“Stay back!” he shrieked, the barrel wavering between Hattie and me. “Stay back or I’ll?—”
“Weston,” Hattie whimpered.
“I’m here, baby,” I said, never taking my eyes off Rodney. “I’m right here.”
I took a slow step to the left. Then another. Every step putting me a little closer to her, a little more between her and that gun. Rodney’s eyes were blown wide and wild, sweat pouring down his face. He was unraveling right in front of me.
“You,” he spat at me. “You’re the one. She comes back to this nothing town, and suddenly she’s got a biker following her around. She was supposed to come to me. When Shawn cheated, when she was scared, she was supposed to need ME. You don’t deserve her!”
Every escalation was designed to frighten her into someone’s arms. He’d just never imagined it wouldn’t be his.
“You’re right,” I said, easing another half step closer. “I don’t deserve her. Never did. But Rodney, listen to me, brother. She’s the most important thing in this world to both of us, yeah? So let’s not do anything that puts her in danger.”
For a split second something human flickered in his eyes, but just as quickly it was gone.
“No,” he whispered, shaking his head faster and faster. “No, no, no. I see what this is. I see it now.” His knuckles went white around the grip. “If I can’t have her, nobody can.”
He swung the gun towards my baby, and I didn’t even think, because nothing else mattered but her.
I dove.
Three shots—crack, crack, crack—and I came down over her, wrapping my body around hers, the chair going over sideways with both of us tangled together. Something punched into my back. Then my side.
There was more gunfire as Bane and Gator came through the door like the wrath of God, and I heard Rodney’s body hit the floor.
Then everything went quiet.
“Weston?” Hattie’s voice was muffled against my chest. “Weston, get up. Get—” Her hands found the wet heat spreading across my back, and she started screaming. “NO! No, no, no—BANE! HE’S SHOT! HE’S SHOT!”
I lifted my hand and pushed the hair out of her face. There she was. Alive. Whole. Those blue eyes I’d been in love with since the fifth grade.
“Hey, Songbird,” I slurred. “Don’t cry, baby. You know it kills me when you cry.”
“Don’t you dare,” she sobbed, holding my face in both hands. “Don’t you dare leave me, Weston Basham. You promised. You PROMISED?—”
I promised, I tried to say.
But the darkness swallowed me whole.
Chapter Fourteen
Hattie Lynn
There was so much blood.
It was everywhere—on Bash’s shirt, pooling beneath him on the concrete floor, on my hands as I pressed my palms against the hole in his chest.
“Hold on, honey,” I whispered, my voice breaking as I tried to keep pressure on the wound. “Don’t you leave me now.”
His eyes found mine, and for a second, I thought he was going to say something. His lips parted, but instead there was a horrible rattling coming from his lungs. Then his eyes rolled back, and his lids fluttered shut.
“NO!” I screamed, pressing harder against his chest. “Weston! Don’t you dare leave me! You promised!”
Strong hands grabbed me under my arms, pulling me up and away from him just as the EMTs rushed in. I fought against whoever was holding me, desperate to get back to him, but they were too strong.
“No breath sounds on the left side,” one of the paramedics called out as they worked.
I watched in horror as they shoved a tube between his ribs, and suddenly he was breathing again.
