As he lifts it to throw, I shoot the bottle, the liquid ignites in a loud whoosh and falls on the asshole who was about to throw it. He starts screaming and running away from the house, the other two guys pause and watch him before they look at each other.
Putting the guy who is standing next to the driver’s door in my crosshairs, I pull the trigger, and he falls to the ground.
The guy that was next to him ducks behind the car and I yell out to Callum and Spits, “Two down, the last one is hidingbehind the car, I’ll cover you.”
Spits yells back, “Roger that.”
Light from the front door spills out over the yard and the guy that was ducked down lifts his head just enough to peek through the windows and I shoot out the window over his head. I want this guy alive; he’s going to tell us who we’re gonna visit in return for this little attack. At my fucking home where my family is.
He ducks again but holds his gun over the edge and fires toward the house, I hear a grunt through the window on the front porch, so I shoot his trigger finger. The gun falls into the driver’s seat and the guy starts to howl in pain.
I wait for Callum and Spits to move around the SUV and get to him before I set my gun down and run for the stairs, I pass Jax as he comes down to go out and help them. Dad, Gray, and Tucker are with all the girls in Dad’s room at the back of the hall, but I don’t see Sloane.
“Where’s Sloane?” I don’t ask anyone in particular but everyone looks around and shakes their heads. I turn and run to her room, my insides twisting with each step.
She’s not in the room so I stride into the bathroom and look around, pushing back the shower curtain. She’s not here.
“Sloane!” I yell and jog down the back stairs into the kitchen.
No answer.
Each room I look in is empty and I end up back in the kitchen where everyone has moved to and taking stock of any damage.
Callum is speaking to everyone in the room when I step in, “Don’t go out front until we’ve had a chance to clean up.”
Jax and Tucker are not in the room, I assume they are dealing with the guy who is now short a trigger finger and the bodies.
Breanna is looking at the bullet graze on Spits’ arm with the first aid kit open on the counter.
The unease in my gut is turning to panic, and pressure is building behind my forehead. “I can’t find Sloane; did anyone see her before the shooting started?”
All the heads in the room are shaking as they look around at each other until my eyes land on Kinley, she looks nervous about something. My eyes narrow and I focus on her, “Kinley?”
She’s shaking her head, and now every eye in the room is on her. “Did Sloane talk to you this afternoon?” She is holding her thumbs together in front of her, popping her nails together, it’s a nervous habit she’s had since she was a kid.
Trying desperately to maintain my cool and squash the panic squeezing my chest, I take a deep breath and remind myself that she is not the bad guy, “Not much, why?”
She takes a step back and her eyes move over the faces that are turned to her, “Uhm, she asked me not to tell you. I thought she might have talked to you already.”
Curling my fingers into my palms and then straightening them once, I take a deep breath and say, “Kinley.” Even though she is thirty years old, I feel like I still have to use the same tone I used when we were kids way too often when talking to her.
“Uhm, I noticed that she was getting sick a lot, so I gave her a pregnancy test. At first, she said she didn’t need it but then she remembered something, and she freaked out, she begged me not to tell you because you might think she’s trying to trap you.”
My stomach twists into tight knots as she talks and, in my peripheral, I see Marley bring her hand to her mouth. Breanna has stopped looking at Spits’ arm and both of them swivel their heads in my direction. Dad leans against the doorway and hooks his thumbs in his pockets, his poker face front andcenter.
Pregnant? That can’t be, we always use a condom.
Kinley sees the shock on my face and says, “I don’t know for sure; I left the box with her, so I don’t know if she took the test.”
My heart is beating against my chest so hard that it feels like it might break out, I turn away from all the eyes that are now on me and take the stairs two at a time. Every time we had sex is playing through my head as I walk into her room and then I remember the shower at the hotel.
Fuck.
It was my fault; I forgot the condom. She felt so good that I didn’t want to leave her silky heat and I took my time pulling out. I didn’t come in her, but if I remember correctly from high school sex ed., that doesn’t matter. I scan the bathroom and see the box on the counter, it hasn’t been opened, does that mean she knows already?
Is that why she asked me about when I was going back to work earlier? She seemed troubled by something, but we got distracted when I saw the guy outside.
Fuck.
