Ducking down behind the car, I aim my AR-15 down at the ground as the police behind us jump out of their cars and aim their pistols at us.
“Chief’s down. Someone in one of the Russian cars shot him,” Johnathan yells in the ear comms.
“Goddammit!” Lucifer bellows into the ear comms as well.
A couple of shots ring out behind me and then I see Meghan taking a step around the back of our car before she starts rushing toward her father.
18
Meghan
I know what I’m doing is stupid. I know it will probably get me hurt or killed. But once I lay eyes on my father, there’s only one path forward for me. I need to reach him. I need to know who the fuck killed my mother if it wasn’t the Italians.
And if was him…
I need to fucking kill him.
Gabriel told me to focus, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Focusing on my target.
Orders to freeze are shouted behind me, but I ignore them. Gabriel roars my name, but I ignore him too.
Gunfire erupts from somewhere close by, but I don’t care.
Dashing across the fifteen feet that separates Gabriel’s Lexus from the black Audi my father ducked out of, all the craziness that’s going down is just background noise.
I don’t see the flashing red and blue lights. I don’t smell the blood and lead on the air.
I only have one purpose, one goal. To reach my father and get the truth out of him before someone else kills him.
“Meghan!” Gabriel roars again, and I almost hesitate.
Almost.
But then my father slowly turns my way.
“Meghan,” he gasps as I run up on him, his face draining of color.
He looks at me like he’s just seen a ghost.
Multiple blasts of gunfire suddenly ring out and my father shakes his head, seemingly snapping out of it.
“What the hell are you doing?” he hisses as he jumps forward, grabs me by the arm and yanks me down behind the car. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Shots ping off the front of the Audi and my father curses under his breath.
I let him drag me down. I let him think he’s protecting me. But when I hear a car door opening behind me, I grab my gun from my holster.
My father turns away, his wide, anxious gaze darting around, seeking out the sources of danger surrounding us, and I bring my gun up.
I aim it at the back of his head.
When he finally turns back to look at me, he’s got the barrel of my pistol in his face.
“What—” he starts to say and then looks in my eyes.
Whatever he sees there causes him to freeze.
Taking a deep breath, I slip my finger over the trigger and resist the urge to pull it now.
For so long he lied to me… lied to my fucking face. Lied to me while he held me in his arms as I sobbed over my mother’s closed casket. The betrayal cuts and burns like nothing I’ve ever felt before, eating me from the inside out like boiling acid.
The words want to stick in my throat, unsure if they want to be a whisper or a shout, but I force them out, my voice cracking. “Who the fuck killed mom?”
He turns his face away and tries to hide the flash of panic in his eyes, but I catch it. I fucking latch onto it. “Why are you asking me this? You know who killed your mother, it was the Italians.”
Looking back to me, he meets my eyes again and tries to hold my gaze, expecting me to buy his bullshit.
But I’m not buying it.
As I just stare at him, he must realize it.
Switching tactics, he acts as if I’m a child and he’s exasperated. “We don’t have time for this, lass…”
“Don’t call me lass,” I snap out and take another deep breath, trying to keep myself calm.
Trying to keep my hand from shaking.
There’s just so much going on inside me, though. A maelstrom of anger, confusion, and hurt is swirling inside me and I’m on the verge of completely losing it.
Steadying my hand, I lift the barrel up, aiming it between his blue eyes. “I know it wasn’t the Italians. Stop fucking lying to me!”
This time my father can’t hide the panic he’s feeling as he looks to the barrel of the gun and back to me.
It’s plain on his face.
He knows the truth, has known it all along, and doesn’t want me to know it.
“Meghan, love, now is not the time to be discussing this. We can talk about this later,” he says calmly, completely avoiding the question.
I shake my head. With all the shit going on around us, there might not be a later. And I’ve believed his lie for so long, I need the truth now.
“Was it you? Did you kill her?”