Page 51 of Keeping My Girl

“I will,” I give him my word.

He takes one last long gasp, and then his eyes go unfocused, the life slowly filtering out of them, and I know he’s gone.

“Fuck,” I hiss out between clenched teeth before reluctantly releasing his hand. Even though I know they’re dead, I go to each of the women and check them for a pulse. I don’t find a single heartbeat.

I’m covered in my friend’s blood when I finally emerge from the hospital.

“Miner?” someone asks.

I shake my head solemnly. “Didn’t make it. Neither did the rest of the women.” I swallow hard. That is a jagged fucking pill to swallow. Not only did I lose my friend, but I also lost three innocent women I was in charge of protecting. They thought they were safe, and I let them down. They deserved so much better than this.

My hands curl into fists at my sides as I glance around, looking for one person in particular. And when my search comes up empty, I can feel my blood fucking boiling inside my veins. “Where is the man with the detonator?” I demand in a sneer.

“He escaped during the explosion,” one of my men tell me, unable to even look me in the fucking eye.

“Find him,” I tell several of the guards. “And don’t you dare fucking come back to the compound without him.”

I get a few affirmative nods before four of them take off running behind the building and two get in vehicles, the tires squealing as they fly down the road.

I hear sirens in the distance, and I know we have to move. The women that survived are our only concern now. I can’t turn back time. I can’t take back what was. I can’t change anything. The only thing I can do now is move on and survive and make sure these women are okay.

We pack everything up and get in the van. I tell the driver, “Nearest hospital. Hurry!”

Once I make sure the women are safe at the hospital, then I’ll return home. I don’t know how to deal with what happened tonight. I’m so used to violence and death that it doesn’t affect me as it once did; but Miner was a close friend of mine, and those women were innocent. This means more to me. Their deaths require vengeance. And I want to be the grim fucking reaper that brings them justice.

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