Page 159 of Kings & Corruption

I had to know.

The fire was almost to the door, the smoke tearing a round of hacking coughs from my lungs, sanding my throat raw as I edged into the cabin. It took me a second to find him, just in front of the wall of flames gaining ground inside the structure.

He hadn’t been consumed yet, but I probably had less than a minute before he was swallowed by the fire.

I hurried toward him, dropped to my knees by his feet, and ripped the mask off his face.

Dean Giordana stared up at me, his watery eyes wide and sightless. Bullet holes riddled his forehead and chest, making it clear his cause of death wouldn’t be the fire.

It had been the Kings.

Then I was being pulled to my feet by Neo, dragged out of the cabin almost the same way I’d been dragged into it.

This time not toward death this time. Toward life.

Chapter73

Willa

Ilet loose a round of coughing, and Oscar tightened his arm around me. “You okay? Need more water?”

I rested my head back on his chest. “No, I’m good.”

I’d downed about a gallon of water when we got back to the house — we all had — and then taken a shower. The water swirling the drain had been black from all the dirt and soot on my body, and it had never felt so good to put on sweatpants and a long-sleeve T-shirt.

They’d insisted on staying with me, climbing into my bed on either side of me like two beautiful, muscly bookends.

“I can get you some tea with honey,” Rock offered on the other side of me. It was after four in the morning, the room dark around us. “It’ll soothe your throat.”

“Maybe later,” I said. “I think I’m finally getting sleepy.”

He picked up my hand and kissed it. “Then you should sleep.”

“What about you guys?’ I asked, snuggling deeper into the covers, relishing the safety of being surrounded by them both.

Oscar kissed the top of my head. “Don’t worry about us, tiger. We’re all good.”

“Do you think they got there in time to put out the fire?” I asked.

Rock had called the anonymous tip line for Blackwell Falls PD to report seeing flames in the woods and we’d heard sirens ringing through town less than a minute later.

“I don’t know,” Rock said. “I’m sure there will be something about it in the news tomorrow. Right now, all I care about is you.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry,” I said for the hundredth time. “I should have trusted you.”

Rock squeezed my hand. “We can talk about that later. Just sleep.”

My eyelids were heavy, the events of the night spinning through my head. We hadn’t been able to talk about the fact that Dean Giordana had almost killed me, that he’d obviously had something to do with Emma’s disappearance, and maybe the other girls too.

Maybe even Nikki’s.

Oscar was convinced I was still in shock, that it would hit me later, after I’d slept, once my body knew it was safe for me to feel feelings again.

I closed my eyes with a sigh. There was no safer place for me to be than with the Kings. I knew that now. Turns out they’d put a tracker in the vintage watch that had been part of my costume. I’d be mad about it later, probably even royally pissed, but right now I could only be grateful.

If they hadn’t done it, there was very little doubt in my mind that I’d be dead. Sure, I’d gotten off a shot with the gun, but it had hit Dean Giordana in the thigh. He probably would have put a bullet in my head before I had the chance to fire the gun again.

I hadn’t even been able to think about the second man yet. Dean Giordana was dead, but there had been another man willing to bury my body where no one would ever find it, and I had no doubt they hadn’t acted alone.

---