desk and then carry me home, like some twisted villain in a fairytale written for me by me.
I’d fallen madly, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with that fucking villain in my story.
I swiped my key from the table by the door, my hand on the knob. “I’m going out for a bit,” I said.
Harrison stood. “I’ll go with you. We need more beer.”
“No,” I said as I opened the door. “I’ll—” My breath left my lungs in relief and my heart lightened.
Cash was coming down the street. His head was down, and one hand was tucked into his pocket. The closer he got to me, though, my eyes narrowed even further. His face. I’d never seen it so hard. His strides were not easy, as usual, but almost brutal. He wasn’t stomping, or being loud, but I could almost feel the anger rolling off of him from where I stood.
“I wonder who told him you were in love with Stone and then stole his whiskey?” Harrison said from behind me.
Good, I wasn’t the only one who had noticed it.
I didn’t want him to think I was a helicopter wife, like those parents at the park who constantly hovered over their children so they wouldn’t fall and break something, so I went to close the door. Before I did, though, I noticed another shadow coming up from behind him.
“Is that Susan?” Harrison said.
“Yeah,” I said. I had never warmed up to the old bitch. She was evil wrapped in pink fluff, sort of like ambrosia salad. I’d never met one that I liked. Texture was important to me—even with people.
Cash kept her around because of a debt his old man had owed. She’d needed the job, wanted it even, to keep her busy, and there she was.
Cash had stopped at the same time I’d noticed her shadow creep up. Though the lights were dim, I could see that she was upset. She waved her hands some, and I heard her sniffing. If I really narrowed my eyes, I could see that her eyes were red-rimmed, and the tip of her nose was an even brighter red.
“Like a sadistic Rudolph,” Harrison muttered, and I elbowed him. He made a breathless noise before he started laughing—it was quiet, but it was there.
“You better stop that nonsense. Or you might wake up the queen.” I rolled my eyes. Mac’s cousin, Gigi, was upstairs sleeping. “Come on.” I backed up some. “Let’s go wait in the—”
Susan called Cash down to her, and as he leaned in closer, she came out with a knife from the pocket of her cardigan and stabbed him in the neck with it.
The roar that echoed in the night was not from Cash, but from me. He stumbled back, and when he did, another shadow grew solid and turned into a man who stabbed him in the back. More shadows started to harden into men, all with glinting knives ready to butcher my husband.
Harrison was already screaming for my brothers to move, but I was already to the closet, pulling out my bow and arrows.
Lachlan held out an arm to stop me before I made it outside. “Kee,” he said, his eyes serious. “If Kelly isn’t who you—”
“Move your fucking hand or I’ll break it,” I hissed. I took an arrow, licked it down the center, and loosed the first one before I was out of the door.
It went straight through Susan’s neck, blood squirting in all directions, her hand going to grab for it before she fell to her knees. The stunned look on her face was the last thing I saw before I sent another arrow through a man’s back. His body arched forward before he fell to the ground. The arrow had gone straight through to his heart.
Cash stumbled, going for something in his pocket, but there were too many of them. It was like they were stabbing at a wild animal, herding him into a corner so they could skin him.
“Not today, motherfuckers, not as long as I’m alive,” I said, releasing arrows as fast I could. It took a few minutes for the men still standing to realize where the arrows and bullets—between my brothers and me—were coming from. When they did, they stopped stabbing my husband and came after us.
I didn’t even realize that my brothers had guns, and bright sparks along with deafening booms were going off in the night. There were still plenty of them, and I was shooting arrows as fast as I