She looked like a gothic princess and I fucked with it more than I should have, considering she was my currently comatose boyfriend’s little sister. Adopted sister. Sort of boyfriend in a semi-open but not relationship. But still, Delilah was a weakness of mine; a hot goth with thick thighs that would look even better wrapped around my face. I loved goth girls. Always had. But I liked them even more when they were kind and had held me for nearly twelve hours without complaint as I sobbed over most of my family being dead and how I had been too late to help.
I liked girls the most when instead of leaving me alone each night to cry into my pillow; they stayed with me singing songs until I passed out, only leaving my side when I was securely off in dreamland.
Fuck, Delilah was a distraction, and I was in trouble. I was in a lot of trouble if I kept letting my brain think stupid fucking thoughts. I needed to think of Kellan’s nan or something instead. Or maybe my old English teacher, Mrs Kane, who’d been a mardy old bitch that stunk like anchovies. That ought to have been enough to make my head reset itself and get back in the game.
That would have to be enough to make me stop behaving like a fucking idiot and remember there were more important things for me to think about and do right now than mess up my friendship with Delilah. Because aside from the danger we were in, crushing on my comatose boyfriend’s little sister was not a smart fucking choice. It was either the start of a brilliantly angsty romance book. Or a recipe for disaster. Either way, it was fucking with my head a bit too much and I had enough to deal with.
“I like bananas. But only if you eat them upside down. Did you know that’s the right way to eat them?” I said.
Maybe I was talking shit to calm myself. Or maybe I was right and people who ate bananas wrong were simply fools. Or perhaps I needed another distraction from the sight of Darius bleeding out in Sapphire’s mansion, his glasses askew and his chest rattling out of my mind.
He wasn’t dead. I’d come to after the crash, finding Angel had called for his aunt, and then and her men had taken an unconscious Kody to be treated. Raya had dragged Kellan, Angel, and me back to Sapphire’s as soon as she was sure we were mostly okay, and we had made it before the stench of gunpowder had even left the air. Three minutes after that we had seen the bloodbath that waited for us – the corpses that littered the ground – and one of my best friends damn near dead.
A crying and bloodstained Delilah had kept enough pressure on the bullet hole in Darius’ chest that, with the help of Raya’s doctors, he made it to live another cursed day.
He was one of the lucky ones.
There had been over a dozen bodies we had disposed of that night.
More than one withmyblood running through their veins.
More than one person I loved.
Rocky had never been a part of the plan, and it was my fault that I hadn’t thought he would be a threat until it was too late, and now I could feel the guilt eating me alive, far more than anything else I had done lately had.
I was already in trouble for my sins but the things I’d done before now were nothing in comparison to letting my family down.
“Is there a right way to do something? I always thought everything was open to interpretation.” Delilah stopped moving suddenly. Then she got on her tiptoes and moved her lips right beside my ear so I could smell her lavender perfume and tastethe bubblegum in her mouth. “Ten o’clock. Prick with a gun on his hip. Can I kill him, Widow? I wanna kill him.”
Pretending to still dance, I spun her, swapping our places with as much smoothness as I could muster. I wasn’t a dancer, but I knew enough not to make an ass of myself. My aunt Nessa had told me that if I wanted to make dates like me, I ought to have learned not to embarrass myself or them on a dancefloor, and she had been right. I wondered, now that she was dead from a handful of bullets in her back, if she had ever thought there would be a time I would actually appreciate her advice and not laugh it off.
I wondered what she thought of me when I hadn’t made it home in time to save her life.
I would have hated myself for it.
“Easy, psycho. We have to pick the right guy at the right time.” I checked out the gangster Lilah had spotted, confirming his weapon and that there didn’t seem to be anyone else with him.
The Jackals were dumb as shit. Obvious considering Kalvin Mercer had cut a deal with John O’Malley, screwing over Sapphire and offering Gods knew what to the Irish devil in exchange for three things.
More power than Sapphire had let him have.
Promise of protection from Sapphire and the Red Diamonds.
And Henley.
Henley-Jade McCormack, a little girl whose entire family were now buried in shallow graves because some sadistic little fucker had decided he could take one look at her and screamminelike a fucking seagull or some shit. As though she was not a person far too young for him, who ought to have had her own choices in life. Fifteen was no age for her to be dead or stolen. Least of all when she was still alive and willing to fight.
At least I hoped she was still alive.
I was presuming she was.
Turned out Kalvin liked to pander to his son’s ego and though we had thought Rocky would be nothing more than a thorn in our side to be dealt with later on, he was far worse than that. Far, far worse. We were lucky Beau had found out about the betrayal, but not lucky enough. His warning had come too late. Too late for my family. For the stolen women who’d been nothing but fodder in a battle they had no part in.
Too late for Henley.
“The Jackal is on his own and I don’t think he can make it to his gun before we got him.” I muttered as I spun across the sticky dancefloor, closer to the guy, wanting to get as near as we could before he had the potential to recognize me and my pretty face.
I wasn’t being conceited, but we were in Hendrix City and people knew me here. They knew my father, and I looked like him, even if I hated it.
