was always better to be safe rather than sorry.
“Desmond, get up. I need to get my gun.” Funny how the sound of one bullet being fired could snap me back to my senses. This wasn’t the time to be a sad, wilting girly girl. Right now I couldn’t be the jilted bride.
Right now I needed to be the killer I’d been before love had gone and fucked me up.
Desmond didn’t move.
His weight felt heavier than it should. Limper.
“Desmond?”
The front of me felt warm. Warmer than I would expect from just the heat of his body. I snaked my arm around him, my fingers sliding over the pebbled roughness of the leather jacket until they met something wet, warm and sticky.
I didn’t need to see it to know what it was. I was very familiar with blood.
“Oh, God. Desmond.” I shook him. “Desmond? Desmond.”
Someone lifted him off me, and he went too easily, none of his limbs resisting. I tried to hold on to him, but soon he was lying on the floor beside me, unmoving, his eyes closed and his skin much, much too pale.
I didn’t notice myself being pulled away until Tyler had me halfway across the platform. I shook him off and stumbled, crawling across the stage to where Desmond was lying stock-still. “I can’t leave him.”
Tyler grabbed the laces of my dress and yanked me backwards, hard and almost violent. “He took that shot to save you. You’re not doing anyone any good if you die. Especially not him.”
I was stronger than Tyler and I debated knocking him out, but now that I was on my feet I could see what had unfolded while I was under Desmond’s body.
Morgan was no longer on the chair. She had Kimberly in a chokehold and was using her as a shield while she kept her back to the wall and her gun aimed at me. Mercedes had gotten her purse from Owen and was training her gun steady on Morgan, waiting for a clear shot.
She wasn’t the only one.
Tyler had pushed me behind him, and he, Keaty and Shane all had their weapons drawn and leveled on the werewolf. Even Eugenia was preparing herself, muttering words in La Sorcière’s strange French, her right hand glowing bright red.
But Morgan wasn’t stupid—she hadn’t come alone, either. Three men and a woman were spread through the ballroom with their own weapons drawn and aimed at my friends.
I’d never been in a Mexican stand-off before.
Holden was tucked into a corner near the entrance, but I knew better than to think he was hiding. He was unarmed, but his focus never left Morgan.
I kept behind Tyler and hiked up my skirt, releasing my gun from the holster and arming it.
“Morgan, let her go.” Tyler probably intended for me to stay behind him, but I couldn’t do it. Not only did it make him an unnecessary target, but I’d promised to protect him in front of a dozen wardens. If he died when I could have done something, it would look as if I couldn’t protect my people, and Mercedes, Nolan and Brigit would be in more danger than they were now.
I stepped out from behind the detective, my weapon raised and ready. Morgan’s was leveled on me. I’d never seen her shoot, but I was confident I was a better marksman. At least I would tell myself that as long as I needed to in order to get me and my people out of here alive.
My gaze cut to Desmond’s form lying in an ever-growing pool of blood.
The assassins looked uncertain. Their job, of course, was to kill me. But they were all otherwise occupied by my gun-toting wedding guests.
“It didn’t have to happen like this,” Morgan said. “I wanted to get you alone, but the fucking lieutenant had to screw it all up to play the hero.”
I couldn’t think about Desmond right then or I risked losing it entirely. “You came for me. Let her go.”
“Put your gun down.”
I laughed then, short but loud. “You must think I’m an idiot. No, this isn’t going to be that kind of debate, Morgan. You let her go, then we talk. Just us girls.”
Morgan glanced from me to all the extra weapons she hadn’t been anticipating.
“If I let her go, they’ll shoot. We walk out of here alone, and then I’ll let her go.”
“Secret,” Keaty said, his tone calm and level. “I can get a shot.”
“Odds?”
“Sixty-forty.”
I coughed. Sixty percent odds he’d take Morgan out without hitting Kimberly.