Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 53717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
The guy with the knife pushed Dan forward and looked Charlie in the eye. “Get out of the fucking car.”
“No!” Dan screamed.
She couldn’t hear Jared but his lips moved and she had no doubt he was warning her to stay put.
She froze, not moving, her heart pounding in her chest. The police, she thought, grabbing her phone from the center console. She had to call the police. Dialing 911, she hit speaker, giving the operator the address where they’d come to get Dan. She prayed they’d arrive soon.
“Did you hear me? Open the door and get the fuck out here!” the same guy yelled, pressing the knife closer to her brother’s throat.
“Ouch!” Dan yelled as blood dripped down his neck.
No way was she letting them get hurt if it was in her power to stop it. “Stop!” she screamed before all hell broke loose.
Jared headbutted the man holding him from behind and broke free, the other guy grabbing his bleeding nose. While he was distracted, Jared swung, nailing him in the jaw, then kicked out and got him in the abdomen. Obviously not expecting it, the man fell to his knees.
Charlie was panting, fear overwhelming her, but she trusted Jared to handle things.
Dan tried to wiggle free, but he was trembling and too unsteady. Jared thrust out his foot, nailing the man holding Dan in his knee. He threw her brother to the ground and went for Jared, who appeared ready to take him when the second guy, the one Jared had taken out of the equation, rose to his feet.
Charlie flung open the car door to warn him, screaming as he hit Jared in the back of the head with the tire iron and he fell to the ground, seemingly unconscious. “Jared!”
Both attackers turned her way, taking a step forward, when the blessed sound of sirens filled the air. The men froze, whispered something to each other, then took off at a run.
Charlie fell to her knees by Jared’s side. “Jared?” she asked, her hand shaking as blood oozed from the wound in his head. Afraid to move him, she sat by his side, caressing the side of his face. “You’ll be okay,” she said softly. “You have to be okay.”
She glanced up at her brother who was jumping where he stood. “The cops are coming. I have to go!”
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “Jared was hurt because I insisted on rescuing you. You sit down, shut up, and take responsibility for once. You owe him that.”
A patrol car screeched to a halt behind the SUV and an officer climbed out, his partner walking around the vehicles beside him.
“He needs an ambulance, now!”
One officer called it in while the other grasped her brother’s arm as he tried to slink away.
Fear and nausea warred inside her as she sat waiting for paramedics to arrive, stroking Jared’s cheek, saying prayers the entire time.
Chapter Twenty
Guilt swamped Charlie as Jared’s family piled into the waiting room, a place they were too familiar with even if it was a different hospital. She backed against the wall, hoping nobody sought her out. She didn’t know what to say beyond telling them it was her fault Jared was injured.
He’d come to as the ambulance arrived and not only did she refuse to leave his side, he refused to let them transport him in the bus without her. But when they pulled into the emergency room, they’d rushed him inside, leaving her to sit in the waiting room where she called Noah. She asked him through her tears to let the family know, and settled in to wait for word from a doctor.
Noah and Fallon walked in last. They’d needed to get a babysitter before they could come. Though she hated to leave here, Charlie had offered to go home to the girls so Fallon could be here for her brother, along with her husband. Maybe it had been due to the hysteria Charlie couldn’t control but Noah insisted she stay put and they’d be there soon.
Before the couple could make their way to her, Remy strode over and leaned against the wall by her side. “Hey.”
“Hi,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you hit him with the tire iron?” he asked.
She shook her head, her lips lifting in an unwilling semi-smile. “No.”
“Then don’t apologize. When I met Raven, she was being stalked by her half-brother. If I’d been injured, would it have been her fault?”
Again, she shook her head.
“Nobody blames you,” he assured her, astutely getting to the core of her concern. At least her second worry because she was jumping out of her skin not knowing anything about Jared.
She swiped at her eyes. “I called the police as soon as those guys jumped out at them, but it took time for them to get there. The ambulance took even longer. But Jared was awake the last time I saw him.”