The second fires as he retreats. His shot goes wide.
Mine doesn’t. He tumbles down the stairs in a broken heap.
I stalk forward, weapon trained on Frost.
The coward uses Camille as a shield.
She licks her lips, watching me advance. “Let him go, Aiden. I-I’ll go with you.”
“You will anyway, darling.” It’s a promise. A threat.
“She’s coming with me, Frost. She doesn’t want you.”
He scoffs. “And you think she wants you? What could you possibly give her that I can’t?”
“Freedom. The right to choose.”
Confusion flits across his face.
“Love,” Camille adds softly.
It’s the wrong thing to say.
His face darkens to a murderous red. “You brainwashed her,” he hisses.
Before I can act, he shoves her toward me with all his strength. Camille flies forward, tripping on the stairs. I jump to catch her.
Exactly as Frost anticipated.
Lights from the hanger glint off the weapon a second before he fires.
A bullet rips into me as I crash into Camille’s path, stopping her freefall. She hits me hard, and we bounce down the last four steps in a tangle of limbs and pain.
“Bronco!” She cries as she scrambles up, hands coated in my blood. “No! No no no. Don’t leave me.”
A second shot rings out.
I flinch, trying to reach for her to pull her down. But it’s not Camille who’s injured.
Behind her, Frost sinks to his knees, blood blooming on his shirt.
He slumps on the stairs and doesn’t get up.
I crane my neck, searching for the shooter.
A figure moves in the shadows above the rafters. Flame flickers to life, then winks out as if someone struck a lighter.
In that split second, my brother Dallas’s face is illuminated—and in his hands, the rifle he lives by.
Relief hits me harder than the bullet I took.
“Talk to me,” Camille begs, pressing her hands down on the wound.
I flinch but keep my eyes open.
Tires screech in the distance. I hear Gray curse.
Lone Star. Camille is safe. Finally.
