Kaia shifts off me, allowing me to stand.
“We’re fine. Naylor’s dead,” I say.
“What the fuck ishedoing here?” Jett snarls, his eyes fixed on Watson.
“Help me get him into the truck. He needs a hospital,now.”
“Can we not just leave him?”
I pin my best friend with my eyes. “No. He’s Kaia’s father and like I told him, if anyone’s gonna kill him, it’ll be me.”
“And him?” Alex asks, nodding towards Naylor’s lifeless body. “Is he the trash you were talking about?”
I nod.
Cru slaps me on the back. “With fucking pleasure.” He starts towards the body, followed by Beau.
Myles and Jett cross the room, helping Watson onto his feet with a pained groan, taking his weight around their shoulders.
“Wait.” Kaia jumps up from where she’s kneeling beside her father to join us, wiping her bloody hands down her clothes. “Let the police handle this one.”
“Why the fuck would we do that? When have the cops ever helped us?” Alex snaps.
“Watch your tone, brother,” I warn.
“Because when they see my dad’s been shot, the doctors are gonna call them anyway. There will be questions,” Kaia points out.
“Then he just needs to keep his mouth shut, doesn’t he?” Alex says before joining Cru and Beau.
“He’s right, butterfly. Trust us, we know what we’re doing.”
Her eyes flick to me. “Because that worked out so well for me the last time.”
“You owe us big time for this, Watson,” Jett says as he and Myles carry him past us through the doorway followed by the rest of the guys except for Cru, Beau and Alex who are dealing with Naylor’s body.
“I’m sorry,” Kaia sighs. “I didn’t mean what I said. It’s been a long day.”
“I deserved it.”
She takes my hand. “No, you didn’t.”
“Like I said earlier, we’ve got a lot to talk about. First we need to get your dad to the hospital, then we’ll talk, okay?”
She smiles wearily. “Okay.”
With her hand in mine, we head downstairs.
“Killian?” she asks as we reach the bottom.
I turn to her. “Yeah, baby?”
“I love you.”
I can’t hold back the grin that stretches ear to ear as I tug her closer, enveloping her in my arms, vowing to never let her go again. “And I fucking love you, butterfly. More than anything.”
For years I imagined myself killing Curt Naylor in a thousand different ways. The idea of drawing out his death sohe’d feel even a fraction of the torture he made me endure used to consume so many of my thoughts. Iwantedto be the one to end his life. Thought it was something I needed so I could move forward with mine. But now, the image of his limp blood-stained body lying on the floor upstairs, I can’t bring myself to care that I wasn’t the one to kill him.
It’s not important to me anymore.
