Page 14 of Dash

The memory transported me to my childhood, to a summer day in Wyoming when life was worth living and my childhood had not yet been cut short. We went around and around, trusting each other’s grips as we gained speed until the world was but a blur around us and we were cocooned in our very own bubble of happiness.

Missy, the youngest of us, tittered her adorable giggles, her feet barely touching the ground. Cece’s chuckles rang quietlyin the breeze while Affie’s free, joyful chortles echoed in the beach. I remembered laughing as well, a sound that now seemed odd to my senses.

Family first. It’d been my mother’s motto and she’d passed it on to me and my sisters. We’d all believed in it until it quit working. What I wouldn’t give to see my sisters right now. I missed them so much! I missed their company, their affection, the pure uplifting sound of their laughter. I’ve been living in hell without them and worried sick even before Dash arrived. Now I was utterly terrified.

Balancing on all fours, I pressed my forehead to the ground, fighting the chills and the shakes, finding no comfort in the harsh touch of the hardwood floors. My tears pooled on the polished parquet. My sisters had left an empty void in my heart, and yet, until today, I’d thought they’d been the lucky ones.

The room spun faster around me. The pain made my entire body convulse. My sisters’ voices echoed in my head, chanting a new, sinister song.

We’re the Astor sisters,

The hunted Astor sisters.

Let go, let go,

We all fall down.

A morbid image formed behind my closed eyelids. My sisters’ mangled bodies laid abandoned in a red dirt ditch, rotting under the assault of a relentless sun.

“Oh, God.” I slapped my hand on my mouth and almost heaved. “Please, no.”

Had my father’s murderer already caught up with them and I didn’t even know about it?

The cramps spiked to a new level of agony and the rebellion in my stomach staged a takeover. Bile shot up my throat and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I crawledforward, cleared the papers spilled on the floor, and barely made it to the opulent private bathroom that had once belonged to my father.

As the toilet’s fancy lid automatically lifted, a mouthful of vomit escaped me before I croaked like a dying frog into the bowl. Hanging on to the toilet seat as if it were a life buoy, I threw up some more. And more. I couldn’t stop.

When I had nothing left to eject from my stomach, I gasped for air and reached for a hand towel. I cleaned my fingers and wiped my mouth on the terrycloth. Red streaks blotched the monogrammed towel. At first, I thought it was my makeup staining the fabric, but by then, my lipstick was long gone. When I glanced in the toilet and at the floor, I gasped.

Was that… blood?

Horrified, I scooted away from the mess, trying to deny what my eyes were telling me. By the time my back hit the wall, the strength had ebbed out of me. I felt broken, fractured inside and out. I couldn’t breathe right. It was so cold in the bathroom. My whole body shook until I could no longer sit up.

As I pitched over, I felt as if I was falling into an endless void. I ended up curled on my side on the hard tiles, squirming from yet another vision of my dead sisters and the agony twisting my insides.

I’d been ready to fight for the company. I’d been prepared to protect my sisters’ inheritance, fend off hostile takeovers, and defeat business rivals. What I hadn’t expected was news that an assassin had killed my father and was now after my sisters. I had no idea how to protect them. And then there was Dash. I hadn’t expected him to crash-land into my life with such dire information and the intention of taking over from me and erasing whatever little purpose my life had left.

I’d always been strong, but losing my sisters for good and fighting off Dash?

Those things would kill me.

The pain split me in half. Hands fisted, knees curled, I shut my eyes and prayed nobody would find me like this. Or that I would die here and now. That was fine, too. It would be less painful than being powerless to prevent my sisters’ murders, or not seeing them ever again, or not knowing if they were dead or alive. Death would also be less painful than sitting in a courtroom fighting the man who’d been the love of my life across the room.

Yeah, dying would be the better option to existing in a void where my sisters were gone for good and Dash never loved me.

Chapter Four

Dash

I sprang the lock and rushed into the sprawling office, casing the room with my Glock, looking for a target. I didn’t detect hostile activity, but on the other side of the room, I spotted the bathroom door open. I found Thena on the marble floor, balled in a fetal position. Her eyes were tightly shut and her hands were fisted. I dropped the cane, returned the gun to my holster, and fell to my knees beside her.

“Thena,” I murmured, gathering her in my arms. “Can you hear me?”

Her eyes blinked open and her gray irises looked like mist, diffused and ethereal. Her skin had a sickly pallor. Her mouth was bare of lipstick and her lips trembled as she formed words.

“Dash…” she rasped, closing her eyes as if she was too pained and weary to keep them open. “Please, go away.”

“Negative.” Running my hands over her, I began a head-to-toe check. “I’m not going anywhere.”

---