Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,94

And that depended on the wedding planner holding still and Morgan not moving her once the shot was fired.

“Not the best odds.”

“Better than Vegas.”

Kimberly was staring at me. Her fake lashes had come unglued from all the crying she’d been doing and were stuck to her cheeks like spiders in a river of smeared eyeliner.

If I could do this without anyone dying, I would.

“No dice, Keaty. Sorry.”

He didn’t respond one way or the other, but he also didn’t take the shot. I kept my gun up and moved across the platform until my shoes were sticky with Desmond’s blood and I was standing beside him again. I dropped to a crouch, my gaze never drifting from Morgan, and fumbled until my fingers found his throat.

For a full minute I felt nothing but cold flesh and a day’s worth of stubble.

This was it. The dream I’d had in which Lucas demanded to know what I’d done while Desmond lay bloody and dying. I was living it in Technicolor now, right down to my blood-splattered gown. I’d seen it coming all along, but I’d thought it was symbolic. I’d never once dreamed it would become real. Not like this.

My guts bottomed out, and tears I hadn’t been able to cry over Lucas’s betrayal came easily now. Nothing. Nothing. And then…

Faint, and so, so slow I thought I imagined it. But there it was, and once I felt it twice, three, four times, I knew I wasn’t fooling myself.

Desmond was still alive.

A relieved gasp worked its way out of my mouth, and I dragged the back of my free hand under my eyes to wipe off the tears.

“Okay,” I told her. “We go.”

“Secret, no.” This from Tyler.

“As soon as I go, you get him to Rain Hotel. Melvin the desk clerk is a were. He’ll know where to take him. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. You save him, do you understand me?” I couldn’t look at him without taking my eyes off Morgan, but I needed to hear him agree. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

I jumped off the platform, landing in a crouch. My heels had barely hit the floor before another shot rang out, followed by a second. Morgan hadn’t moved though, and she was as wide-eyed as I was sure to be. For a moment I thought Keaty had taken his shot, but after a long pause it was clear she hadn’t been the target of the bullet.

When a sole female assassin fell to the floor with a gurgling choke, I turned to see who had been standing across from her. Shane slumped into the chair nearest him, his shoulder bleeding profusely but appeared otherwise whole. Had I landed standing, the bullet from the assassin’s gun would have hit me in the head instead of hitting Shane in the shoulder.

He gave me a tense, pained smile.

“Always expect the second shot,” he said.

Then all hell broke loose. All it took was those two shots, and suddenly the tense standstill was broken and everyone was firing at once. The assassins seemed to take their compatriot’s death as open season on my people, and the second they began to fire, my friends returned suit.

I hit the floor since I was right in the middle of the melee and the only person I had an easy shot at was Morgan, who still had Kimberly by the neck. I wormed my way across the floor on my belly—easier said than done in a corset-style wedding dress—and moved through the rows of scattered chairs closer to Morgan, hoping I might be able to get close enough to take her out.

A few of my rich and famous guests remained tucked among the chairs, their heads hidden beneath folded hands, praying to a wide variety of gods. Here’s to hoping any or all of them were listening.

It was a safe bet some of them would be talking about this for years to come. Entertainment Tonight loved to gossip about brush-with-death experiences, and they would end up pumping the drama for all it was worth.

But that still meant getting them out alive.

I was within a few rows of Morgan when a gunshot blew out the plaster near where her head had been. An instant later Kimberly hit the floor, but her sobbing and screaming kept me from being too concerned about her wellbeing.

If you can scream, you’re doing okay, relatively speaking.

Three more shots hit the wall, and I raised my eyes over the wailing form of Kimberly