Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“I have connections,” Shawn added. “I’m a powerful man, and I can get you anything you want.”
Juric hesitated. He considered it for a moment—then the decision was made. The monster wasn’t interested in bargaining. “The only thing you have that I want,” he snarled, “is what’s in your arms.”
A shiver ran down my spine. My heart beat a thousand miles an hour, slamming in my chest, and it felt like everything was slipping away. If I didn’t go to Juric, he’d kill Shawn.
I wasn’t about to let that happen. When I began to struggle for release, he tightened his grip.
“Stop, Kara. Please.” Although his plea was hushed, it was as if everyone in the world could hear us. Not a soul moved in the square. No one dared breathe.
“Put. Your. Gun. Down.” Jason’s tone was far more threatening this time.
Juric’s gaze didn’t waver from mine. “She’s coming with me.”
“No,” Shawn said. “No.”
The cold, blue eyes clouded with anger and rage, but whether it was the word he hated or Jason’s steady advance, I couldn’t tell.
“Are you prepared to watch your brother die, marshal? Because if you take one more step toward me, that’s going to happen.”
Jason hesitated. “Surrender . . . and let me take you in.”
My mouth had gone dry, but I swallowed anyway, my mind racing. It was all too apparent that surrender wasn’t an option for Juric, and he didn’t believe it was for Jason either.
If Shawn wouldn’t let me go, Juric would shoot him. I struggled harder to break free, to try to keep him safe, but my body was so weak—
The muscle running along Juric’s jaw flexed, and he gave me a final, cruel look that was tinted with resignation. “If I can’t have her,” his focus drifted to Shawn, “neither can you.”
I gasped, horrified. “No—”
But Shawn spun, his body wrapped around me, blocking me from the monster. Blocking me from the damage his gun promised.
The gunshot cracked, the sound bouncing off the buildings, and Shawn jerked forward with the bullet’s impact. Another shot rang out, but I was already falling backward, Shawn’s collapse pulling me down.
Even as we fell, I struggled hopelessly to get my arms free and break my fall. The only thought in my mind was that he’d just been shot. That he’d taken that bullet for me to keep me safe.
Then the full weight of his body drove me down onto the cobblestone street, my head slamming into it, and the world went dark.
36
SHAWN
I’d once asked Jason how it felt to be shot while wearing a bulletproof vest.
Now I knew. It hurt like fucking hell.
The impact sent me hurtling toward the ground, crushing Kara beneath me. The sharp, biting sensation of the bullet, plus the crash against the unforgiving cobblestones, knocked all the air from my lungs.
I gasped and struggled, moving as quickly as my body would allow. I scrambled off her so I could kneel by her side. There was no breath left in me, yet somehow I was able to speak. “Kara.”
She didn’t move and her eyes remained closed. Worry burst into panic when I grasped her shoulder and gently shook her, but there was no response. Her head lolled to one side, and—
Oh, fuck. There was blood beneath it.
My heart stopped, and my skin turned to ice.
“Jason,” I said desperately.
When there was no response from my brother, my panic pushed to a terrifying new level. I glanced up and inhaled sharply.
He hadn’t moved from where he stood, and he was as rigid as a statue. His gun was fixed on the heap of body by his feet, blood and flesh littering the ground around the head. Around what had once been Juric’s head.
Dead.
That had to be the thought repeating through my brother’s mind. That it was finally over. If I weren’t so worried about Kara, I might have wondered if it had given him satisfaction to pull the trigger. If this moment had been his dark dream for the last eighteen months.
But Jason had that empty look on his face he got whenever he tried to process emotion.
“Jason,” I said again, urgently. “Look at me.”
His unfocused gaze drifted down and sharpened with recognition.
“She hit her head when we fell,” I said.
That snapped him back to reality and he raced to us, dropping to a knee on the other side of her as he holstered his weapon. He pressed fingers to her neck, assessing her quickly. “She’s got a pulse and she’s breathing.”
With everything we’d been through, the way it had all gone so wrong, I assumed she was dying.
Well, fuck that. She’d fought through too much to have it end this way.
Most of the crowd had fled when they’d seen the guns, and the rest had taken off or sheltered nearby after the shots. I delicately lifted Kara into my arms, staggered to my feet, and swept my gaze across the square.