I have to hand it to him
; the sick fuck puts up a fight as I
tackle him to the ground and start swinging. He howls in pain as my
fist connects with something on his face. I feel the spatter of
blood and figure it was probably his nose. I don’t have time to
focus on it before I’m hissing in pain as his fist pounds harshly
into my gut.
The fact that Raven is eerily quiet behind
me only drives me crazier, and my craziness helps me push through
the haze of pain. Has he hurt her already? Will she forgive me for
letting her down, for not protecting her?
My fist slams against his skull, his ribs,
and his gut. I can’t control my need to see his blood spattered
against the floor underneath him. All of the mixed, violent
emotions I’ve had today have come to a head, and this pathetic man
who chose to hurt the one women who holds my entire heart is at the
receiving end of my madness.
When his body goes still underneath me, I
distantly hear Raven’s voice in my head. I pull back and turn to
face her. I have to mentally force myself out of the drunk-like
haze that’s settled over me so I can focus on her, but just like
the angel she is, she reaches me on a level no one else would have
been able to. The look of her tattered and tied has me surging to
my feet and rushing over to her.
I make quick work of untying her wrists, and
her hiss of pain sends
my heart
shattering into my gut. “I’m so sorry, Angel. I should have been
there.”
“Dylan, please don’t. You saved me.”
“Not soon enough.”
Raven throws her arms around me, and the
feel of her against me is more than I can handle in my fragile
state. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel
myself start to cry. Really cry. Not just the feeling of tears
building in my eyes, or the clogging pain in my throat, but the
full on act of pouring ones soul out to someone else through the
only true form of emotional release.
Raven doesn’t speak, or laugh, or tell me
I’m a pussy—which I clearly am. She just holds me in her arms, and
tells me how much she loves me, and I swear that her love mends. It
makes me feel complete in a way I can’t explain, but that I need
more than anything else in the world.
After I have regained control of myself, I
quietly lead her outside, I push her back against the wall of the
building, and I rain kisses over her face.
“I’ll be right back, Angel. Please, stay
right here and don’t move.”
She looks frightened, but she nods her
understanding and it’s enough for me.
I need this to be over. I need Raven to not
only feel safe, but to actually
be
safe. I move back into
the room and pick my gun up from where I’d dropped it on the floor
during the struggle. I would do anything for my Angel, and
eliminating this demon is at the top of that list. The pain he has
caused her is all I can see as I pull the trigger.
Chapter Thirty-Five…
Three days later…
Dylan
It’s a
boy. Lucas Allen Donovan, or Lad as Ronan has taken to calling him.
My best friend is father to the most adorable kid in Palms, next to
Harper of course, but all of the joy at Troy and Kaci’s beautiful
son has been over-casted by the unforeseen.
In the midst of what is supposed to be a
joyous time in our lives, we are confronted by the reality that we
are only human after all. We are faced with the fact that none of
us is safe from destiny. Sometimes life is in control, and no
amount of preparation can save us from a life-style fuck over.
I stand back and watch as Deirdre collapses
into Ethan’s arms as the doctor tells us the one thing we expected,
and feared, is now an actuality.
Ardon is dead.
Three days after Callie shot him in the
back, Ardon Quinn fell victim to a lethal infection that proved to
be more than the man of steel could conquer.
The ramifications of Ardon’s death have not
even begun to be felt. Through our own grief, we will be forced to
pull together for nothing more than the sake of Fianna Fáil. Ethan
will have no choice but to replace his father’s leadership, and
with Sean still in a coma, the fate of Fianna Fáil rests in the
hands of Ronan, Troy, and Ethan.
I grip Raven and Harper tighter to my chest,
and don’t even attempt to stop the flow of tears. Raven, the angel
that she is to me, accepts me. She doesn’t tell me to man up, which
I know I should, and she doesn’t stop me from following Ethan when
he storms out after leaving his mother in Troy’s arms.
I catch up with him easily. As soon as I
know we can’t be overheard, I pull him to a stop. “Where are you
going?”
My words make Ethan go still beside me, but
he doesn’t turn around. I know that he is hurting. I’ve been where
he is. I’ve lived with loss, and I know running away isn’t the best
choice, but it’s the easiest.
“Your family needs you, Ethan. Now more than
ever. You can’t leave them like this.”
“I’m not fucking leaving them.” Finally, he
turns to face me. “I just need some space. I can’t kill Callie
again, but I would. I would get to her sooner. I would stop them
from putting Sean into that fucking coma he still hasn’t woken up
from, and I would stop them before they killed my father!”
“Sean isn’t just on you, Ethan! We were
there too! We were all right fucking there, and your dad isn’t on
you either! I was there too. You can’t put all of this guilt on
yourself.”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want to, D.”
Ethan shifts on his feet and then shakes his head softly. “You take
care of Raven and Harper, man. They need you. I get the feeling
there is more happening around us then we even realize yet. So, get
ready. Hell has just broken loose.”
Ethan turns and walks away, and this time, I
don’t even try to stop him.
We stay at the hospital as long as we can
before the staff sends us on our way. Kaci, Addie, and Raven take
the kids home while Troy and I help get Deirdre settled in for her
first night at home with the knowledge that her husband won’t be
coming back.
“How did everything go to shit so fast?” I
finally ask Troy as he drives me back to my apartment.
“I think it’s time we make some changes, D.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not okay with this possibility.
That I could die at any moment and leave Kaci and Luke alone.”
“They’d never be alone, Troy.”
“Yes, they would. Even if you did keep your
eye on them for me, your time will come too.”
I have no argument for that, and my need to
be with Raven and Harper only grows as Troy pulls up outside of my
place.
“With Ardon gone we are going to be
challenged. Be ready, D. Our worlds are about to shift in a big
way.”
“I’m always with you, Troy. Always.”
I tap my fist on the roof of the car as I
close the door and head up the stairs. When I walk inside, Harper
is nowhere to be seen so I assume she’s already in bed. My Angel is
there, though. She’s standing at the door to meet me and capturing
my heart all over again.
The End
Read on for a sneak peek
at Ethan…
Coming Soon from S.
Kline
Ethan
How am I doing? Am I okay? Do I need
anything?
What answers am I supposed
to give?
My father is dead, my mother is a
wreck, I’m supposed to step-up as head of an entire crime
organization, and my sister is acting even more crazy than usual.
Well, that’s if you consider obsessing over something crazy, and I
do. I don’t know what she’s planning, but I know my older sister
well enough to know that she is planning something, and I don’t
have the time to fucking deal with it. On top of all of this fucked
up shit is the fact that Trisha is gone, and I can’t fucking focus
without her.
Trisha has always been
mine. We weren’t perfect by any means, but we were real. We were
us. Now she’s gone, and it’s because of something
I
did. Dylan thinks it’s
for the best, and he just might be right. It doesn’t erase the
taste of her from my tongue, or the scent of her from my sheets. I
toss and turn at night remembering the feel of her body next to
mine, and I have no one to blame but myself. I fucked this
up.
My mother burrows into my chest, knocking me
back slightly as she brings me back from the mental hell I’ve
tortured myself in the last few weeks. Today isn’t about me, and I
need to get my head out of the goddamn clouds. If I weren’t going
to Hell before, I sure as fuck am now. What kind of man stands next
to his father’s casket, and thinks about a fucking woman he can’t
work out of his system. That’s beyond fucked up, and it’s stopping
now.
I wrap my arms tightly around my mother to
help keep her on her feet as she cries out in agony. This is all
she’s done since we got the news of my father’s passing. She cries
all of the time, she isn’t eating, and if we don’t force her to go
out, she stays in her housecoat all day long. I have seen my mother
shed more tears in the last week then I have in my entire life. My
mother was the strongest woman I knew. Now, she is completely
broken, shredded, and there is not a damn thing I can do to fix
it.
I haven’t cried. I want to cry. I can feel
the tightness in my chest, the lump suffocating me in my throat,
and the crushing weight that has dropped into my stomach, but I
know better than to let even a single tear slide down my cheek.
Since I can’t release my pain through sadness, I have to find
another form of release. Normally only one of two things does it
for me—women, and death.
I might have to look into at least one of
these two options within the next few hours. I can feel myself
starting to crack under the heaviness inside of me, and I know my
father would fucking hate my show of weakness in such a public
place. My father was many things, but emotional has never been one
of them. The only times he ever showed affection was when he was
with my mother and Ads. Being a man, holding myself together,
that’s what Ardon Quinn would want his only son to do at his
funeral. He would want me to step up, take care of my mother and
Addie, and take my rightful place in the organization. Therefore,
that’s what I’m going to do.
I grip my mother tighter as the preacher’s
gravelly voice rings loud and clear as he says the final words that
have the gravediggers lowering the casket into six-feet of fresh
dirt. The sound of the dirt hitting the coffin is something I know
I will always remember. It’s the sound of finality—the end of an
era. The wind blows and chills my skin under the wetness of my
mother’s tears on my button down shirt. I glance over at Addie, and
I’m not surprised to see her staring at Troy and Kaci. The warning
bells are ringing in my head telling me that I need to do
something, but I don’t even know what she hopes to accomplish. Troy
is pussy locked. The only woman he even notices anymore is Kaci.
Which is why he doesn’t even look up as Addie’s eyes drill into him
from across the grave site. Troy just keeps his gaze on his
bombshell of a little wife. Dad passing has been hell on us all,
especially my mom, but Addie seems to be letting her grief fuel her
deranged plans. I have no fucking clue what web she’s weaving in
her twisted head, but I make a mental note to have a chat with
Troy. My sister was mentally unstable before, and now she’s
becoming a complete lunatic now.
Travis, Addie’s fiancé, is standing next to
her suited in a black tux. I think getting my sister pregnant is
the best thing that ever happened to that prick. He seems like an
okay guy, but I get the suspicion that he is using my sister. Maybe
he’s hoping to get into the family business, or maybe he has his
eyes on the money. I’m not sure yet. His arm is slung around
Addie’s shoulders, and if he notices her fixation, he isn’t showing
it. He is simply alternating his gaze between the service and
Benjamin.
Benjamin, my nephew, is sitting silently in
his stroller. His blue eyes roaming over all of the unfamiliar
faces around him while his thumb is shoved in his mouth, and drool
is dripping from his chin. I know that he doesn’t understand, but I
still would prefer him not be here for this. Why did my sister have
to be so selfish?
Troy and Kaci left Luke with Kaci’s mother,
Dylan and Raven left Harper with Jim, and I wish my sister had left
Benjamin with Travis’s mom. A funeral is no place for a baby. Why
would you want to haunt the poor kids’ dreams with images of his
granddads corpse? Yeah, okay, so he probably won’t dream about
this, and he probably won’t remember, but what if he does?
I suck in a lungful of air and listen to the
cranking of the gears as they lower my father into the ground. The
breeze is blowing gently around my face, the sun heating my skin
through the thin layer of my shirt, and my mother is tucked tightly
into my arms as I lead her up to my father’s final resting place.
This is the part where she is supposed to throw dirt onto the
casket, but she is still falling apart in my arms. I don’t even
think she’s noticed that I have moved us closer.
With pain lancing my chest at the sight of
my mother’s tears, I grip her shoulders lightly and bend down to
look into her tear-stained face. The sight of her thaws my heart
and makes me want to make a thousand promises that I know I can’t
keep. Instead, I place a light kiss to her forehead and try my
damndest to somehow give her a piece of my strength—just enough to
help her through this.
“You need to toss the dirt, Mom.” I push her
long brown hair away from her face and wipe at the tears on her
cheek.
Right then and there, I make a vow to myself
that I will do whatever it takes to see this woman smile again. She
is the one constant in my life. She blinks up at me like she isn’t
really seeing me and nods sadly. Lifting one hand away from my now
wrinkled shirt, she bends and grabs a fistful of dirt before
tossing it into the deep hole that now contains my father’s
body.