Page 64 of Making Choices

With my heart pounding, fears for Cherub and my brother weighing me down, I ride, hard as I can, to catch up to Venom. We’ve all had the address for Brutus’ secret safe house since he allowed Toker to take on guard duties, so I reach it with ease.

It’s what I discover that stops me in my tracks.

My best friend has discarded his Harley at the bottom of the steep winding driveway. Tank lays dead at the front gate. Throat slit. Chest slashed open. It’s amateur, yet undeniably effective. A blacked-out SUV that I recognise from the night Hunter helped me dump the dirty cop on Joseph’s doorstep is parked behind a line of trees.

Alex is here.

The confirmation that Cherub’s worst nightmare has tracked her down sends me running.

I’m puffing, more from anxiety than exertion, when I reach the front door. It’s been kicked in. Light blares deep in the house. Unstrapping my semiautomatic, I decide that the time for creeping inside has passed, so I stomp my way into the house with the barrel of the rifle leading the way.

No one shoots.

No one tries to run.

They’re either dead or hiding.

Yelling so loud my words bounce off the walls, I announce my presence. “It’s me. Figure it’s just us since there’s a bunch’a bodies all over the place and no gunshots.”

A few seconds later, Venom shouts back. “Think it’s clear. Can’t be sure. We’re at the back of the house.”

Heart flip-flopping in my throat, I ask, “We?”

“Me and Lily.”

From the pain lacing his words, it’s clear she’s hurt. I brace myself for fractured bones and blood, yet I still reel backward a step when I see her. She’s on the floor. Naked. Beaten. Broken. Her head is cradled in Venom’s lap and he’s trying to pull his T-shirt off to hide his woman’s state from me.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.” That one word sums up Venom’s heartbreak.

He’s past the point of blaming himself and is trapped in his own version of hell. Seeing his struggle, I bite back the rest of the expletives that echo around my brain to help him free his arms from his shirt. When I lean over them both to lay Venom’s T-shirt over Cherub’s broken body, bile invades my throat. I swallow it down as a shudder runs down my spine while I mutter a prayer for her swift recovery under my breath.

I feel Venom’s gaze on the side of my face, but I can’t bring myself to meet it.

While we were pretending to fuck Honey to prove some stupid point to Brutus, the woman we love was being brutalised within an inch of her life.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow.

We failed.

Not just Venom.

Both of us.

“We need help. She needs medical attention.”

Venom’s tone is hollow as he tells me, “Can’t call the authorities.”

“Why the fuck not?”

His attention strays from Cherub to the open door further up the hallway. I make to leave the way I entered to gather my tools, then remember that my knives are already strapped to me. Stepping into the bedroom is surreal. There’s blood everywhere. Sprayed up the walls. Soaking the mattress. Puddled on the floor. And I’m not the cause of it.

In the middle of the bed rests Alex’s dead body.

His chest is blown open.

He has a bullet wound in his upper arm.

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