Page 148 of The Secrets She Keeps

"But there is always the chance?—"

"I know. We'll do what we can to keep her safe now."

Their priority now was getting Powell and her parents out safely.

And getting help to the ones who were down.

It hadn't even been twenty minutes since those assholes had shot him and Daniel at the entrance to the park.

But twenty minutes was long enough to be much too late.

They were operating on borrowed time. And they all knew it.

109

They'd tapedher to a desk chair and started asking her a million questions. As Summer and Samia and that nurse Cashlyn had grabbed bags of first aid equipment and shoved them into a little boy's dark backpack quickly.

Into Brianna’snephew’sbag. That boy she’d seen so many times before was Brianna’s own nephew. He’d come in and asked his mom what was going on. Eden had hugged him and sent him back to his room. Brianna had had a nephew already—and she hadn’t realized it.

They were talking to that one who had been attacked bySteveandJoeybefore. The one who had been shot and everything. Who skateboarded everywhere in Hughes Heights like a total freak.

She was in front of her laptop, looking at something at the park.

They were coming up with arescue plan.

They were crazy, utterly crazy. Brianna told them that too. They'd gotten impatient with her. Then that tall one with the blue and brown eyes had pushed Brianna’s chair into the family room. Where Brianna would just be out of the way andeverything. She’d told Brianna to stay quiet or she’d tape her mouth shut next.

Brianna did not like her at all.

Brianna had just stared. Around the family room.

Where they hadPowell's brotherstaped up and sitting against a couch. Mac was yelling, arguing, making demands.

Alex was trying to reason with one of those girls.

Alex and Mac took one look at Brianna and went silent.

Alex was the first to speak. "Cara, this is getting out of hand. This is illegal, sweetheart.”

“We’re doing what Aunt Heather said,” another one said. Like that was explanation enough or something. These women were literally insane. Rabid and insane. “It’s an emergency. Wealwaysdo what Aunt Heather says to do in an emergency.”

"Gentlemen, I don’t think Brianna will press charges, considering it’s afamilything. I'd like you all to meet my half sister," Eden said flatly. "Timothy Grundenman’s eldest daughter.Sheapparently knows something is happening tonight. She’s probably involved up to her eyeballs.”

‘I am not involved. I hate Trey and I always will!”

“At least we agree on that. I suspect she knows all the players too. She blabs—and she has to explainherpart in what is going on right now. Share what kind of secrets she’s been keeping,” Eden said, glaring at her. Brianna didn’t like her at all. Not one bit.

The Barratt brothers’ surprise was hard to miss. The only sound for a moment was the babbling little baby right there. Brianna looked at her. And she knew… “Isn’t that?—"

“Brianna, meet Emilia Rose.Ourbaby sister. She’s almost fifteen months old,” Eden said. “Her mother died of a heart attack just hours after she was born, caused by that drug Trey is peddling. Makes us all so proud to call him brother, doesn’t it?”

It sickened Brianna. Absolutely sickened her. “Trey is utterly disgusting.”

Cara held the toddler on her hip. Timothy’s missing baby. The one he mentioned sometimes, when he was really melancholy and everything. She was a beautiful baby, not that Brianna ever really noticed those things, but she was really cute. The baby girl had a little hat on her head.

"What? Brianna Claireson is Timothy's daughter too? How many kids does he have? Does he not know how to use condoms or something?” Cara asked way too loudly.

"Apparently Daddy does not," Eden told her. “And at his age, there may be dozens of us floating around out there at this rate. These are not going to be fun family reunions, I suspect. Brianna is going to tell us what she knows. Fast. Or I am going to knock her teeth out. One by one by one. I’ll probably enjoy it too."

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