Page 112 of Kings & Chaos

My fingers closed around the gun, and I rolled onto my back, hearing Rock’s voice in my head as I lifted the gun and pointed it at the man on his knees, reaching for my leg.

Inhale, then squeeze nice and easy…

The sound was deafening without earplugs, the kick worse because I hadn’t had time to brace myself.

But it fired, and the man staggered a little on his knees. I fired again, not wanting to take chances, worried about the Kings and the gunfire coming from upstairs.

This time he went down, falling backwards onto the wooden floor.

And then the Kings were there, all three of them, Neo with his gun drawn, sweeping the foyer and living room, Oscar checking the man I’d shot, Rock kneeling beside me on the tile.

“Fuck! Are you okay?” His hands traveled over my body, his face drawn with worry even in the darkness. “Did he get you? Did he hurt you?”

“No,” I said. “I… I think I killed him.”

“He’s dead,” Oscar confirmed, crouched by the man’s body.

“There’s no one else,” Neo said, returning to the foyer, the gun still in his hand. “But Rafe’s men aren’t responding to my calls.”

“Not a good sign,” Oscar said. “Let’s secure Willa and then two of us can go check it out.”

Neo looked down at me. “Are you okay?” I nodded, and he looked at the dead guy. “Nice work. There’s another one upstairs.”

I got to my feet and our gazes locked, everything that had happened in the shower, in his bed, passing between us in an instant.

“Can I have a gun now?”

Chapter43

Willa

Gray morning light filled the kitchen when Oscar and Neo walked in from the garage, dirt-smudged and exhausted. I didn’t ask where they’d been. I didn’t want to know what they’d done with the bodies of the men who’d tried to kill us.

“Going to shower,” Neo said on his way to the stairs.

Oscar trailed after him without a word while Rock went to work in the kitchen, resetting the coffee machine and cracking eggs into a bowl.

I’d argued we should call the police, but the Kings had shut that down, arguing that an investigation would only put the spotlight on our undercover efforts to figure out what had happened to Emma.

It was Oscar who’d brought up another possibility — that someone in the Blackwell Falls police force might be involved with the disappearance of the girls. How else had someone gotten away with it for so long?

And like Neo had said, the two men in the househadtried to kill us.

I couldn’t argue any of it, and I’d sat silently in the kitchen while they’d dragged the bodies of the two men out to the Hummer. Neither of them were carrying ID, and I spent the next four hours with Rock, feeling sick that some other family would be in my position, wondering what had happened to their brother or son.

Rafe’s men had been stunned with tasers — not shot, thank god, probably to avoid the noise of gunfire before they reached the house — and he’d already been to the property to inspect the scene outside. The men were all gone now, and I had no idea what that meant for our security.

“You hungry?” Rock asked, pulling eggs from the fridge.

“Not really,” I said, rubbing one of the veins in the marble countertop.

“I’m going to make breakfast anyway,” he said. “You should eat something, and Oscar and Neo will be hungry.”

He was cracking eggs into a bowl when they returned to the kitchen, both with damp hair. They went straight for the coffee machine, and Oscar slid into one of the chairs at the island with his steaming mug.

Neo took a seat at the small table next to the window, keeping his distance as always. He was beautiful even in gray sweats and a hoodie like the one I’d borrowed to go to the kitchen for water. It was impossible to believe it had only been a few hours since we’d given in to our hunger for each other in the shower.

“We have to leave,” he said.

---