“You have found family, lass. You’ve found me.” I wince and grit my teeth as she brushes against the bullet hole in my side. “The others don’t even know that Jim lied about you being a Carter sibling, and they still welcomed you with open arms. Your lineage doesn’t change a damn thing. You’re one of us, and we aren’t letting you go.”
“You knew?” she asks, and the betrayal in her voice almost breaks me.
I stroke her hair and kiss the top of her head. “Only just, lass. Only just. King and Jim told me everything before I ran down here to play hero. I never would have kept this from you. Quinn...I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“And I love you three and four,” I say before I kiss her forehead. “Don’t ever forget that. I cannae live without you, lass.”
Desmond groans and rolls to a sitting position. “This is all very touching, but if you’re going to try to kill me, could we get on with it? I have a flight back to Scotland in just a few hours, and I’d hate to miss it.”
I rise to my feet and move toward the far wall, only now realizing what hangs there. I pull the ax from its holder and close my eyes as the familiar weight rests in my hand. “You ever watchStar Wars, Desi boy? Yoda has one of my favorite quotes. ‘Do or do not, there is no try.’ I don’t plan to leave you breathing, you bastard.”
My arm rises, prepared to make the first swing, but the floor spins under my feet. A deep numbness washes over me, and I stumble into the wall. I slide into a slump on the floor, my stupid arm still wielding the ax above my head.
“Aven!” Quinn shouts. She scrambles on her hands and knees until she reaches me, then pulls my upper body into her lap. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
The lass feels me all over, and I’m too weak to stop her from discovering the hole in my shirt. Her fingers dart forward and raise the fabric, revealing the weeping wound in my side.
Desmond whistles and lets out a hoarse chuckle. “Damn, that sucks. Have fun bleeding out, though.”
He gets to his feet with a groan, and Quinn is powerless to stop him as he starts out the door. He pauses to deliver a parting blow before he exits.
“Oh, and one more thing.” He raises a finger with a smile. “Once your little boyfriend is dead, I’ll be back for you, Quinn. I won’t stop until you’ve joined him in hell, and now that he won’t be there to protect you, it will be easier than ever. This isn’t over yet.”
“You’re right,” King says as he steps into the tree house. “It isn’t over.”
My consciousness is fading fast, but I cling to the shreds as King, Jim, and Ezra step into the room. If they’re about to end Desmond, I don’t want to miss a second of it.
Quinn clutches me a little tighter. “He’s been shot,” she says toward the men.
Ezra passes a gun to Jim before hurrying to my side. Jim raises the weapon toward Desmond, who lifts his hands and backs toward the wall. Ezra looks at the hole in my side and shakes his head.
“Damn, this is a sorry business,” he whispers. He looks back at the men. “He could be bleeding out internally. We need to get him to hospital.”
“Ach, I’ll be fine. I just feel a little weak. Get what you need out of the asshole, and then kill him so I can die knowing Quinn is safe.” I wave him off, and he backs away. “The girl knows it all now, so let King get what he needs.”
Desmond cocks his head and breathes a little harder. I can only assume he’s working with a punctured lung at the moment. Good. I hope it hurts like hell.
“King?” Desmond says. “King doesn’t factor into any of this.”
“That’s where you’re bloody wrong, Desmond.” King steps closer and pulls some cuffs from his pocket. “Until I know what you’ve done with Marcia’s body, you’ll enjoy some downtime in the Cattle barn.”
A light sparkles in Desmond’s eye. “Oh, so I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed slumming?”
King pulls back his fist and sends it into Desmond’s face. Something cracks, and his nose begins to bleed.
“It wasn’t slumming. I loved her. I offered her all that I had, but she refused. I thought loving her from a distance would keep her and her young daughter safe from my sickness, but it wasn’tenough.” King fastens the cuffs around Desmond’s wrists. “You made sure of that.”
“She wouldn’t take your money? She was more than happy to accept mine,” Desmond says. He grins, showcasing his blood-stained teeth. “I took it back, of course. Right after I fucked her and slashed her up.”
A white fog begins to descend over my vision. I’m fading fast, but they’re so close to finding Quinn’s mother. I can’t derail the momentum by whinging about a little gunshot wound.
“She has to be here,” Quinn says. “There’s no way he got her body out of this death trap.” Her gaze darts to the door in the back wall. “He wanted me to go in there to change.”
I can’t feel Quinn’s warmth anymore. Everything is so cold. Footsteps clomp over the boards, but I can’t see anything. Voices filter through the haze and reach me from miles away.
“I see a skull . . .”