Total pages in book: 331
Estimated words: 315585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1578(@200wpm)___ 1262(@250wpm)___ 1052(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 315585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1578(@200wpm)___ 1262(@250wpm)___ 1052(@300wpm)
“Kashton. Stop.” I’m yanked back and I go to swing at whoever the fuck pulled me from my wife, but I can’t get my heavy arms to work as I’m pushed into the back of the Lords’ altar. Tyson’s face is suddenly in front of mine, his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Kash…she’s gone.” I can’t breathe. “We need to get her out of here. We’ve got to leave. Get her to Carnage.”
SEVENTY-FIVE
KASHTON
Haidyn pulls up to Carnage, and I get out of the back seat with her in my arms. I rush up the steps and shove the doors open with my boot.
“Devin?” I shout, but he’s already waiting for us. “You have to help her,” I tell him.
His wide eyes go from mine and then drop to her before looking at my brothers standing behind her. “Saint said…she had passed.”
“Help her,” I shout.
“Follow me.”
I walk numbly, following him.
We exit the elevator, and the coldness hits me like a slap to the face. We’re in the same hallway where I once found my brother lying in his own blood after his wife shot him. I avoid coming down here for that very reason.
Devin leads me into a room with nothing more than a metal slab in the center and a chair in the corner.
I place her on it. Gasping for breath, I turn to see Devin just standing there. “What are you doing?” I snap at him. “Do something. This is your job.”
“Kash—”
“No,” I shout, interrupting Saint. “Devin can help her.” I put my attention on the doctor in the room. “She’s had one syringe of adrenaline. She just needs more.” She’s going to need a blood transfusion as well. I don’t know her type, but she can have whatever she needs from whoever she needs it from. I’ll slit throats if I have to.
“Kashton, it’s been too long,” Devin says softly.
“No.” I refuse to believe that. “The brain can live up to seven minutes after…” I can’t say the word. She’s not…gone.
A hand touches my shoulder, and I look to see its Haidyn. His bloodshot eyes drop to Eve lying on the table beside me. “I’m sorry, brother.” He clears his throat. “She’s gone.”
“No.” I turn and pick her up. “Why isn’t anyone doing anything?” I pull her into my arms and fall down into the chair in the corner. “Charlotte was given…something.” The same drug that Haidyn used when he pretended to die on us. “Adrenaline brought her back. It will work. She just needs more.”
My chest is tight as I rock her back and forth. Looking up, I realize he led me to the morgue. That lump in my throat gets bigger, seeing I had laid her on the metal slab that’s now smeared with blood. My chest tightens. It’s getting harder to breathe. I haven’t been in here since my mom’s body was in this room.
“Kashton?”
I blink at the sound of my name to see Devin standing in front of me. His eyes go to a blood-covered Eve and then back to mine. “Let me take her.”
“I…can’t…” I clear the lump in my throat and finish my sentence. “Let her go.”
I cradle her tighter to my body. My arms have gone numb. I can’t feel anything. Just the massive hole in my chest.
“Take as much time as you need,” Devin says and then turns, exiting the room.
I glance over her face. She looks so peaceful. How she appears when I watch her sleeping next to me. It’s the blood that reminds me of the truth. It’s my mind playing tricks on me. Refusing to believe she’s truly gone. That I’ve lost her.
“I’m sorry, angel,” I tell her, struggling to breathe.
Her body trembles in my arms because I’m the one shaking.
The door opens but I ignore it. Instead, I hold her tighter. Devin can’t have her. Not yet. I’m not ready. I was holding onto hope that he could do something that would bring her back, but deep down I knew it was hopeless.
My angel is officially an angel. I may not believe in heaven, but I hope that wherever she is, she’s getting the rest she needs.
She deserved to be loved longer. To know what it felt like to be important. To know that she was my world.
“Kash?” Haidyn speaks softly. “They’re here.”
“Who?” I ask, not even looking up from her, unable to recognize my own voice. I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.
“Ryat and Sin,” he answers. “They found him.”
My stinging eyes meet his. “Who?”
Haidyn frowns and runs a bloody hand through his hair. “The guy from the cathedral?” He words it as if it’s a question.
He and Saint were talking in the SUV on the way here, but I’d tuned them out. Instead, I silently cried in the back seat while I held my dead wife.