“What game?”
“DUCK!” Romeo shouted, and I instantly fell to the ground as every man in the ballroom aimed guns at the man behind me. Crawling away, I looked over my shoulder as Frank helped me to my feet, holding me tightly.
“Go ahead, motherfucker, I dare you.” Romeo grinned, aiming his gun at the man’s face as the man behind me paled.
“Martin Williams, you are under arrest. Drop the gun and put your hands behind your back!” Mike Brewer ordered firmly, walking closer.
The man snarled, “Not gonna happen. I ain’t gonna spend the rest of my life in a box.”
“Do it now, Martin,” Judge Tomlinson spoke up. “Do not make things worse.”
The man named Martin sneered, his eyes wild with something I didn’t know, but when he roared and fired into the crowd, everyone screamed as we all hit the deck, and several men returned fire. When I looked up again, Mike Brewer kicked the gun away from the prone body on the floor, and I watched blood pool under Martin Williams. King was barking orders as women rushed the children from the ballroom.
“Jasper, Jasmine,” I whispered and tried to break free from Frank’s hold.
“They are safe, Josie. Your dad has them.”
“George!” I yelled just as Frank’s arms tightened. Looking frantically around the room, I saw several of the Sons of Hell brothers had formed a circle. “Frank. I can’t find George!”
“Lidi’s with him,” Frank said, his voice cracking as King walked over. “How bad?”
“She’s called for an ambulance.”
“Someone got shot?” I gasped as King looked at me. Shaking my head, I looked over at where the Sons of Hell were, then back at King, and my body went numb. I couldn’t breathe.
It wasn’t him.
I refused to believe it.
He just went to get the twins.
He just went to get the twins.
“Josie, I need you to take a deep breath for me.” I barely heard King say when a guttural scream erupted deep within me.
“GEORGE!”
The night wasn’t supposed to end like this. It was supposed to be a happy night. A night full of celebration and new beginnings. A night of promise and love. Instead, I was sitting in a waiting room, with most of Rosewood, waiting for word about George.
I’d hated hospitals ever since my mother died. I hated the smell of them. The sterile scent of antiseptic enveloped me. The fluorescent lights above hurt my eyes as they cast a harsh glare on the pale cream walls. I clutched the edge of the chair,my knuckles white, as every whispered conversation around me turned into a deafening roar in my head.
No news.
No answers.
Just silence and the weight of uncertainty.
“He’s gonna be just fine. You mark my words, sweet girl,” Granny, George’s grandmother, said, taking my hand in hers. “I know my grandson. He ain’t gonna let a damn bullet keep him away from you.”
“I love him, Martha.”
“I know you do, my sweet girl.”
“We’re married,” I muttered, my voice spouting random things as my head tried to make sense of everything.
“I know.” Martha chuckled. “Jake can’t keep a secret to save his life. He called me the morning after your pub crawl with the girls. He said my son carried you in three sheets to the wind and he married you both right then and there.”
“I was mad at him for not telling me.”
