Page 74 of No First Kisses

So much blood.

“She’s alive,” I tell the men in my truck.

Dom stands next to my door, with Dean and my dad at his side.

I open the door. “Boys are on the way.”

“Mine too,” Dean says with a nod. “Be here in less than six.”

“Same,” I agree. “Told them to go to the club. Hope that’s okay.”

He nods and then leans against his black rig, crossing his arms. “We’ll leave this to the cops. Take Dom with you. Get rid of anyone not ready for what has to happen, Logan. I meant it, what I told your mother.” He lowers his voice so that none of the other men can hear him. “I’m not bringing him back alive. There’s no hole deep enough to bury him in, as far as I’m concerned.”

I glance over at the men I trust with my life and know they won’t walk away. Not when it comes to Poppy. But I nod all the same.

Officer Carter Malone stands just inside the taped-off perimeter, eyeing me with pity and determination, and I nod.

Barely keeping the impatience out of my voice, I clear my throat and ignore the men at my back. “I gotta check the house.” I wait for his nod, not wanting to break protocol. I’ll be doing enough of that.

“Only cops.” He looks over at the older men. “You know I’d let them in.”

I wave him off. “I know.”

When I cross the tape and take the first step toward my house, I’m not expecting to shake with nerves.

There is absolutely no telling what I’ll find on the other side of the walls. From the state of the door, Ortega used something explosive to get it open.

Poppy didn’t let him in.

Good woman.

I step over the pool of blood on my porch. The pool of blood that I know belongs to my brother. I silently promise to make him bleed.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that she just got up and left with him. Except I see the trail of blood. The one that looks like it comes from the kitchen.

“She fought back,” Remy murmurs from my side.

I look over my shoulder to find all of them there, each staring at a different part of my living room, doing what cops do.

“She did.” I step over another splatter of blood. “This can’t have come from her.”

“Him,” Dom surmises as he nods toward a filet knife on the floor next to him. “She got a cut in, at least.”

“That knife cost three hundred bucks,” I tell them with a snort. “It’s sharper than anything I’ve ever seen in my entire life. She got more than just a cut. She probably took off half his face.”

The bloodthirsty and revenge-filled part of my brain jumps with joy, but the rest of me cringes.

Poppy knows better. She’ll do whatever she has to in order to stay safe.

“Her phone was here. What about the watch?” I ask blindly.

Linc is there. “No. I already had Kennedy and Parker try and pull up her location. The watch must be dead, ’cause it’s not showing a location.”

“Her purse is emptied out,” I note idly. “But I don’t see anything else. There’s not a note.”

“Didn’t think there would be, honestly,” Remy adds quietly. “But I think it’s important you saw that she fought. She didn’t go with him without a fight.”

Standing in my kitchen, all of us away from the blood, I do the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

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