hair and tattooed arms my body relaxes, but only for a second. His dark blue shirt and arms are covered in blood.
He’s been shot.
Fear grips my heart.
I race to him and place my hands over his chest and stomach looking for the wound, but I find nothing. Looking at Rex, I see him staring down at me. His eyes are glassy and his skin is pale.
“What the hell is going on, Rex,” I demand in a shaky voice.
“He’s dead, Lana. Dad’s dead.”
I inhale, but my body refuses to exhale, refuses to release or allow any more air into my lungs. My head shakes back and forth. It’s all I can manage, any words or questions are stuck in my throat.
Abruptly, Rex grasps my forearms with his red-stained hands and I watch as my father’s blood is smeared onto my skin. “He’s dead, Lana,” Rex repeats. His fingers dig into my arms, so deep it begins to sting, but I say nothing. I don’t move. “He’s dead and it was the fucking Kings.” At his booming words, my head swings from my arms to Rex’s face, with a speed that should have hurt my neck. “It was the Kings that killed him. Slater fucking King.” Rex’s tone is so full of hate and rage that I barely recognize his voice.
My tears finally fall and suddenly my knees can’t hold me up a second longer. My brother and I sink to the floor together. Rex still holding onto me tightly, as if trying to fuse himself to my body as if I’m somehow giving him strength or he’s hoping I can.
Rex breaks down. His painful cries tear my heart apart. His howls aren’t silent or controlled, they’re pure agony to hear.
I try to say something, but instead of words, a sob escapes. Staring down at the blood on my arms. I cry because my brother is in so much pain. I have tears because people we trusted and brought into our home have betrayed us. I’m heartbroken because the man I love had a part in ripping my family apart, but mostly I’m shattered from guilt because I can’t find it within myself to truly care that my father is dead.
Chapter Two
Present Day
Mackson
“Get your hands off me, Mack,” Lana seethes and yanks her arm out of my grasp. She peers around Della’s room, my guess looking for an exit, but she won’t find one. Only a window and a long fall to the ground.
Slater wants Lana here for the next seven days, so this is where she’s going to stay. Hopefully, Rex comes to his senses and values his sister’s life more than his revenge and he agrees to Slater’s terms of ending this war once and for all.
I stare down at Lana with potent hatred and extreme need. My fingers itch to get lost between her white, soft strands of hair and my body begs me to skim against hers, desperate to feel the heat of her skin… it’s been a long time.
She meets my stare, and for a moment, it’s as if taking a step back in time.
“Hey, Dove.” The words leave my mouth before I can catch them and the soft, sweet tone betrays my true hatred for her.
Anyone else would have missed the sharp inhale and a quick flash of shock which crosses her features. But not me, not the man who watched her so often as a boy, then a youth becoming a man, and falling in love with the wrong girl.
When I originally met Lana, the instant I saw her she reminded me of a dove. First because of her white, shiny hair and second, she looked too good for this place. If anyone was going to leave Portland and have a better life it was going to be her, or so I thought it would be. Apparently I was mistaken.
My eyes trail down her curvy frame. Five years and Lana hasn’t changed much at all. Her normally pale skin now lightly tanned, but her five-foot height still only reaches my nose. Her body continues to torment me with a pair of denim shorts, cupping her firm ass and leading down to a pair of sexy legs. My eyes roam over her green top and land on a gorgeous swell of tits.
Lana takes a step back suddenly, and the movement forces my stare to shift from her chest to her chocolate brown eyes, which used to hold my salvation. If it was possible, I’m sure her