Page 42 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

ROS

The knife plunged into my chest. I howled in pain as Thayer jerked the blade back out, then stroked his fingers through the blood blooming out of my wound.

“God… you’re so much prettier when you’re bleeding for me, Cooper. I should have made you my final girl years ago.”

I didn’t have time to be scared. I was too fucking mad.

The second he reared back, readying to strike again — knife raised, breath hot and sour against my cheek — I gritted my teeth, braced my hand against the slick tile, and let every ounce of fury in my body surge to the surface.

“Fuck you, Thayer,” I spat.

And then I grabbed the barstool behind me and swung it with everything I had in me. The legs cracked against his face with a sickening crunch. Thayer howled, stumbling backward, the knife clattering to the floor as he clutched his face. Blood gushed between his fingers.

Good. Fucker deserved it.

I collapsed onto my side, the world tilting violently. My pulse was sluggish, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to race or give up entirely. My vision kept narrowing, black edges closing in, but I didn’t let go of the barstool.

I didn’t stop watching him, either.

“You stupid little bitch!” he roared, one eye already swelling shut, blood pouring down his face.

I tried to crawl away, dragging myself across the slick floor with one hand, but my body wasn’t cooperating. My side felt like it was on fire. My sweater was soaked. My blood was everywhere, staining the white marble floor crimson.

But I’d hurt him. That mattered. That fucking counted for something.

“Rosalind,” he growled, eyes wild, reaching blindly for the knife, then curling his fingers around it. “I’m gonna carve you up slow for that shit?—”

CRASH.

The door exploded inward. A blur of dark braids and black tactical gear filled the doorway.

Alyssa.

She looked like a goddamn avenging angel, black eyes blazing, gun raised.

“Get your fucking hands off her,” she barked.

Thayer spun toward her, but he was too slow. And she didn’t miss.

Not once. She pulled the trigger once, twice, a third time. Two to the chest, one to the head. His head snapped back as red mist and brain matter exploded out the back of his skull. For what felt like forever, he stood there, still as stone.

The ringing in my ears wouldn’t stop. It pulsed like a war drum, dull and distant — like my brain couldn’t keep up with how fast my blood was leaving my body.

Finally, I heard Thayer hit the floor, the thud heavy and final. His fingers were still tight around the knife

Boots moved across the tile, deliberate and fast. Alyssa stepped over me and knelt by his side. Her gloved fingers pressed to his neck, her jaw locked tight.

One beat. Two. Three.

“No pulse,” she said. Her voice was calm, clipped, cop mode fully engaged.

No shit. His brains are all over the fucking kitchen.

She straightened and reached for her radio.

“Shots fired at 308 Harper Lane. Suspect down. Repeat — suspect down. I need EMS on site now . Victim is conscious but bleeding heavily from a slash wound to the left side and a stab wound to the chest.”

Then she dropped to her knees beside me, her hands on my face, grounding me.

“Ros,” she said, eyes wild with worry now that the threat was gone. “Hey. Look at me.”

I tried. I really did, but my vision kept tunneling.

“Stay with me, babe,” she said, voice soft but sharp as a blade. “I need you to hold on, okay? Help is on the way.”

I shivered violently. My lips felt cold. My jaw wouldn’t unclench.

“Did it work?” I rasped through clenched teeth. “Did we get enough?—”

“We got everything,” Alyssa said. “He confessed. You did fucking incredible.”

Her hands were already pressing gauze against my side and chest, applying pressure to both wounds.

“You’re gonna be okay. Just hold on.”

I tried to nod, but the room spun and everything went black.

ALYSSA

Ros’s voice cut out with a sickening thud as her body crumpled sideways on the floor, blood smearing across the polished marble like someone had sliced open a vein of red ink.

“No — no, no, no?—”

I was already moving, adrenaline flooding every nerve ending.

My gun was still warm from the kill shot.

Thayer’s body lay twisted on the floor in a halo of red, butcher knife still clutched in his slack hand.

I didn’t check him again. I’d felt the impact.

Knew from the sound and recoil that I’d put two bullets center mass and one right between his eyes. He was gone.

Ros wasn’t… not yet.

She was bleeding fast, too fast. A deep, arterial gash sliced across her floating ribs, low and stopping near her belly button.

Then there was the puncture wound high and close to her heart.

Her pulse thudded faintly beneath her skin, but her eyelids fluttered with a weakness I didn’t like one fucking bit.

“Ros,” I snapped, “Don’t you dare die on me. Knox will skin me alive if you die.”

I pressed one hand against her chest wound, the other going for my shoulder mic.

“Dispatch, this is Detective Allen. I need immediate medical assistance at 308 Harper Lane, unit 3B. Civilian stabbing, female victim unconscious and losing blood. Suspect is down. Repeat, suspect is down. Shots fired, one fatal. Send backup and EMS now.”

I didn’t wait for a response. Tossed the mic, grabbed my field kit, and yanked gauze from the pouch like my hands were on fire. Pressed hard. Too hard. She whimpered — but that meant she was still with me. Still fighting.

“Stay with me, Ros,” I said, voice low and steady even as my heart jackhammered. “Don’t you fucking die on me.”

My phone buzzed against my hip — Hale calling, probably following up on the wire. I silenced it and kept pressure steady, watching the slow, ragged rise and fall of her chest.

“You did good,” I whispered. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

But the floor was still slick with blood, and I didn’t know if safe would be enough.

The EMTs pushed through the door the same second Hale stepped into the apartment, his boots crunching glass and debris as his gaze swept the scene.

He clocked the body first — Thayer, crumpled near the kitchen, blood blooming across his chest from the two holes I’d put in it, not to mention the halo of red around his head.

Then he saw Ros.

“Jesus,” Hale muttered, already pulling gloves on. “Talk to me.”

“She’s stable — for now,” I said, not bothering to sugarcoat it. “One slash wound to the abdomen, one stab wound to the chest. Knife’s still in his hand.” I nodded toward the blood-slick blade. “He was going in for a third strike when I put him down.”

One of the medics was already working on gauze and fluids. The other called for backup transport.

“She was wired,” I continued. “I’ve got the flash drive in my cruiser and an audio backup running on my phone.

He confessed to the Stonewood Slaughter — said they weren’t supposed to be home, he panicked when the trip got canceled and Henry came out of his home office waving a gun at the crew who was there to rob the place.

The asshole even bragged about keeping the shell casings as trophies in a safe. ”

Hale’s face went hard, his eyes flaring with something sharp and personal.

“You sure?”

“Got it all. Name, motive, location of physical evidence. It’s ironclad.”

“And the safe?”

“Fingerprint lock, most likely. We’ll need a warrant.”

“You’ll have it.” His jaw flexed. “And the confession?”

“Clear as day. He even laughed when he said it.” My stomach twisted. “Said he was smarter than everyone else. Smarter than Knox.”

Hale glanced at the body, then back to Ros as the EMTs lifted her onto the stretcher.

“Go with her,” he said. “I’ll secure the scene, get the warrant moving. If those shell casings are where he said, this whole case just cracked wide open.”

I gave him a grim nod and followed the stretcher out the door, my badge clipped tight and my heart hammering harder than I’d ever admit.

We had our suspect. Now we just had to make sure the girl he’d hurt lived long enough to see him buried.

Soon, the sirens howled through the darkness, painting the quiet streets of Stonewood in pulses of red and white.

It was well past dusk now — long shadows swallowed by night, the streetlamps casting gold halos across narrow roads and shuttered storefronts.

Most of downtown was closed. The bakery.

The hardware store. Even the barbershop Knox’s dad used to take him to as a kid. I knew far too much about that family.

Everything felt too still, except the inside of this ambulance.

Ros lay on the stretcher between two EMTs, her breathing shallow, the bandage over her abdomen already half-soaked with blood, and the one on her chest soaked even darker with blood.

One of them was pressing hard against the wound, trying to slow the bleeding.

The other was adjusting the IV line, checking vitals.

“BP’s dropping. 82 over 54.”

“Keep that pressure steady. She’s going hypovolemic.”

My stomach twisted. I gripped the support bar tighter.

Ros looked small under all those wires. Frail in a way that made my skin itch. Her lips were pale, and she was drenched in sweat, jaw slack, lashes fluttering like she was trapped somewhere between here and wherever you went when you were too damn close to bleeding out.

“You stay with me,” I said quietly, leaning in. “You don’t get to tap out now, Coop. Not after everything.”

She stirred — barely. A twitch of her fingers. A hitch in her breath.

That was enough to gut me. And then I remembered the part that made my blood run cold.

Knox. Jesus. I had to call him.

He was already overprotective on a good day. After what had happened back in college — after what he did to that frat boy who roofied her — I couldn’t even imagine what he’d do now.

Especially if he thought he was too late.

I pulled out my phone with a grimace, opened my contacts, and found his name. He wasn’t going to take this well.