Page 111 of Cruel Lies

Rowan parked and got out of the car, and Angel held out her phone—I’d know it anywhere—as he approached, the three of us staring down at a sizeable puddle of blood from what was probably a life-threatening wound, and a little scraped skin still clinging to the rough pavement.

She fell right here. She should be here. Where was she?

They couldn’t have taken her anywhere in such a short time, could they?

"What now?" I panicked, clutching the lapels of Angel’s perfectly starched white shirt. "What the fucknow?!?"

His hands moved to my wrists, but he didn’t yank me loose. His eyes held sadness, resignation, and defeat as they stared into my own, tears welling at the corners—though I knew he’d deny them if I mentioned it.

"Nash, get it together, man. We’ll find her, okay? We’ll find?—"

"The trail goes cold here, man. What if they killed her already and just took the body with them? What if they took herand she’snotdead—we all know what they’re like." I shuddered as the thought ran through my brain, pure, unbridled rage like a white-hot poker in my brain as I imagined, however briefly, the thought of her tied up and subjected to Clyde as he forced himself on her. Violently. Over and over.

I’d kill him. I’d kill them both, but him? I’d cut off his dick and feed it to him.

I barely registered the sound of Rowan’s phone ringing again, and the fucker actually took the time to answer it. I opened my mouth to scream at him, but the voice on the other side of the call stopped me dead in my tracks.

"Blackwood? We’ve got your girl. She nearly ran out in front of our bikes tonight on the thoroughfare." A pause as he cleared his throat, and I focused on my breathing while he took his sweet time finishing his thought.

Rowan didn’t have the patience I did. "Is she okay?"

"She took two bullets, man, but she’s not dead yet. You’d better get back here. I dunno how long she’s going to make it."

Fuck.

As if our night couldn’t get any better, or rather, worse. Now our girl—my Harpie girl—was bleeding out, and the only help she had was the fucking Neon Dogs.

None of whom knew first aid that didn’t include some antibiotic salve and fucking band-aids.

Rowan didn’t waste a second. He was behind the wheel in seconds, and the rest of us climbed in after him, me taking the backseat as Angel settled into the front.

"We’re on our way."

FORTY-SIX

ANGEL

The rideback to the Guild was the longest of my fuckinglife.

All I could think of waswhat if we don’t get there in time,and that was helping literally zero of us?—

The steps up the fucking stairwell in the parking garage felt like they took three times as long to climb to the main floor. Thankfully, Jackal met us in the foyer, no trace of his usual smugness in those dull eyes, wringing his hands as the other two members of his crew shored up Harper on either side.

She was so pale she nearly blended into the pale white leather couch.

And she was covered in blood.

So much blood.

"Harpie girl," Nash whispered beside me, crumpling to his knees at her feet as Dingo shifted to offer his spot up for someone else. "Look what they did to you."

Her eyelids fluttered open for a second, and a ghost of a smile flickered on her lips as she fought to stay conscious. "Nash," she rasped, a hand lifting from the pool of blood her abdomen had become, reaching for him as he drifted in a sea of tumultuous feelings and emotions he wasn’t used to having.

"Right here, Harpie girl." He leaned his head into her touch, and like a fucking dog, he sat at her knee and let her pet his hair, staring up at her in adoration as she closed her eyes again and took a ragged breath.

His eyes turned cold and rounded on Rowan, who stood there in shock, as if he couldn’t remember that he was a trained EMT.

"Help her," Nash pleaded."Please,Ro,helpher."

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