The moment didn’t last for long.
Another gunshot filled the air, but it didn’t make sense. No one was left besides myself and Blaire, and we were finally safe.
I looked behind me to see Duke holding his fallen father’s smoking gun, before he dropped back to the ground, clutchinghis chest. One last shot, and he missed us both. Served the dick right.
Blaire picked up her dropped gun, and neatly fired two more shots into Duke. His body twitched, then fell still. “That felt a lot better than I thought it would,” she said.
“Well, he was a dick and a half.” I ran my gaze over his body. “If he hadn’t been Conrad’s son, I think he might’ve been a decent guy. Too bad, so sad.”
“Do we call the cops?” Blaire asked.
“Yeah. They aren’t all dirty, despite whatever Conrad and my brother believed. There are still some who will listen. But things are also different now that Conrad’s dead. Anyone he blackmailed on the force will hopefully come forward. Besides, I’ll be with you, making sure they do.”
When I reached for Blaire’s hand, something pinched in my side. Suddenly, I felt like I needed a nap. A really long one.
“I think I’m getting too old for this shit,” I muttered. “I pulled something in my side.”
“Where?” Her eyes ran down my body, until she gasped. “Winder.”
I followed her gaze, to the small spot of red on my side that was spreading at an incredible rate. I put my hand on it, pulling it away, sticky with blood. A gunshot wound.
Funny, because it didn’t hurt at all.
It felt almost good. Blaire’s hands were on me, and that was all I needed.
Blaire’s hands on me, this had to be a dream.
I fell to the floor, Blaire’s scream following me down. She’d always been my only thought. Made sense for her to be my last.
Chapter
Thirty-Five
BLAIRE
Winder dropping in front of me was a repeat to a movie I never wanted to see again. It was Winder falling to the floor, but all I could see was Oliver. Oliver’s shocked face, knowing it was me who shot him. Oliver clutching his wound, chest barely rising and falling.
Except this wasn’t Oliver. This was Winder.
I fell to my knees with him, catching his head before he smacked it on the cold cement floor. “Winder!” I screamed.
The blood on his side was blooming into a rose of the deadliest variety. I pressed my hand against the wound, trying to ignore how similar all this felt. Déjà vu of a memory I wished would’ve stayed forgotten. I didn’t need my memories back to know this amount of blood loss wasn’t a good thing. The bullet had hit something major.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” My hand slipped in the blood, smearing across his hoodie. I pressed hard, grabbing his hand with my free one. “Winder! Winder, if you’re still fucking in there, you answer me right now!”
His pulse was there, but faint. Duke must have nicked an organ, or an artery, and the combination of Winder’s pain and shock meant it took him a minute to realize what was happening. I put as much pressure as I could down on his side. “You aren’t fucking leaving me now. Not now. I’m not letting that happen. Help! Someone help!”
No one was coming. I was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dead bodies, and Winder was going to bleed out if I didn’t get him help soon. I was on my own.
Keeping my hand pressed against the wound in his side, I patted down his pockets, hoping to find anything to help…like his cell phone.
I fished it out, dialing 911 with one hand while I screamed at Winder, “Don’t you give up on me now. You stay with me, you hear? You fucking stay with me. I can’t do this without you. I can’t do this without you!”
It felt like an eternity before someone answered the phone. “911, what’s your emergency?”
“I have a gunshot wound in the back room at Circuit nightclub. Please hurry.” I kept the operator on the phone, but tuned her out. I wanted my focus to be entirely on Winder. He needed me.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re sexy as hell when you’re stubborn like this?”
