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“Drego…” Magnum chastises. “You guys need to go.”
Oscar gives me a smirk, then pulls me close, pressing his lips against mine hungrily before stepping away.
Brawler’s next. He runs his fingers through my hair. I stare at the angel wings peeking out of his t-shirt and smile before meeting his turquoise eyes. “New life,” he says.
“Together,” I promise.
He steps closer and kisses my forehead, lingering there while his hands work up and down my arms. “We have to go.”
“Go,” I tell him. “It’s fine. We have our whole lives.”
He pulls back and gives me a tentative smile before he and Oscar take off running toward the woods surrounding the race track. I’d bet anything somewhere in there, a getaway vehicle waits for them. Oscar’s bike perhaps. They must have had all this set up. For me.
I turn to find Johnny rooted in his spot. He’s glaring down at his father’s body. A chill runs through me. “I’m—”
“Don’t even say you’re sorry,” Johnny says. The dark-haired, stony-faced angel turns to me. There isn’t a shred of sympathy in his eyes. Of sadness. There’s nothing but his love for me that shines back in his icy blue gaze.
I nod, taking in what that must mean. “Shouldn’t you be going?” I ask as the sirens get closer.
He shakes his head and smiles. “No, I’m not leaving you. This is part of the plan, babe.”
“Should I know the plan?” I ask.
The sirens are the sounds of reckoning. They’re echoing all around us now.
Magnum steps next to Johnny. “It’s simple,” he says. “We lured Big Daddy K to get him to admit to kidnapping you among the other heinous things he’s done.” He touches his chest. “Unfortunately, our wires malfunctioned, so they haven’t been able to hear anything, and when they do get here, it won’t matter because there was a fight. You killed K in self-defense….” He trails off. “Unless you want one of us to say we did it. If so, give us the gun now, and we’ll wipe your prints and replace our own.”
I blink at him. “Am I going to get into trouble?” The plan was always not to get in trouble. Not that I would let either of them go down for what I did. That’s not how this relationship works, but I need to know.
Magnum shakes his head. “Lucky for you, you have two eyewitnesses that can attest to the fact that you killed K in self-defense. One of them is a cop, so no, you won’t be getting into trouble, angel.”
The gun’s getting warm in my hands, but I’m not giving it up. “I got this,” I tell them both.
Dirt kicks up as the cop cars come screaming up the barely used road to get here. Magnum gives me a smile. “There was a struggle. You don’t remember much, but you were able to get away, and you shot blindly. Kingston Marx fell. That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“That, and I fucking love you more than life itself, Kyla Samson.”
The tears are coming again. I don’t hide them. I don’t push them back. I use them as part of the act we’re about to put on.
The cop cars skid to a halt. There’s a line of three of them in front of us. The first cop gets out of the car and uses his door as a shield while pulling a gun on me. “Drop your weapon!”
I do as he says, though a part of me hopes it doesn’t get scuffed. I’ve only had that gun for a total of a few minutes, but I’m pretty attached.
“Kick it away from you!” he orders.
Again, I do as he says. His next order is for us to put our hands in the air, and we all do. Johnny and I are separated from Jacob, and while we wait to get spoken to, he weaves his tale. They take out the wires and inspect them to see why they didn’t work. Not that it matters. Big Daddy K is dead. His reign of terror is over. We got our justice.
A few policemen head over to K’s body and check for a pulse. A second later, they use their radios to call for an ambulance.
The next hour or so goes by in a blur. The medics who come to take K’s body look at my hand. Besides giving me a tetanus shot, they flush the wound to stave off infection. Which hurt like a fucking bitch. After bandaging it, they make me promise to see a regular doctor. They don’t think there was any damage to tendons, but if I want to have not only regular use of my hands, but punching power, I can’t let it go unchecked.
You better fucking believe I’m following through on that. K’s taken so much from me. If he takes my fight career away, I’ll revive him just to kill his ass again.
Afterward, Johnny and I are taken separately to the Rawley Heights police station where they let me clean up and give me new clothes, taking the ones I had on as evidence. I recount the physical abuse by Big Daddy K. I tell them about the almost rape and about spending the night in the basement cells. When they ask about gang stuff, I tell them I don’t know anything.
When it comes time to recount what happened at the burnt down race track, I say it exactly like Magnum instructed. Everything happened so fast. K tried to kill me. I wrestled for the gun. I got away. I shot him.