Page 144

What the hell was wrong with me?
Too shocked to argue, I let Fang lead me away from the microphone. I sat heavily in my seat but couldn’t stop glancing back over my shoulder at the empty spaces.
My chest tightened with every second that passed. I clutched my purse to my stomach, silently begging the feeling to go away. The walls of the church closed in on me until my lungs screamed for air.
Until I couldn’t just sit there a moment longer.
I ran for the exit.
I burst into the midmorning sun, but it did nothing to stop the out-of-control feeling. So I kept going, weaving my way through the church graveyard, where that afternoon, my mother’s coffin would be put into a hole and covered with dirt. I dodged around tombstones and mausoleums and remembrance monuments. There was no one around. Not a soul in sight. I powered up a hill, pushing my body harder and harder in the hopes my lungs would right themselves and I’d be able to breathe again.
But I heard them behind me. My guys calling my name. Bliss and her guys following too. Their shouts mixed amongst the organ music that floated from the church as my mother’s funeral dragged on without us.
I crested the hill and headed down the other side. This was familiar. Vaughn and I had come here with the funeral director and picked out side-by-side plots for our parents. We’d parked our car at this end of the cemetery and walked through, inspecting the various available plots before picking two beneath a weeping willow with branches so long they almost touched the ground, making the spot quiet, shaded, and private.
Bart and my mom would never get to spend their lives together, but they’d be here beneath a willow tree for all of eternity. That was the least we could do for them.
Sobbing, I swept the branches aside and found the two holes, already dug and waiting for their coffins.
On the other side of the empty graves, two men and a woman cut through, making their way to the parking lot.
I gasped. “It was you!”
Caleb, Hugh, and the woman turned around.
If they were surprised to see me there, they didn’t show it.
The two men were as arrogant as ever, in expensive suits and sunglasses.
I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Not even when my guys surrounded me, and behind them, Bliss and hers.
“Caleb?” Bliss gasped.
“Can I kill him now?” Scythe growled from the back of my group. “Please fucking let me kill him.”
His knuckles cracked. Or maybe it was his neck. I didn’t even know.
“Only after I do,” Fang spat out, his voice deep and feral, like he barely had a hold on himself.
In unison, Hugh and Caleb both drew guns.
Scythe didn’t move. Neither did Fang. Bliss didn’t say a word. A deathly silence fell over us all.
They were waiting for me to give the okay. Out of all of us, it was me he’d hurt the most. Me who needed revenge. Me who needed to give them permission.
None of them were armed, though. None of them were a match for a bullet.
The woman standing behind Caleb, let out a tiny sob, drawing my gaze to her.
I did a double take, recognizing her instantly.
The woman from Alice’s photo. I was as sure of it as I was sure of my own name. The sister she’d told me was dead.
I clutched my purse tighter. “Louisa?”
The woman’s gaze snapped to mine. Confusion flickered all over her face. But she gave a tiny nod. “Louisa Kara. But I just go by Kara now. How do you know my name?”
My head spun. Alice’s sister was the woman I’d spoken to in the basement?