Page 56 of Hostile Cravings
“Shut up, Joey. She’s not yours.” I tipped her chin up, seeing the bruising that was forming around her neck. My blood boiled. “And there’s no way I’m letting you put your grimy paws on my girl.”
“She’s mine!” I looked past her, seeing him aim his gun and registering the click of the trigger. I pushed Angie to the ground and his bullet hit me square in the chest, ripping the air from my lungs. I heard Angie scream but my body was crashing to the ground. Gunshots filled the room as the war erupted around us.
“Tyson!” Angie’s voice was distant, the pressure of her hands on me too light to do more than drift into my awareness. “Please don’t die! Please. I love you. I’ve always loved you and…”
The words faded just as everything became black and no matter how I tried to fight, to hold on to those words, they were just out of reach, like they’d always been.
Chapter Sixteen
ANGIE
Tyson was there telling me he loved me, and my heart could barely contain the joy that burst through it, but then that joy turned to agony. I laid on his chest, the blood soaking through my white dress. It wouldn’t stop, just as my tears wouldn’t. The church was a cacophony of gunshots and yelling and I covered my ears, Tyson’s blood coating my hair with the move. He wasn’t responding, he wasn’t moving, and I felt like that bullet had torn through me. It hurt too much to think he might not live. So I laid there with him, my body over his as if I could protect him.
Silence filled the air then the sound of feet running toward me. I braced myself for Joey’s hands to rip me from Tyson’s body, for the sight of my father and Tony dead. Braced myself for a life of pain, knowing that I had caused this, that if I’d stayed with Tyson, that if I hadn’t been so quick to assume, I’d be safe in his arms on the island.
Hands grasped my arms, and I fought, screaming and clawing to stay with him because I couldn’t leave him.
“Angie, stop,” Tony’s voice cut through my desperation, and I stopped struggling and let him pull me to him. “Are you hurt?” heasked, looking me over. He had blood dripping from his arm and his ear where a bullet had nicked it, but otherwise, he looked whole and intact.
I shook my head, unable to form the words.
“Fuck, Ty,” I heard Mason say. “Grab him. He’s hurt bad.” I turned my head to see him and his men picking Tyson up. I hadn’t realized he was there, that any of them were there.
“Get him in the car. I’ll handle this mess.” My father’s voice was firm and assured, not the weak man he’d been when he’d walked me into the church. I gripped Tony’s shirt, relief filling me that they were both alive.
Mason’s men had Tyson, and they were rushing him out. I tried moving to follow, but Tony kept me close.
“Let me go. I need to be with him. Please, Tony.”
“No, Angie. Let them take him. Mason’s got him, and he won’t let anything happen to him.”
I turned into his chest. The tears I’d been swallowing back since the moment I’d walked out on Tyson broke free. My body shook with the power of them as Tony held me close in his protective embrace.
“He’ll be okay, Anj. Dad’s calling the hospital now to make sure he gets the best care. We need to leave before the police get here.”
I nodded, but I still couldn’t move. Tony scooped me into his arms. He held me the entire trip home, just as he had when we were children, and I would crawl into his bed after our mother died. He would hold me, letting me shed the tears that I hid from others.
When the car pulled up to the house, he helped me out, wiping my tears away and kissing my head.
“I wasn’t about to let that slimebag touch you, Anj. Neither was Dad.”
I searched his eyes. “But that’s what you were doing,” I said, trying to understand.
“That’s what we wanted Joey to think, for Tirenti to think.”
My mouth fell as understanding came to me. “You tricked them? Wait, you used me to trick them?” I punched his arm.
“It was necessary. I didn’t know Tyson would come, but I knew Mason would. He and Dad talked before you came home and then again last night. They suspected this was a trap, that Tirenti would turn on us. And he was right. There were Bad Omen outside and hidden inside the church, waiting for Tirenti’s signal.”
My breath stuck in my throat. Bad Omen again. The last time they’d struck, I’d almost lost Tony. And now, I might lose Tyson.
“Take me to the hospital,” I said. “I don’t care about all this nonsense, just take me there. I want to see him.”
Tony’s expression softened. “Anj, he might not make it.”
My cry was a heartbroken one that scraped its way through my soul before escaping. I shook my head. “You said he’d make it.”
“That gunshot hit him right in the chest.”
