Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Rage boiled my blood, and I gritted my teeth against the agony as I stumbled down the porch steps.
Worry cut into Ezra’s brow as he ran my direction, and he shouted, “Just sit, man. I called for backup. An ambulance will be here in five.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I said as I shuffled down the walkway, leaving a trail of blood behind me as I went.
The shot that had struck the outside of my thigh had saturated my sweats, and I had my hand pressed to the one that had hit low on the left side of my abdomen.
“Fuck, Cody, you need to sit.” Ezra tried to stop me when he got to me, panic whirring around him, and I shrugged him off as I headed toward my truck.
“Have to get to them.”
“We’re going to, I promise you, but we need to get you taken care of first.”
I spun on this guy who was more a brother than a friend, my hand flying out to his shoulder. I squeezed it in emphasis. “Don’t ask me not to fight for them, Ezra. You were in this exact position not that long ago, and there was not a goddamn thing in this world that could have stopped you from going after Savannah. From protecting her. Don’t ask me not to do the same.”
“But you’ve been shot. Were almost killed yesterday. You can’t—”
“I might be bleeding, Ezra, but they’re the blood in my veins. They’re the ones who’ve made me whole. And if something happens to one of them? That’s what would be the end of me. That’s what would destroy me.”
Ezra’s exhale was heavy, his nod slight as he came to acceptance. “Fine, but I’m driving, and you’re staying in the truck and going to let me do my job.”
I didn’t take the time to argue with him, I just hobbled as fast as I fucking could to his SUV and slipped into the front passenger’s seat just as he was hopping into the driver’s. But it was Lolly yanking at the back handle that had him pausing.
“Lolly,” I breathed. “Fuck. Go back inside.”
“Open the door, both of you. Those are my girls, too. And I won’t sit idle until we have them back.”
Ezra looked at me in reluctance, and I winced, every inch of me on fire, and I gritted through the words, “There isn’t any use arguing with her. She’s as stubborn as they come. And we need to go. Now.”
Ezra unlocked the door, and Lolly was shouting as she hopped in, “Get to Wagner Ranch. There’s no chance my son isn’t involved in this.”
Ezra tore out of the neighborhood with his lights flashing, on his radio giving instruction for any deputies in the area to be on the lookout for the black SUV that had been peeling up the street when he’d rushed out to try to stop the intruder.
To proceed with caution as it held a four-year-old little girl who’d been abducted.
My guts twisted in a vicious knot as he gave her description.
Maddie.
Maddie.
And Hailey.
Felt like I was being asphyxiated as we traveled. Oxygen ceasing to exist. That aching knot in my gut promising they had her, too.
The hour it took to travel to the deep woods outside of Langmire where the ranch was located was the longest hour of my entire fuckin’ life.
Time moving as slow as the gnarled hands of the clock imprinted on my chest.
Frozen, that moment that had marked me burning like a bitch.
The moment I’d believed I’d started living on borrowed time. Sure that one day the mistakes of that summer were going to catch up to me.
They finally had.
But I’d had no idea how twisted and entwined those circumstances were going to be.
When we finally made it to the turnoff, Ezra took the right onto the long, single-lane road at a clip, wheels skidding and peeling out as he hit the dirt. He punched the gas hard as soon as we’d righted, the engine roaring, and another police cruiser came flying in right behind us.
“Please be here, please be here.” The words barely made it from my muttering lips, praying to God that we were in time. That they hadn’t already taken off with the two of them. That I wasn’t too late.
Because I didn’t know this motherfucker Pruitt’s intentions. Didn’t know how Douglas Wagner could have been so callous that he’d send some assassin-clad villain to kidnap his own granddaughter.
Didn’t know anything but the truth that I would chase them to the ends of the earth. I wouldn’t stop until they were safe in my arms. Until Pruitt and Douglas had gone down, even if it meant I went down with them.
“They will be there,” Lolly said from the back. Her angst roiled in the cab, a deep-seated grief that spiraled and shook.