Filed To Story: Craving The Wrong Brother Book PDF Free by Elysian Sparrow
His face is pressed against my neck, and when he shifts to roll slightly off me, I see the blood.
It’s everywhere.
Smeared across his side. Down his back. Soaking into the back of his shirt like ink in water. And there are tiny dark bits poking through. Shrapnel. Pieces of the grenade are embedded in his skin.
I gasp. “No, no, no. Oh my God, Knox.”
He blinks at me, slow and groggy. His lips move, but I can’t make out what he’s saying over the ringing in my ears.
I lean in, pressing my ear to his lips.
“…hurts,” he breathes.
“I know,” I say, choking out the words around the lump in my throat. “I know it does. Just hold on, okay? Hold on. Don’t you dare leave me. Help!
Someone help!”
There’s movement around us now, figures emerging from the dust and debris like ghosts.
Knox’s men.
Two of them crouch beside us, their hands gentle but sure as they carefully ease him off me. I don’t want to let go. My hands are still gripping his shirt, like if I hold on tight enough, I can keep him alive by sheer force of will.
But one of the men speaks-Mud, I think, though his voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. “We’ve got him, Sloane. You’re okay. He’s okay.”
I let go, barely. My fingers twitch and clutch at empty air as they lift Knox with practiced care and start carrying him toward the stairs. The others are emerging from their hiding places now, looking like survivors of some terrible disaster, which I guess we are. Hunter, Soraya, Serena, Finn. Serena’s being supported on either side by Soraya and Hunter.
Her arms are draped around both their shoulders, her injura fog that at the praniet die ronde nos kalt det att de: VISA se za tent Butiken. blender and somehow came out the other side till breathing.
“We need to leave. Right now,” Mud says. He geures to the the cops.”
Hunter, Soraya, Serena, and Finn follow behind the people carry helping me up as my head spins.
“You hit your head,” he says, studying my face.
“Yeah, well, a grenade went off.”
I try to focus on his face, try to make the world stop tilting sideways. My knees wobble like a newborn that’s right.
As we move toward the stairs, stepping carefully over debris and bloodstains, i glance over my shoulder and stop feed in mayopanga
Mateo.
He’s still there.
Lying on the floor in a spreading pool of his own blood, body twisted at angles that don’t look quite human anymore but cr? and falls in labored breaths. Guess his own grenade got him. Yet somehow, somehow, against all odds, he’s still breathing
He should be dead. He was closest to the grenade and should have died in the explosion. But no. He’s still hanging on, i dje just won’t die. I swear, after everything he’s survived-those years of torture, the camps, the Russians-it’s like he learned how to sto past death or instinct. But not this time. Not if I have anything to do with it.
My eyes scan the floor, hunting through the debris. I spot it, Knox’s gun, lying not far from where we were when the world exploded i pickup
The others are halfway up the stairs now, their voices echoing in the stairwell. Knox is being carried between his men. Mud is still beside me taking fla he’s about to hurry me along, but I step away from him before he can speak.
I walk toward Mateo instead.
He sees me coming.
His eyes follow me, tracking my movement with the sluggish awareness of someone barely conscious. Blood trickies from the corner of his teeth, leaving a crimson trail across his cheek. He tries to speak. His lips move soundlessly at first, then manage to croak out words.
“You… can’t… be… happy,” he whispers, each word a struggle.
My fingers tighten around the grip of the gun.
“Well, it’s a good thing you won’t be here to see me sad,” I say.
And I pull the trigger.
The bullet hits him right between the eyes. That’s for almost killing the love of my life, you bastard.
Jade was right about one thing, at least. It’s messy.
But it’s done.
I know I’m not thinking straight. Hell, I’ll probably lose my mind over this later, but right now? Go to hell, Mateo.
I drop the gun. The men cleaning up the place will find a way to dispose of it. Then I turn and run. Up the stairs and outside.
By the time I reach the top, Knox is already being lowered into the backseat of his car, positioned face down to keep pressure off the shrapnel in his back.
I don’t hesitate. I slip into the car beside him, dropping into the seat and pulling his head onto my lap. My tears fall fast. They drop on his temple and soak his hair as I stroke it, trying to offer whatever comfort I can.
“Drive!” I yell to Mud, who’s brushing shards of glass off the front seat. Shards from the window I shot.
Mud jumps behind the wheel, sitting on the rest of the glass pieces. He slams the door shut.
Hunter comes running toward us and gets into the passenger seat just before we take off. I don’t look back to see if the others make it into their car. I can’t look away from Knox.
“Is he okay?” Hunter asks, twisting around in his seat to look at us.
I’m too busy whispering to Knox, brushing the hair from his forehead with trembling fingers, to reply at first.
“He better be okay,” I whisper eventually. “You hear me? You better be okay. Don’t you dare fall asleep. Don’t die on me,
There’s nothing but that shallow, irregular breathing.
“How fast can this thing go?” I yell. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”
Mud glances at me in the rearview mirror. “We have a doctor. Not a hospital. Somewhere in the city.”
“How far?”
Knox.”
“A few minutes.”
I
“Can’t we just use a normal hospital? This is serious. He needs
He doesn’t even look back this time. “And go to jail for the rest of our lives?”
Right. Of course, Gunshot wounds require police reports. Police reports lead to investigations, Investigations lead to prison cells and life cantantes for everyone involved.
I swallow my next question and stare out the window, willing my heart to stay inside my chest where it belongs. My breathing’s ragged, coming in chart gasps that make me dizzy. My head’s spinning like I’m on a carnival ride I can’t get off. I’m either about to faint or scream or both.
“…Sloane,” Knox says.
I whip my head down. “I’m here. I’m here, baby.”
He groans, a sound that manages to be both painful and reassuring.
“What did you do to my car?” he mumbles, and I can hear the faint trace of amusement even through the pain.
The question knocks the wind out of me and then makes me laugh through the tears.
“I shot the window,” I say.
“You… what?”
“I thought you were getting ambushed. I had to come save you.”
“Right. The big savior,” he breathes, and his lips twitch in the closest thing to a smile I’ve seen on him since this nightmare started.
I run my hand through his hair. “Just keep talkin
“I’ll stay alive if you promise we’ll have ten kids.” to me, okay? Just talk. Stay awake. Stay alive.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.