Page 99 of The Masks She Wore

?I shoved the gun in the back of my pants and hit my knees beside her, uncaring of the blood soaking my Armani pants. “Princess.”

?She was shaking, her face pale, covered in sweat, her beautiful eyes wide. “I didn’t mean too,” she whispered, blood dripping from the hand that still held that shard. “I promise, I swear to God.”

?I reached for her hand, carefully unwrapping it from the glass, the clink ringing through the now silent club. “Yes, you did, and you did so good. You did good.”

?Her wide eyes flicked to mine, tears streaming down her face. “M-my heart,” she shuddered, unable to stop moving, to stop squirming. “I d-don’t want to die.”

?I tore off a strip from her dress and wrapped it tightly around her hand before forcing her to sit up. “You’re not going to die.” I peeled off my favorite leather jacket and wrapped it around her. Fuck, she looked so good like this. Covered in blood, wearing my clothes. I put my fingers to her neck, checking her pulse. Her heart was racing, far too fast. Her skin was clammy. Whatever Viv had given her, it certainly hadn’t been Molly.

?I finally slid my arms around her and picked her up, the blood quickly soaking into my shirt. “Let’s get you home.”

?She curled into my arms, twitching, shaking, chewing, pulling my jacket closer. “I’m sorry,” she whispered over and over again.

?“Stop apologizing,” I told her. “You did what you had to do.”

?She pressed her face into my chest, clinging to my shirt, whimpering. “Dad says we only kill the guilty,” she said suddenly. “We only kill the guilty…”

?I froze and looked down. “What did you just say?”

?But her breathing had evened out, her body sagging as if a switch had been flipped inside of her.

?Fuck.

?I looked back to the four men on the ground, confused. They only kill the guilty? Why would she think that man wasn’t guilty?

?It sounded familiar, but…I shook my head. I needed to get her home.

?As soon as I had her buckled in the car, I called Malachi.

?“It’s late.”

?“What do you know about Marla’s husband?”

?He thought about it. “She mentioned him often, but I never met him, why?”

?I slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. “I need a mass clean-up. I’ll send you the address. I need to take her home, but I’ll be back, don’t remove any bodies until I get back.” It was a long drive,but I didn’t have a choice, I wanted to be in charge of this. I needed answers.

?“Don’t touch the bathroom,” I added in.

?“I’ll send who I have.”

?I hung up and looked over to Rae whose head had fallen against the window, my jacket shrinking her. Fuck, she looked gorgeous.

~~~

Four hours later, I was standing in that bathroom again, Zo taking care of Rae, cleaning her up and making sure she didn’t have any other bad side-affects from the drugs in her system.

?The four men remained right where they had been, people streaming around me, cleaning up the rest of the church, getting rid of bodies, tracking down those they needed to in order to keep this all under wraps.

?There was a clean spot on the floor where my girl had been lying, the piece of glass laying in the pool of blood. She had been clean. They didn’t manage to get their dicks in her before I got there. Too bad they signed their death warrants by trapping her in here.

?There had been enough of a struggle for a vase to break though, which is where she had gotten her shard of glass, but other than that? Her phone screen had shattered, and then nothing. There had been nothing. One had attacked, she killed him, I broke in, killed the otherthree.

?“Mr. Ashrin?”

?I turned, sliding her phone into my pocket, finding a young male standing in the doorway. “What?”

?“We’ve got Josh on Viv. She’s at home with a male. George Mally. No records. Clean. We also found this.” He stepped in, holding out Rae’s leather jacket. “She left it downstairs.”

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