Page 140 of Ruthless Reign

Dad was right. She really was the OG badass.

Her gun stopped firing, and I saw the moment she realized the mag was out and ejected it to grab another from her vest—and took a shot to the chest. She was thrown back from the force of it, dropping behind the pockmarked desks.

Holy shit.

“Cover me!”

I ran out before I could think about it, staying low as I moved from our hide to the next one, making my way to the edge of the bleachers.

“Kaleb!”

They shouted behind me, but I was beyond hearing them as I tripped over a body and went sprawling onto my face, my chin taking the brunt of the fall. Teeth clanging loud in my ears.

Fucking shit!

I pushed myself up and kept going as bullets hit the places where I’d just been lying.

Move your ass, Kale.

I threw myself behind the edge of the bleachers and started to climb.

Please be alive.

“Sloane!” Dad was shouting somewhere on the ground.

“Sloane!” he cried out again when she didn’t show herself.

From the sound of gunfire that followed his every cry, I knew he was pinned down. He wouldn’t be able to get to her. But I could. I would.

I was almost there.

Hold on, Ma.

The metal beneath my hands rattled, and I looked down, finding Becca, Hardin, and Aodhán all climbing up behind me.

I jumped over the rail and dropped into a low crouch as a bullet ricocheted off the metal near my shoulder, scattering sparks across my chest. I slipped along the bleachers as a group of three Sons came racing up the stairs at the other end, eager to finish what they started with my mother.

Big fucking mistake.

I had two of them down before the third and fourth knew I was even there. I pulled the trigger again, but it kicked into my hand uselessly. The mag empty.

Fuck.

“Go!” Aodhán finished the other two, coming over the top behind me, and I ran to the desks, finding a mess of bullet casings and a tangle of dark hair. I muscled Sloane over onto her back just as the bleachers clattered and Hardin and Becca came around the hide.

Ma’s slack jaw made my heart stop. Made it hurt so fucking bad.

Like I was nine years old again. Seeing her lifeless on the floor in that dungeon of a living room with my dad standing over her.

“Ma!” Hardin’s anguished roar hit me like a fist to the gut.

Becca put her hands to her mouth to cover a gasping sob.

“Ma,” I shouted over the cacophony of sound, shaking her. I looked over her vest for injury. For blood. I saw the bullet. It was embedded in the vest, just over her heart. It hadn’t gone through.

It hadn’t gone through.

“Ma!”

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