Page 45 of Coty

“Kayla?” Nanny’s voice is full of concern.

“What happened?” Lily moves behind me and lifts my shirt.

“No, Lily. Stop.”

“No, ma’am.” Lily refuses to let go of my shirt.

“You should treat her, too,” Kira says. “She covered me so I could get out of the corner. He hit her several times before I grabbed the lamp.”

“What?” Nanny exclaims.

“Sit,” Lily orders.

I do as I’m told. Nanny and Lily gasp when they see the belt marks on my back. By their reaction, it must look bad. I know he hit me three times, maybe four.

“Things just changed.” Nanny rushes to the door.

“No. Don’t,” I cry.

“Oh, I most definitely am.” Nanny jerks the door open. “Mack, Rodeo, you need to see this.”

“No!” I scream. Not him. Not Coty.

Both men rush into the office. Coty roars like I’ve never heard before and storms out of the room.

“Jack, Hendrix, go after him,” Mack orders.

Lily kneels in front of me. “Don’t worry. They’ll stop him.”

“Lily, my life is such a mess. I messed up. I…”

She covers my hand with hers. “I know.”

“You know?”

She tilts her head and smiles lovingly at me. She’s been around Nanny a lot. “A little, but not everything.” She wipes a tear from my cheek. “But all’s not lost. It’s fixable.”

I swallow hard and nod. I lean forward and let my friend treat my wounds. Is she right, though? Are things with Coty fixable?

Chapter 22

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Coty

I have never wanted to kill somebody before. The police guarding Cory Coleman in a Knoxville hospital won’t save him tonight. I storm through the Den and out the front door. Before I can jerk my truck door open, a body slams into my back hard, pinning me to the closed door.

“Get off me!” I fight, but can’t break free. Not a position to be in.

“Nope. Not happening.” Jack uses all his weight to hold me against the side of my truck. Fighting him is pointless. I could never beat him.

“He hurt her. He’s gonna pay.”

“Yeah, he will.” Jack doesn’t ease up. “We’ll get him, but we don’t have all the details.”

Has he lost his mind? “Her back is all the details we need!”

“Not true.” Hendrix leans his side against my truck and lays his arm on the hood. He watches Jack and me like this is perfectly normal. “We don’t know if Cory Coleman attacked both of them, or if there was another man involved. We wanna get the right man, or all of them.”

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