Page 176 of Pretty Poisoned
"What happened?" I ask.
"They got a search warrant for the property in Idaho—quietly, we weren't expecting it. They brought cadaver dogs. It might take a minute to clean this up."
I slip my hand under his shirt, resting it over the bandage on his chest. "I love you, Declan," I tell him.
"I love you, too," he says, earning me another side-eye glare from Bone Saw.
I go back to watching the minutes tick away until I spot red and blue lights in my periphery. In the rearview mirror, a police car follows the second Jeep.
"Declan?"
"I see it," he says. "Get in the back and buckle your seatbelt; wake Luca up."
"Is it because we're speeding?" I ask.
But the driver pulls a high-powered rifle from under his seat, and Declan grabs a handgun from the glove box. I already know the answer.
"No, Teagan. There wouldn't be anyone out here looking for that."
"Luca?" I say shaking him, my panic palpable. "Wake up. There's a problem."
He sits up and looks at his brother. "Oh, shit."
"It's fine," Declan says. "We're almost there."
But gunshots ring out from the second vehicle. I glance back and see another masked man shooting from the sunroof of the other Jeep while Rhett drives.
"Get down, Teagan!" Luca shouts, pushing me flat on the bench seat and covering me with his body. I hear metal and glass crunching before the sirens stop, the lights no longer reflecting from the rearview.
"ETA?" Declan asks.
To my surprise, Bone Saw actually speaks, though his voice is muffled by the mask. "Three or four minutes."
"I'll tell them to start the engines," Declan says, fumbling with his satellite phone with the gun still in the other hand.
My heart thuds in my chest. Those three or four minutes feel like both a millisecond and an eternity. I'm afraid to stay in this car. I'm afraid to get out. But a sharp turn onto an old,barely graveled road tells me it's about time before the car halts, skidding to a stop with the second Jeep right behind it.
And more sirens in the distance.
"Declan…"
He quickly jumps out of the vehicle, then pulls my door open. "Get out and run," he says. I freeze—I don't mean to but I can't help it. I just stare back at him while the sirens get closer. I tell my legs to move, but they refuse. "Now, Teagan!" he yells. "For fuck's sake, get—"
But he doesn't finish his sentence before Luca pulls me out the other door. "Let's go, wifey."
I don't even get my bag, but I run, looking over my shoulder when I hear tires on the gravel.
Brady and Rhett are behind me, flanked by the other masked driver carrying a rifle.
We round the corner of an old hangar, and I see it—the small private jet waiting on the runway with its engines roaring. I barely hear shouting over speakers for all of us to stop. I don't hear the bullets before Brady hits the ground beside me. Bone Saw is already on the plane, firing at the police from the airliner's open door. And Luca and I are close…maybe about fifteen yards away before he hits his knees, clutching his stomach, and something levels me to the ground beside him.
"Luca!" I scream.
"It's going to be okay," Declan says from on top of me. "I love you, Teagan. I love you so much. I willneverlet you go, and you'llneverbe alone. Do you trust me?"
"Yes!" I shout over the gunfire.
"I need to help my brother now," he says. "I need you to be safe, so I need you to stay down, okay? Don't move."
