Page 480 of Summer Heat
He screams at me, even though the strength is gone. “Get inside!”
My body refuses to obey as he pulls his hand away from his chest. There’s blood. So much blood.
Daniel’s expression only changes from worried for me to angered as he stares at his hand. His focus moves to the man lying motionless on the asphalt and he points the gun at his head, firing.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Each shot makes my body tremble. The man’s body doesn’t react. His face is one I don’t recognize as he stares lifelessly at nothing.
My gaze shifts from his dead eyes back to Daniel as he hunches over and grips his chest, falling to his knees on the ground.
That’s the moment I can finally move again. And I run to him as fast as I can with one thought running through my mind.
Everyone I love dies.
Every.
Single.
One.
Chapter 26
Daniel
Fuck.
Hot blood pours from my wound and soaks into my shirt as I lean against the brick wall, feeling sharp, shooting pains run up and down my spine. I apply pressure to the gunshot to try to stop the flow.
I can barely breathe through my clenched teeth at the pain.
“Go inside,” I try to yell at Addison as she hovers over me. “Now,” I grit out and my words come out weak.
“Daniel, get up. Get up!” she yells at me. And it actually makes me smile.
As I try to stand, with her pulling on me and attempting to aid me, I look back down at my hand. It’s bright red, not black. That’s the first good sign. But when I look down to my chest and see how much it’s still bleeding, the lightheadedness nearly makes me collapse.
“Come with me,” she begs. “We have to go to the hospital.”
“No, no hospital. No cops.” I’m still okay enough to know better than that. “You can’t stay here; the cops will be coming. You have to go.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she yells at me with disbelief. “Just stay with me. Hide in my apartment. Let me help you, please,” she begs me and that’s the only reason I let her wrap an arm around me and guide me back to her apartment.
Thank fuck it’s so early in the morning and everything went down in the back alley.
Dark alley.
A man who knew where to be and when.
Someone with information.
Not Marcus … but it’s someone who must know Marcus. My gaze moves to Addison’s pale face as she opens the door to her apartment. Someone who wanted her. Someone who wanted to hurt me. And Marcus had to have told them. He’s the only one who knew I was with her and what she meant to me.
“Come on.” She tries to push me into her apartment and for a moment I hesitate, but if Marcus or someone else is after Addison, I have to be beside her.
It’s too late for me to say goodbye.
I feel breathless as my gaze darts from the door behind us to the counter, then to the window. I have to tell Carter. At the thought a pain shoots up my back and down my shoulder, making me grit my teeth.
Fuck! Holding my breath, I put more pressure on the wound.
