Page 142 of Cruel Lies

Harper stood up behind me, launched herself onto the top of his desk, and reached up to the ceiling for the matching opal revolvers her mother had hung there long ago. A wedding present, from her to her new husband.

And now his death sentence.

Harper pointed them both at his face, one over each of my shoulders, and fired them in unison. I don’t know how she knew there were bullets in them. I never suspected anyone would keep display pieces loaded.

"I hope the bugs feast on your corpse when the crocs are done with it," she spat, watching with a dead, thirty yard stare as he fell backward, two matching holes in his forehead, blood pouring out behind him on the marble floor.

"Uh, guys, not to be a spoilsport," Nash muttered from behind us, "but Angel and I are dying over here."

FIFTY-SIX

HARPER

Everythingafter the boys stepped into the fray was a blur. A hot mess that made me sick to even think about. And yet, now that the man who’d tormented us our whole lives was dead, standing here in the hospital left me with nothing more to do than overthink.

Something in me had snapped when Angel took that bullet for me. When his lips curled into a smile from his prone position on the floor as I lifted him into my arms and sobbed like a little child. Nash and Angel in one day, both taken from me in the blink of an eye by the same man.

Both now at the brink of death.

All because of the hell the fucking Blackwood patriarch put us through.

Rowan wasn’t talking to me. He’d been refused entrance in the ambulances because there wasn’t enough room for them to work around him, and the race to the hospital we shared in the front seat of the Torino was a silent and heavy one.

I’d never felt so abandoned by him in my life.

He wouldn’t meet my eyes, wouldn’t breathe a lick of attention in my direction. And when the doctors came out to talk to him, he didn’t offer up any assurances.

I reached for his hand, but he pulled it away.

And so began the intentional icing-out of my fragile soul.

Did he blame me for their—for what happened to them? Was this all my fault?

The first doctor was a tall, slim male, unremarkable in appearance behind his surgical mask. There was so much blood on the front of his jacket, it scared the fuck out of me.

I wasn’t sure who he’d worked on, but it didn’t look good.

I fought the urge to vomit as I clenched my hands around air and wished the universe wasn’t so cruel as to cut me off from the only support I had. The only port in the storm had effectively shut his doors to me, and it only served to make this whole situation moretumultuous.

"The one with the, uh, facial scars," he began, turning his gaze to Rowan for confirmation.

"Nash."

The poor guy paled at the timbre in Rowan’s voice, but nodded calmly. "Yes, him. He’s fortunate the knife didn’t land a bit closer to his heart. We’ve stopped the bleeding, repaired most of the damage, and as long as he can be contained to a bed to recover, he’ll pull through."

"What about Angel?" I heard myself breathlessly rush out, unashamedly invested. Rowan’s dark glare had me on edge, though. It almost felt like . . .

Like he didn’t want me to care. Like I wasn’t allowed to care.

The doctor ignored Rowan’s surly attitude and focused on me, a soft smile on his face now. "My colleague is still working on him, unfortunately, so I can’t give you any updates. All I know is that it’ll be a while until we can speak to his condition." he bowed to us, a move I’d seen Angel do once or twice in his younger years. "I do apologize that I couldn’t give you more reassuring information on his status."

Rowan watched his back as he walked down the hall away from us, silent in the waiting lounge, like a fucking statue.

I wanted him to do something. Yell at me, scold me, break down, I didn’t care. I just couldn’t take another minute of this silent treatment from him.

Instead, I watched as he turned away and sat with his head hung in his hands, sequestered away in a corner where he could hide from this whole thing. He didn’t cry. Didn’t shake with uncontrollable emotion. He just looked . . . empty. Like there was nothing there behind that steely mask he wore.

That wasn’t the Rowan I knew.

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