Page 3 of Montana Falls
Luckily for me, I wasn’t alone. I would never be alone again when I had people who cared enough about me to register the signs of my panicking long before my own brain did.
“Sapphire Rain Montana, get your shit together and take some deep breaths.” Logan’s sharp order almost made me flinch, even if it was from a few feet away. “We need to figure things out, pretty girl. You need to be strong and stay with us. You can’t panic, you know that.”
He was right. Logan was always right to be fair. And though I wanted to break down and melt into a tiny puddle of trauma-filled memories, I couldn’t. I had to shake away the thoughts and concentrate. Not only on dealing with the mess, but handling the children and the trauma of people who I had inadvertently helped ruin.
I coughed to clear my throat, picking the obvious starting point as I tried not to think about how odd it was that Logan hadfull named and snapped at me and yet I hadn’t resorted to being a brat about it. I’d listened and accepted that he was sensible and right, and I needed to do as he said. Fuck, maybe I’d matured a little since I’d met him. I couldn’t think of another reason why else it would have worked.
If Lincoln had full named me, I would have kicked him. Just in the shin or something. But still.
“Hades.” My voice was soft but firm as I actively looked anywhere but Shannon’s corpse. “Are you injured,mami? Is any of the blood yours?” I doubted it was; if the shotgun pellets had touched her when they obliterated her mama’s brain, she would not have been standing. But it was worth an ask anyway, even if she was too busy freaking out to answer me.
I stepped closer, shoes sticking in the rapidly growing pool of blood that seeped across the ground that could never be removed. But Maddox was by her side before I could reach her; both he and Ares having come downstairs without me even realizing. Not that it was a good thing. The latter of the two was unable to say anything other than mum. Over and over again.Mum. Mum. Mum.
Ares was trapped at the bottom of the stairs, doing nothing but taking in the scene. Staring and staring at the mess and the pain and the worst sorts of things for a child to see, no matter how much he liked to play gangster.
The scene that I had created because I was a stupid fucking spoiled brat. One who refused to let anything go. Or to leave anyone in peace.
I was so desperate to avenge my family that I was ruining other people’s families, and I knew for a fact it didn’t matter how many other people paid the price. So long as it wasn’t one of my loved ones in danger, I would never stop hunting my stalker. I knew that probably made me a monster. That if Henley didn’t come for me first, that one day the little red-haired English girlwas probably going to grow up and hate me just as much as her biological aunt did. Or the boy claimed to be her twin brother would figure out that I was a monster in his story and come back with his machete when he was bigger and badder than me… But I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t care about the what ifs.
I was at the finish line of my hunt, and I wouldn’t be stopping for anyone. Even if it killed me.
Maddox grabbed Hades, hauling her into his arms as she shook. He was crying fiercely, but it made no difference to his current concern, and I was touched by it. It was such a brave thing to do, to care about other’s pain over your own. Especially for what was still basically a child.
“Are you injured?” He wrapped his hands on either side of her cheeks, dark eyes wide and running as he forced her to look at him and hear his words. “Dee, please answer me. We need to know if you’re hurt. I need to make sure that none of this blood is yours.”
She managed to shake her head. A single shake that bobbed her curls around her tear-streaked face. It was enough, though. For Maddox to sigh in relief before he held her tight against his chest, stroking his hand down her spine and whispering words I presumed were kind. He wasn’t speaking English, and based on what Hades had said about him earlier, I presumed he was muttering things in Romanian, so I left them to it.
Blinking away the stress burning behind my eyes, no doubt sinking its way into a killer migraine later on, I glanced around the room again, done with my checking of the little girl. “Okay, we need to call Shannon’s husband and figure out-”
“Saph!” My head snapped up at Price’s tone, as he called for my attention again from his spot beside the window. “There are a bunch of cars outside - at least half a dozen. They don’t have English license plates.”
“Fuck.” I wiped my hand over my face, blowing out a deep breath and doing my best to push away every ounce of worry and confusion so I could figure out what we were supposed to do next. “What the hell is going on?!”
Maddox had Hades. Ares was still by the stairs. Beni was on the couch, woken up and grumbling a little as Logan checked over his no doubt nasty bump, and the little boy did his best not to look at the chunks of his best friend’s mother on the ground. Kody and Lincoln were near me, both with guns, both hovering as they waited for commands. Matching tense jaws and stern expressions. Misha had gone to grab a sheet from somewhere and hurried to place it over the worst parts of Shannon, his sweetness still shining strong, even when in stressful situations. And finally, Price.
Price who stood peering outside, with his other hand clenching into fists as he watched whatever new danger had come our way.
He was who I had to focus on first.
“Cars?” I repeated as I hurried to his side, Lincoln following. “Is it my stalker or did we happen to interrupt someone else being a dick today?”
Before any of us could answer my semi-rhetorical question, our remaining car was ruined. A storm of bullets, shot from the hands of the gangsters that were apparently in the new cars, quickly peppered the metal and ruined all chances of us using the vehicle to make a run for it.
On the bright side, I figured out who was here rather quickly. It made things nice and easy, knowing I didn’t have another enemy or a new danger. It wasn’t my stalker either. Though I didn’t know if that was better or worse.
John O’Malley’s voice echoed throughout the air, deep and unrelenting with its power. He’d always had power. Too much of it. It didn’t matter how crazy he was - how ridiculous andevil and unfit for gang life. He hoarded power like I hoarded mechanics from Leroux’s, and he would never unleash it from his claws.
I couldn’t wait much longer before I stole that power and turned him into worm food.
“Little Montana, what a nice surprise seein’ you here.” He sang my surname with a laugh, and I watched him and his cronies continue to pile out of the cars and stand just shy of Shannon’s front lawn. Thirteen men in total. Each one with an SMG of some kind. “Though I am in a bit of a rush. So if you don’t come outside, then I’ll huff and puff and blow this house down before taking what I want, and we won’t get to continue our epic gang war that ends with your decapitated head as my new lawn ornament.”
The subtle nod to his wife’s death was not lost on me. Even though I was more concerned that John was here. He was here, he somehow knew I was inside, and he was ready to fight and…
“I don’t think he’s here for me.” My voice was soft, careful of the audience in the room as I spoke to my boys. “Even with the weird timing coincidence and his stupid fucking speech.”
Both men beside me turned their heads, questioning me as Price lowered the blinds, not wanting to give John a full view inside the house and the places we could hide.
“Why?” Lincoln whispered; eyes narrowed.
