic bastard. In the last five minutes, I’d had the most dramatic thoughts of my life. Then again, I’d been in the worst position of my life too.
“Your woman’s awake,” another voice told me, and I turned around to see one of the other cousins, Ren, looking in Dahlia’s direction.
Sure enough, she was talking to Parker who was working on her and grinning as he put a needle in her hand. Doctors were freaky fuckers!
Walking over to her, I took in her pale face and watched as she caught sight of me. She tried to smile but her lips were trembling too much for it to be convincing.