they’re doing and make their way over to King. Cruz pulls him into his arms, not giving a shit that we’re soaking wet, and pats him on the back, silently telling him that he’s here for anything he needs. Carver simply reaches out and puts his hand on King’s shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze, his silent messages always speaking much louder than his words.
As Cruz pulls back, Grayson steals his place, giving King exactly what he needs from his friends.
Cruz steps into me and drops his arm over my shoulder, pulling me into his side and quickly capturing my lips with his own. “Are you good?” he murmurs, knowing just how hard last night was for me.
I nod, feeling as though what I went through is nothing compared to the night King had, or any of them for that matter. “Fine,” I tell him as Carver gets back to cooking while Grayson steps in closer to me, pulling my arm away and checking over the gash above my elbow with a scrunched-up face. If he doesn’t like that, I should remember not to show him my back from the falling chandelier. “I just want to sleep for about a year, and after that, we need to figure out who the fuck put cyanide in Carver’s bottle of rum and who thought it’d be a good fucking idea to blow up a room filled with innocent people.”
“I’m going to fucking kill them,” King declares, grabbing a chair from the dining table and yanking it back, only to drop down into it a second later. “One of them hurt my baby sister, and the other killed my father.”
“The other?” I ask, pulling out of Cruz’s arms and peeling off my wet tank, hating the feeling of being wet. I gather my hair into a bun. “You don’t think they’re the same person?”
He shakes his head, but it’s Carver who responds. “No, the bomb was a direct attack on you that got out of hand. Whoever did it was trying to make a point by killing you in front of everyone, making you look weak and sending a message, but they fucked up. This was done by someone who doesn’t have any kind of training, either someone young, or someone who wasn’t raised around Dynasty. But the cyanide,” he says, quickly flashing his gaze at King and hating to talk about it while it’s still so fresh in his mind. “That was too coincidental and done by someone in that room. I’d been drinking from that bottle for over an hour before it was hit with cyanide, but for it to happen right after I pledged to support you … that’s too fucking coincidental. Tobias though, I believe that was just an unfortunate incident. That cyanide was meant for me. His support for you has been clear from the start, but me, I jumped ship and that pissed someone off.”
“So, what’s the plan?” I ask.
Grayson just shakes his head as a rumbling of thunder shakes the foundations of my home and instantly sends the house into darkness. “Fuck,” he grunts, walking over to the stove and cutting the gas, a firm believer in better safe than sorry.
I lean up against the counter, wanting to stay close to the guys as with the dark clouds outside, and the electricity out, there’s not a lot of light shining through my home. I point toward the half-cooked breakfast. “Is that still good to e—”
A loud bang sounds through the house and the words fall from my mouth as my eyes widen in horror. That was more than just a crack of lightning.
There’s someone in my house.
CHAPTER 37
The boys come to the realization just as fast as I do and are gone within seconds, sprinting toward the stairs, intent on ending the dickhead who’s been responsible for helping Preston and Jacob Scardoni—at least that’s who I assume it is. “Fucking hide,” Cruz yells back over his shoulder. “And don’t come out until we come and get you.”
I’m not fucking stupid. I’ve been through enough attacks to know to listen to them straight away.
I slip straight into the massive floor to ceiling walk-in pantry and close my eyes, desperately trying to calm my racing heart as I rely on my other senses. Besides, it’s dark in here and trying to peer out of the gap in the pantry door is just going to end up freaking me out.
So, I wait … and wait.
I hear the guys upstairs,