Page 84 of Wolf

“Anna!” Mallory yelled, her eyes desperately searching for life as she lay crouched on her hands and knees, ready to lunge forward. I realized she had been the one to throw me the knife as a streak from the already red-stained blade left a trail from her to me where it had skidded across thefloor.

I went to open my mouth, to tell her I was fine, but it was at that point that I realized that she hadn’t been calling me in concern. She had been calling meinfear.

I only had seconds to see the metal barrel pointed atmyface.

No.

The man opened his mouth to speak, but blood spewed out as his gun dropped from his hands and the man followed after it into a dead pile of thefloor.

I looked up, and for a second, my mind screamedDevil.

“Hey, spunky.” Charon’s eye crinkled as he looked down at me, savoring the way I was being slowly crushed to death by a corpse with my knife in its throat as gunfire rained down around him. “Red looks goodonyou.”

“Charon?” I choked, unable to comprehend the molten gold eyes staring back at me with amusement. “AmIdead?”

Charon laughed before finally reaching to grab the dead Black Jack by the shoulder and roll him off me. The relief of his weight from off my chest sent my head spiraling as my body jolted upward, my stomach heaving across the floor, vomit mixing with the blood into a new vile combination as I was reminded of the reason my stomach was so upset in the firstplace.

That’s when the adrenaline faded away and panic and clarity sank in. “Doctor,” I gasped, fighting my need to dry heave again as I heard the gunfire silencing around me. My hand pressed against my stomach as it throbbed painfully, my body wanting to double over as myheadswam.

I became aware of Jax rushing to my side from the other side oftheroom.

“I need a doctor! Now!” I repeated, trying to stagger to my feet before dropping back down to myknees.

Charon reached for me, but Jax growled when he got even a stepcloser.

He scooped me up, wincing at my yelp of pain from my bruised fucking everything. I waited for his warmth to cocoon me, but it never did. A freezing cold ate away at my skin as I knew I was going into a form of shock or panic attack. Jax squeezed his arms ever so slightly tighter around me in an attempt to fight the shivers wrackingmybody.

“Jax,” I rasped, my teeth chattering as he began moving across the compound, his feet following Charon’s dark figure as it leaped over bodies littering thefloor.

“Don’t worry, Anna,” Jax whispered. “You’re going to be fine,darlin’.”

I hoped thatwastrue.

Chapter Thirty-One

Wolf

Amistake.

It was the one thing as a president I could not afford to make. Not when making one could cost lives. I wasn’t God; I shouldn’t get to decide who dies and who lives, but as I pulled onto the compound, brothers behind me, the ambient noise like a blurred, static fog surrounding me, I realized that playing God was exactly what Ihaddone.

I had chosen who lived and who died. I had played with people’s lives in my hands and decided that the one would outweigh the others. And then, just as I had made the deal, I had gotten greedy and decided to go for them all. To savethemall.

And this was theoutcome.

“Brother.” A hand touched my shoulder, and the static around me snapped like an elastic band, throwing me back into the real world, startling me as I turned on the person, realizing I had long since parked in thecompound.

It took me a second to recognize the messy black hair, tattooed skin, and dark eyes through the red drenching his clothes, skin, andhair. “Jax?”

My heart sank in my chest, looking to his body covered head to toe in splatters of blood anddirt. “Wha—”

“It’s the club. It wasattacked.”

No.

“No,” I breathed, launching up and off my bike as I whirled toward the clubhouse, now noticing where the door was hanging off its hinges. All my other brothers had spun around to me, eyes wide as they lockedatJax.

No.

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