Page 99 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

“You stupid fuck!” Alexandra grunts.

But it’s too late.

Cassius rams into them.

She ends up rolling across the floor while Cassius wrestles the shotgun out of Vince’s hands. River and Nathan handle the remaining enforcers.

POP-POP!

River ducks, then springs up and punches one guy in the throat. I hear the crackle, followed by a wheezing and gurgling that send shivers down my spine. River grabs his gun and starts firing at the same time as Nathan, who picks up a weapon from the floor.

POP-POP. POP.

Bodies thud in the doorway and in the hallway. Blood sprays across the room. I wince and try to move farther away, but Alexandra grabs me by the ankle and yanks with all the rage of a homicidal bitch.

“Come here!” she snarls.

I land on the floor with a grunt, and she quickly climbs on top of me, hands grasping my throat. She tries to choke me, but I wrestle her off me, scratching and clawing at her face until I draw blood.

“OUCH!” she screams as Nathan grabs a handful of her hair and drags her away.

BOOM!

Everything stops.

I fear the worst has happened as my eyes desperately search for the source of the explosion. Cassius is on one knee, panting and bloodied and holding the shotgun. Smoke swirls out of the wide muzzle.

Vince is dead and wide-eyed, splayed on his back and chockful of lead.

“No…” Alexandra gasps at the sight of her wasted brother, his blood spreading into a crimson pool around him like an eerie kind of aura.

I exhale heavily, slowly sitting up. My heart is on a wild rampage somewhere in my throat, sweat dripping from every pore, but I’m okay.

“I’m not done with you yet,” Nathan says, and pins Alexandra face-down on the floor, tying her hands behind her back. “And I’m not done with your fucking family either.”

“You killed my brother,” she sobs, suddenly at a loss. I barely recognize her, oddly enough.

“No,youkilled him,” Cassius replies and sets the shotgun down. “The minute you talked him into this foolishness, you signed his death sentence. This is on you, Alexandra, and no one else.”

“Oh, God,” I whisper, the adrenaline quick to subside.

River assesses the situation with a deep frown, rapidly removing weapons from the fallen enforcers and checking their pulses.Sirens wail somewhere outside. Red and blue lights flash through the window, brighter and brighter.

A silence lingers for a moment as we all look at one another.

There’s so much I want to say, yet words fail me. Tears spring from my eyes as my whole body starts to shake, knowing it’s truly over.

Nathan is the first to reach me and take me in his arms, helping me off the floor. I welcome his warmth and his strength and his hard body against mine.

“I told you we’d be okay,” he whispers in my ear.

“I can’t believe you made it,” I say, shuddering as River and Cassius join the hug. They tighten their ranks and almost squash me between them. “My God, this feels so good,” I laugh lightly, relief washing over me like golden sunlight.

It doesn’t matter that it’s raining cats and dogs out there.

It doesn’t matter that we’re surrounded by dead bodies and in the company of a sobbing psychopath who can’t take her eyes off her brother’s corpse.

It doesn’t matter that we all hear the thundering of boots up the stairs as police and federal agents storm the building.

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