Limit (Rebel Book 3)

by Molly McAdams

  Einstein was there, scanning the body on the table while reaching blindly for the other twin. He pulled her close and buried his head into her shoulder—Maverick.

  Diggs.

  Diggs was lying limp on the table.

  It was Diggs’s blood dripping onto the floor.

  Diggs’s chest that was struggling to rise and fall.

  Jess demanded to know where Kieran was as she set up beside Conor, tool in one hand and a towel in the other.

  I just watched in horror, unable to comprehend how this could be real . . . unable to get past who was behind this.

  Zachary did this. Zachary did this. Zachary did this . . .

  This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real . . .

  “I need more light,” Conor ground out. “Someone get a phone.”

  I stupidly looked down at my hands, as if one would appear there, and then glanced over to the sofa bed where the girls had been.

  I didn’t remember running over there, or if I’d even ran. All I remembered was looking over and seeing the phone, and suddenly, it was in my hand and I was next to Conor with the flashlight on.

  Jess stumbled into me before righting herself, muttering something that sounded like an apology, but I couldn’t respond. I could hardly pull my stare away from all the blood long enough to glance at her.

  “Pulse?” Conor asked as he wiped at one of the wounds, only for more blood to trickle out.

  “Weak, but there,” Einstein answered.

  Conor didn’t respond. He just kept working, cleaning off Diggs’s body and moving to the next bandage. All the while, muttering things about breaks and exit wounds.

  Jess swayed toward me before falling toward the table, and I nearly dropped the phone in my attempt to catch her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, my tone at once worried for her and still shocked by the situation we were in the middle of.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, her words slurring slightly. “I’m fine.”

  “Get her out of here,” Conor demanded, both gentle and full of authority.

  “I said I’m fine.”

  He shot her a meaningful look. “And I know you aren’t. Go lie down.”

  I glanced to Jess in time to see the worry and fear that flashed through her eyes before she could push her way around the table.

  I watched her go, trying to figure out what Conor knew, when my eyes caught on Maverick’s shirt.

  The bandana tied high up on his arm, the wetness on his sleeve, and the blood that trailed down past it.

  “You were shot?”

  He and Einstein both looked to me before they realized that I was talking to Maverick. Then Einstein was stepping away and looking at him. Maverick just stared at me blankly before nodding, as if his grief and his worry for his brother had begun shifting into shock and dread and making it hard for him to comprehend that he was wounded too.

  “Arm,” Einstein said, looking to Conor, whose fingers were on the edge of Diggs’s third original bandage.

  Conor whispered a curse. “I forgot. Let me see.”

  “I’m fine,” Maverick said automatically.

  “I don’t fucking care who is fine right now,” Conor snapped. “Show me.”

  Maverick pulled up his sleeve, revealing a gunshot wound on the outside of his bicep with a trail of blood coming from it. “It was a ricochet. Saw it hit the walkway right before I felt it.”

  “Can you feel the bullet still in there?” Conor asked as he went back to Diggs.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly, bending his arm as he did. “Yeah . . . yeah. It isn’t deep.”

  Conor blew out a slow breath, but he never stopped working. “Maverick, sit next to me. Einstein, clean the wound.”

  “No. Fuck no,” Maverick ground out. “I’m fine, take care of my brother.”

  “The hell do you think I’m doing?” Conor asked. “Kieran should be back any minute. If you want to help your brother, then that wound needs to be closed. Sit the fuck down.”

  Maverick untied the bandana from around his shoulder and pulled his shirt off as he sat, wincing slightly when Einstein cleaned the area as Conor told her to.

  Then Conor pointed a bloodied hand to a package in front of me. “Tear that open and have it ready.”

  “Damn you,” Maverick said through clenched teeth as soon as I had the package in hand.

  “Use it before?” Conor asked, a hint of a laugh in his voice.

  “Yes, and I’ll mean anything I say to you.”

  At that, Conor did laugh.

  Without any warning, he set down the surgical tool he was using with Diggs, grabbed a clean one, and turned to Maverick.

  A second later, the bullet was out and he had the cloth I’d taken from the package in hand . . . and then Maverick let out a long string of curses as Conor began shoving the cloth into the bullet wound.

  Once he was sure it was secure, he nodded to Einstein. “Wrap the rest of that around his arm. Tight.”

  Conor was bent back over Diggs less than a minute after he’d left him. And for a moment, I felt like I might need to join Jess.

  This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.

  I was trapped in a disturbing dream, and I was more than ready to wake up.

  With a mumbled curse, Conor began covering the last wound.

  “Can’t you use those cloths on Diggs?” I asked.

  “No.” He grabbed Diggs’s wrist to check his pulse, but he looked to Maverick. “I’m gonna try to get what I can from his back.”

  A grim look stole across Maverick. “The bleeding from the gunshots?”

  “Nearly stopped.”

  “That we can see,” Maverick said after a minute.

  Conor didn’t respond as he rolled Diggs onto his side, but from the heaviness that passed through the kitchen, what Maverick was saying was a possibility.

  Maverick sat forward to watch as Conor pulled pieces of metal and other unknown chunks from Diggs’s back, worry and panic and grief etched across his face. “What broke?”

  “Lower rib.”

  His eyes darted to Conor before resting on Diggs again. “Stop the bullet?”

  “Yeah.”

  Maverick nodded without seeming to realize he was doing so, and after a while, mumbled, “Good.”

  “Why is that good?” I asked before I could begin to stop myself.

  I hadn’t been sure I was following their conversation, but I couldn’t figure out how anything about this situation was good.

  Before anyone could answer, Kieran appeared in the kitchen, arms weighed down with bags. “Saline, pain meds, and antibiotics,” he said gruffly.

  “I needed stuff for an IV,” Conor said as he met Kieran where he was dropping everything on the counter.

  “You’re welcome,” Kieran said distractedly. “Jessica?”

  “Almost fainted. Made her go lie down.” Conor’s hands were busy ripping packages open, but his words dripped with hidden meaning.

  Kieran was out of the kitchen before Conor finished explaining.

  “Einstein, clean a spot on both twins arms,” Conor tossed her a box of what looked like alcohol wipes and then ripped needles from their tubes and pieced them together with others.

  “What are you doing?” Einstein asked as she turned to Maverick. “What is he doing?”

  “Diggs needs blood,” Maverick said gravely, easing Diggs onto his back again as he did.

  “Are you insane?” Einstein yelled at the same time I asked, “Is that safe?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Einstein answered for the guys. “It’s dangerous in a hospital, but in a kitchen? It’s fucking insane.”

  “So, you do know what hospitals are then?” I said lamely. “Because I’ve been wondering why we aren’t at one.”

  “There’s no way you’ve done this before. Have you even put in an IV before?” Einstein asked as Conor took over rubbing the alcohol wipe over the crease of Maverick’s arm.

&nbs
p; “Been a few years,” Conor murmured as he moved back to Diggs and felt around on his arm. “But I watched Sofia do yours a couple weeks ago. Probably like riding a bike.”

  “Conor—”

  “Do something useful,” he snapped. “Find out which of those meds I can give Diggs, and how much. Find out how much saline I should give him.”

  Einstein looked like she wanted to continue arguing.

  She also looked like she was about to cry.

  “Dangerous,” Conor said softly. “Got it. We know the risks. But he will die if we don’t do anything.”

  Her eyelids slowly shut, and her face creased with pain before she jogged back to the living room to grab her laptop.

  She was back with fingers flying before Conor finished getting the IV into Diggs’s vein.

  He attached an IV line, but at the other end where it would have connected to a bag there was another needle.

  Conor stopped in front of Maverick and blew out a steadying breath. “You ready?”

  Maverick’s face was made of stone when he nodded.

  Conor sat in the chair he’d been in earlier and said, “Need you to stand. We need the gravity.”

  I wasn’t sure anyone took a breath until Conor was finished and blood began flowing through the line to Diggs.

  Conor sank back into the chair and raked his hands through his hair, sighing heavily as he did before he stood and went for the counter.

  With one look at me, I hurried to follow.

  “I need you to find something we can set up next to Diggs that will hold the saline.”

  “Of course,” I said quickly, already looking for anything that resembled the poles they used in hospitals.

  And once again, I wondered why they hadn’t taken Diggs to one.

  My eyes caught on the chandelier over the table, and then I hurried through the kitchen toward Conor’s room.

  Kieran and Jess were sitting on the bed, huddled close together and whispering. Once again, making me feel as if I had just interloped on something I should never have witnessed.

  I had the immediate urge to hurry from the room without looking back, but I needed what was inside it.

  “I’m sorry. I just . . .”

  I backed up out of instinct when Kieran got off the bed with one easy step and began stalking toward me with a vicious sneer and murderous intent in his eyes.

  My body felt like dead weight when I noticed the blade hanging from his fingers.

  I turned to run at the same instant Jess yelled, “Kieran, no!”

  I hadn’t gotten to the doorway before he grabbed me by the back of my neck and turned me, slamming me against the wall and pressing the knife to my throat.

  “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t bleed you dry right here.”

  Dark. Cruel. Chilling.

  I couldn’t speak.

  I couldn’t feel the beating of my heart.

  All I saw was the monstrous look in his eyes, so unlike anything I’d ever even seen from Zachary.

  All I felt was the cold metal against my throat.

  All I knew was this last moment, which seemed to stretch on and pass in the blink of an eye. It was as if it were mocking me by letting me steep in the horrific knowledge that I was about to die.

  A harsh cry ripped from me, and I stumbled forward when Kieran suddenly disappeared.

  I looked around wildly as the world and the room came back into view in time to see Conor slam Kieran into the opposite wall.

  “I fucking warned you,” Conor roared as he swung at him. Kieran dodged it, and Conor swung again. It didn’t matter how fast Conor’s fist was—Kieran was faster.

  It was as if the assassin were already in Conor’s head, anticipating every move.

  Instead of another swing, Conor charged him, sending them both to the ground.

  When they landed, Conor had Kieran’s collar in his grasp and his other fist raised, inches from Kieran’s face.

  Kieran had a knife to Conor’s stomach.

  A horrified scream sounded in the room. After a moment, I realized it had come from me.

  Jess was trying to pull me away, but I was frozen in place, staring at the two men on the floor who were seconds away from doing something they would never be able to take back.

  Kieran looked like death personified. And Conor . . . shirtless, and covered in tattoos and blood . . . had never looked more like my avenging angel.

  It was brutal and disturbing and mesmerizing.

  “He hurt you?” Conor called out, never looking away from Kieran. “Sutton.”

  “No,” I said quickly, numbly.

  “Limit reached. Crossed,” Conor said, shoving off Kieran as he did. “We’re done.”

  “She knew,” Kieran said in an even tone as he stood. “She knew where we were going tonight. She knew, and there was an ambush waiting for us at every spot. There was a note at the first.”

  “I said we’re done. Get the fuck out.”

  “There’s a Kennedy trait,” Kieran said, low and disappointed. “Choosing women over family.”

  He left before Conor could respond, and with a dumbfounded, apologetic look, Jess followed.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until Conor was standing in front of me and brushing his thumbs across my cheeks.

  “You okay?”

  My head moved in a slow nod before furiously shaking. Then a sob wrenched from my chest, unable to contain it any longer.

  The day.

  The night.

  The judgment and suspicion. The horror and blood.

  All of it.

  Conor wrapped me up tight, trying to calm me, but I pressed my hands to his chest and pushed him away.

  I forced my stare to the floor so I wouldn’t have to see his hurt and weakly lifted an arm in the direction of the closet. “I was coming for a hanger. Put it upside down on a couple of the chandelier branches.”

  “Sutton—”

  “For Diggs.”

  “Talk to me.” He reached for me, but I took a step away.

  “You should go to him. Really.”

  I could feel the pain radiating from him as it echoed in my own chest.

  But I couldn’t do this.

  Not right then.

  “This is what happens,” he said thickly. “This is my life. People get hurt. People die. Now you understand.”

  Once he’d grabbed a hanger from the closet and left, I waited until I was sure I wasn’t going to break down before leaving the room.

  I kept my head down as I passed through the kitchen, ignoring the way the soft whispers faded to nothing as I did.

  When I was in the safety of my own room, I released a stuttered breath and hurried to clap my hands over my mouth before the shattered sob broke free.

  I needed to go clean up.

  I was sure I hadn’t touched anything, but I felt as if I’d been covered in Diggs’s blood just from being surrounded by it.

  But my body felt so worn out. So weak.

  Threatening to crash from the highs and lows of the day.

  My eyes caught on the clock, which read just after three in the morning.

  The guys had barely left an hour and a half ago.

  And it had already been the longest day of my life.

  I crawled onto the bed next to Lexi and sank onto a pillow, burying my face in it when another tear slipped free.

  I’m fine.

  I’m fine.

  I had to be . . .

  Or else I wouldn’t be able to get through what I knew needed to come next.

  Zachary

  “Call them off,” I said through clenched teeth as I jerked my chin sharply to the side. “All of them.”

  “The people you just brought in,” Garret said in a dull tone. “All eighty-one of them.” A harsh laugh worked from his chest as he gestured to one of the bodies being carried into my house by the nerds. “Shit, excuse me, I meant seventy-two.”

  I moved into his personal space and sucked in a hissing
breath. “I gave you an order. I won’t ask—Woods,” I snapped when he finally answered my call.

  “The fuck do you need?” Jason growled. “The last goddamn thing I want to hear is my phone continuously ringing in time with this bitch’s moans.”

  There was a shock of outrage and disgust in the background, but he just murmured for the woman to shut up.

  “Garret’s calling off the men,” I said on a rush.

  “They just got here—”

  “The next son of a bitch who questions me gets a bullet between their eyes,” I shouted.

  I took deep, staggering breaths.

  Trying to calm myself.

  Trying to find control and maintain it.

  But all I could hear were Sutton’s moans.

  Hear her saying another man’s name.

  My thoughts were consumed by the knowledge that another man had touched my wife. Fucked her. Tasted her.

  And she’d allowed it.

  The urge to kill someone had only grown and grown until I could practically taste the bitter metal coating my tongue. Until I could feel the thick liquid dripping from the tips of my fingers.

  My chin jerked, and I roughed a hand through my hair.

  Grasping at the strands. Tearing.

  Fucking twitching. Unable to stay still.

  “He’s calling off the men,” I said again, this time slower, calmer . . . darker. “The nine here are all dead.”

  Jason let out a low whistle. “Fuck.”

  My nostrils flared, and my heart pounded in time with the voices clawing at my brain and the chanting in my simmering blood.

  A fucked-up symphony of Sutton’s whimpers and a dark, greedy, hungry voice, begging for a kill.

  And another . . .

  And another and another until the sounds of people begging for their lives and the sight of the light leaving their eyes replaced everything else.

  I swallowed the sour taste crawling up my throat and narrowed my eyes on Garret as I seethed into the phone, “I need a favor.”

  Conor

  “Get some sleep,” Maverick all but grunted the words from where he sat next to Diggs.

  An amused huff left me. “You’re one to talk. You almost pulled a Jess in the kitchen.”

  He’d nearly faceplanted right onto Diggs.