Wicked and True (Wicked & Devoted 4)

“Shut the fuck up, pip-squeak,” Hector growled at him. “You don’t get a say in this.”

Aspen turned to Tessa then. “Drop the gun. Or the kid loses her head.”

She froze. If she let go of the weapon, she had no illusions. These people didn’t play by any rules, so Hallie would still die. So would she, Trees, and Zy. But how could she help this situation if she refused?

Tessa turned to Zy with a questioning stare.

“Don’t do it, baby.”

“You better fucking do it,” Aspen shouted. “Five seconds.”

The situation was escalating too quickly. Tessa didn’t know how to stop it and she couldn’t think. A thousand thoughts raced through her head. She swallowed. Shoot Johnson? But what if that startled Aspen and she pulled the trigger? She’d already been over the reasons she couldn’t shoot Aspen, and she didn’t see how shooting Cash did any good now except to make everything more tense. They talked to him like he was expendable.

“Now, bitch,” Aspen insisted. “Five, four, three…”

“No!” Cash stomped toward the woman. “That’s my daughter, too.”

“Now you care? You were the one who suggested kidnapping her.”

He stopped in front of Aspen, who gripped a screeching Hallie. “But you promised we’d give her back as soon as you got the information you wanted.”

“Are you living in dreamland?” Aspen rolled her eyes. “How the fuck did you think we were going to give back a baby?”

“Y-you planned to kill her all along?”

Aspen sighed and glared over at Johnson. “Bringing this idiot in was your worst idea ever.”

“Hey, it got us information,” he shot back.

Aspen scoffed. “What a pain in the ass…”

Cash lunged in her face. “Answer me. You planned to kill my daughter?”

“Duh.”

“The hell you are.”

Cash reached for Hallie and tried to yank her from Aspen’s grip. The woman didn’t let go. A tug-of-war ensued. Hallie shrieked even louder. Tessa’s heart pounded. Anxiety for her baby gnawed her stomach.

When Hector tried to break free to help Aspen, Trees cocked his weapon and stepped in his path. “Give me a reason, motherfucker. I would love to pull the trigger.”

Finally, Cash’s superior strength won out and he pried the little girl from Aspen’s grip, holding her tight against his chest. “Don’t you dare touch her again.”

“Or you’ll do what?” Aspen pointed her gun at him. “Never mind. I’ll just bury you both together.”

Tessa gasped. She had to get her daughter out of the middle of this—somehow. But she wasn’t trained for these situations…

Cash’s eyes widened, and he finally grasped that Aspen was both totally serious and fully prepared to kill both him and Hallie. Suddenly, he swung the baby onto her feet and started backing away.

“Hallie!” Tessa held out a hand to her daughter, thrilled when she came running, her little arms flailing and her chubby legs chugging. She looked dirty and dehydrated, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. Tears threatened to spill as her baby took the last few steps to reach her.

Then a deafening gunshot filled the air. With her eyes locked on Hallie, she feared she’d see her baby stumble and fall any second, hit and bleeding and dying. But Hallie threw herself against her leg and wrapped her arms around her tightly. It was the sweetest touch she’d ever felt.

Tessa ached to lift Hallie up and hug her tight, but she still held a weapon. The situation was too tense. So she tucked her daughter behind her, then looked up to see Cash on the floor. He lay ominously still, a hole in the middle of his forehead, blood slowly seeping all over the beige carpet.

Cold fear chilled her. These people were every bit as dangerous as she feared.

“Tessa!” Zy held up his hands.

She tossed the gun in his direction. He caught it as she scooped Hallie into her arms, clutching her daughter’s head to her chest and holding her securely while she tried to keep herself together. It felt so good to finally hold her baby…but she didn’t know how they’d get out of here alive.

“Go!” he demanded.

But when she reached for the back door, Aspen raised her gun. “You’re not going anywhere, bitch!”

Tessa’s heart clanged. She turned her body to shield Hallie, hoping it would be enough to spare her baby girl as the next resounding shot echoed in the room.

But the bullet didn’t rip through her.

Instead, Zy fired on Aspen, who gasped and recoiled, then looked down at the blood spreading across her pale T-shirt from a wound in her left shoulder.

“Honey!” Hector lurched for her.

“Stop!” Trees growled at him.

The man didn’t listen, racing across the room. Before he could tackle Zy, Trees shot Johnson in the back, sending him sprawling face-first into the carpet inches from Cash’s lifeless body.

Aspen gasped, crying out in shock and pain as she fell to her knees. But when she lifted her head again, she had murder in her eyes. And she trained her gun on Tessa once more, glaring at Trees. “Drop it or she’s as good as dead.”