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  Hearing the truth about my family ignited a rage inside me that I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to contain. At my sides, my fists clenched and my jaw ticked.

  “So all of this, everything that’s happened, was because of a mistake your mother made?” Jax asked angrily.

  Kevin shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess she should have kept her legs closed.”

  Jax blinked as everything he had learned about my family, who I was, processed through his mind.

  “Anyway, since that’s out, let’s get on with our business,” Kevin went on.

  I glanced at him, as did Jaxson.

  “You say that you love Ray and Jayson. Honestly, I know that kid is a Cross by blood, but let’s face it, he should have been a Steele. He’s sweet. Like you Jax. All you have to do is kill Miles,” Kevin said and then laughed before he went on, “Kill him and I’ll give you Jayson. You can walk right out of here. That is if he doesn’t kill you first,” he said.

  Mine and Jax’s gaze met before he looked back at Kevin.

  “That isn’t going to happen,” I said.

  I barely had time to get the words out before I heard it. A gunshot echoed through the warehouse and my next breath stalled in my lungs. The floor shifted beneath me and I stumbled to the side, catching myself on the wall.

  Looking down, I lifted my hand to my left side just as a numbing pain erupted throughout my body and when I pulled it back, it was covered with my own blood.

  My gaze lifted to Jaxson. He held the gun out in front of him, the barrel smoking from the shot he had fired directly into me. In the background, I heard Kevin’s maniacal laugh as I stared at Jaxson.

  “Holy shit! I knew you were my favorite,” Kevin said and then walked over to Jaxson, placing his hand on his shoulder and speaking close to his ear, “Finish him and you’re a free man.”

  Pain flashed through me and I pressed my hand into my side as blood dripped between my fingers. I lifted my gaze toward Jaxson again and I could see the guilt burning in his eyes as he looked at me.

  “Jax… don’t,” I managed to grit out through the pain.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miles.”

  Forcing through the pain, I shoved off the wall a split second before he fired another shot and crashed into Rachel. She screamed as we hit the concrete. The gun she had been holding flew from her hand, hitting the ground a few feet from me. Kevin took off then, vanishing into another room as I groaned through the pain and snatched Rachel’s gun off the ground, rolling onto my back. Pain thrummed through my veins as I stared at Jax as he held his own weapon, aiming at me.

  Rachel didn’t wait around. She jumped to her feet and raced after Kevin, vanishing into the same room he had.

  “I will always do whatever is best for Ray and Jayson. It doesn’t matter who it is. They have to come first,” Jaxson said.

  Pain rocked through me as I spoke. “Ray will never forgive you for this.”

  Guilt flashed through his whisky colored eyes and then he responded. “Maybe not, but she doesn’t have to know anything,” he said.

  My body was getting weak as blood continued to drip onto the ground, but I forced my hand to remain steady as I aimed the gun at him. “So you’re going to kill me in cold blood? After everything we’ve been through, you’re going to let Kevin win and force my hand in this—”

  Jax blinked and I could tell that despite pulling the trigger already, he was torn between brotherhood and love.

  And then he spoke quietly. “I’m sorry. She’s too important. Jayson is too important. We both knew a long time ago that there was a good chance one of us wasn’t walking out of this alive.”

  “I don’t want to kill you! Without you, Ray will never be happy, and I love that damn girl enough to let you walk out of this alive,” I said as pain seared through my side like a lightning bolt.

  Jax studied me before he responded. “I’m sorry.”

  I saw his finger twitch just the smallest bit, but I was prepared this time. I fired one shot, the sound causing my ears to ring and hitting Jaxson directly in the shoulder. He stumbled back into the pallets behind him. I fired again, hitting his side.

  Jaxson fell to the ground. I knew the wounds I had inflicted wouldn’t kill him, but that had never been my intention.

  But clearly, all the cards were on the table now.

  Jaxson lifted his arm and fired a shot I wasn’t prepared for. It slammed into my upper right shoulder, knocking my gun from my hand and shoving me back to the ground. A burning pain shot through my shoulder and I rolled onto my stomach where I forced myself to my feet, heading straight for the exit.

  I barely made it through the door before I heard another shot. It bounced off the metal as I rushed into the cold night air. Breathing hard and fighting through the pain, I jumped into the Cadillac Kevin had drove here. Luckily, the keys were still in the ignition and I turned the engine over just as the door to the warehouse opened, revealing Jaxson who held onto his side with his free hand as if the pain were getting to him as much as it was me.

  Shifting into gear, I slammed my foot on the gas pedal, throwing gravel and mud as I took off, but I wasn’t quick enough. Jax fired another shot and it shattered the back glass in the Cadillac, but I didn’t stop.

  Instead, I drove with my good arm and raced back onto the highway as my body slowly grew weaker with each passing second.

  CHAPTER ONE

  1 Week Later

  Lesley

  “You can’t tell me that you don’t want to at least try a blow job,” Lila said as we headed back toward her place from our late-night liquor run.

  My mind cringed at the thought of giving my boyfriend what he continued to beg me for, and it wasn’t that I disliked the idea, but I hadn’t done anything more than make out with him. I was pure and despite how most girls my age thought, my virginity was important to me. It was the one thing I still had control over, while everything else in my life had crumpled like a house of cards.

  “I just don’t know. Those things usually lead to other things,” I said truthfully.

  She laughed and then flipped on her blinker to turn down the alley that would take us to her shady, yet cute apartment. “But they don’t have to. You can always tell Lucas that you don’t want to do anything more than that. He would understand.”

  I had started dating Lucas Brock aka Luke in 9th grade and despite being the football star, he had always been a decent person and different than most jocks. It was one of the things that made me give this whole dating thing a try and now here I was, three years later, and still counting. I knew he would understand my reasoning for not wanting to go beyond that point in our sex life, but I also knew that deep down, he was just like every other eighteen-year-old male.

  I was so lost in my own mixed emotions about it that Lila’s gasp startled me as if she had screamed it instead. She stopped the car suddenly, causing me to have to place my hands on the dash to keep from smacking my head off it instead.

  “What’s wrong?” I panicked as my heart shot through the roof and glanced at her a moment before she jumped out of the car without explaining a thing.

  My gaze followed her as she raced toward her front door. If it weren’t for the fact that her headlights were shining at it, I wouldn’t have seen what she was racing toward.

  But then I did.

  It was a person and even though I couldn’t tell if they were male or female, I knew they were injured and it was clearly someone that knew Lila had a whole hospital in the back room of her apartment since that wasn’t something she shared with just anyone.

  Most of her patients were people that couldn’t afford insurance, the homeless, or the special few that didn’t want the cops knowing how they ended up with their bodies riddled with gunshot wounds.

  With adrenaline rushing through my veins and my heart pounding, I kicked the door open and ran toward where Lila kneeled beside the person.

  It wasn’t until I reached them that I saw everything.r />
  He laid unconscious on the ground a few feet from her door and you didn’t have to be a genus to know that he was clearly in need of some help. Blood had soaked into his shirt and his skin was ghostly pale, maybe even a bit sweaty.

  “Help me,” Lila said in a panicked voice as she stood up, grabbing her house key out of her pocket and unlocking the door, letting it slam against the wall before she turned back to the man on the ground.

  I stood in speechless shock.

  “Lesley! Help me!” Lila snapped her fingers in my line of sight before she grabbed one of the guy’s arms.

  My mind clicked and I nodded, rushing to her side where I reached down and wrapped both hands around his wrist. With each one of us holding an arm, we began dragging the man inside her apartment and that was when I realized that despite his tall, muscular yet lean frame, he was heavy.

  By the time we got him into the back room where all the medical supplies were, I was breathless. After placing his arm back down on the floor gently, I took a step back and finally took him in under the bright lights.

  I couldn’t see his eye color since his lids were closed, but I noticed his ink black hair as it rested over his forehead in wet locks, causing the tips to touch his thick and dark eyelashes.

  Despite the few scars I saw, his face was perfection. He had a strong jaw and just a day or two worth of facial hair. His skin was a bit pale, but on one arm, I could see scars while the other had a complete sleeved tattoo. I knew this guy had to be several years older than me, but I couldn’t stop myself from noticing the resemblance between him and someone else I knew.

  My blood pumped and my heart raced as I watched her kneel beside the man and press her fingers into his neck, checking for a pulse.

  “Who is this guy?” I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me despite the situation.

  Lila looked up from where she sat back on her heels beside him, a look of concern mixed with fear in her eyes, “He’s…” she paused as if it were taking her a moment to form the words in her mind before she continued, “He’s my half-brother.”

  I blinked in surprise and my next statement caught in my throat as Lila reached for the bottom of his shirt. She gently pulled it up, revealing his muscular torso, the wound on his side that had a bloody bandage over it, and even more scars. They were on the same side as the ones on his arm and seeing them made me wonder how he got them.

  Lila examined the bullet wound in his left side and then reached up to his shoulder where she pulled his shirt down enough that she could see the second bullet wound I hadn’t noticed until that moment. This one also had a bloody bandage, which made me realize that he had tried to treat them himself.

  “The bullets aren’t in there, which is a good thing— “ she said and then went on without meeting my gaze, “It’s going to take some work though. His wounds look like they’ve been there for a few days. He’s going to need blood, antibiotics, and some stitching, but that’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  I hadn’t even processed the fact that this man was Lila’s brother, or the situation and she was already ten steps ahead of me. Lila pulled her phone out of her back pocket, dialed a number, and then placed it to her ear as I stood there in stunned silence. A moment passed and then she spoke into the phone.

  “I need you…” she said, but she kept her gaze on her brother.

  I heard a voice on the other line, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying and then Lila spoke, “It’s Miles.”

  Miles.

  Clearly that was his name. Our families were close, but she had never once mentioned this brother.

  The only ones I had met was her oldest brother, Kevin, who I always found to be a bit sketchy and then Darian aka Dare. Both had been around a few times since our parents sealed the deal, but I wasn’t as close with Kevin as I was with Lila and Dare.

  Nonetheless, they were all my family.

  As these thoughts raced through my mind, I realized that I didn’t just have one stepsister and two stepbrothers. I had three stepbrothers and one was currently bleeding out right in front of me.

  “Just get here as quick as you can,” Lila said, pulling me from these thoughts of how utterly fucked up my family really was and back to the problem at hand.

  She hung up the phone then and threw it on the metal table behind her before she stood up, marching over to the cabinet that held every kind of surgical tool you could imagine.

  “Lila…” I said quietly, somehow finding my voice again.

  She didn’t stop her search for the right tools, but she responded. “Yeah?”

  I swallowed the thick knot that had formed in my throat and then spoke, “This man, Miles, he’s our family. How?” I said.

  That was when she stopped and looked over her shoulder at me. There was a look of guilt in her eyes and I knew she was thinking about the fact that she never told me about Miles. “We share the same mother and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. He was always kind of the black sheep. I don’t think my mom ever even told your dad about him,” she said.

  I couldn’t believe this. I knew the moment my dad introduced me to his new girlfriend aka Lila’s mom and her kids that there was something off about the entire family, but I kept my mouth shut because I could see how happy my father was.

  Two years later, they sealed the deal and linked our two families together forever.

  But I still didn’t know much about Lila, Kevin, Dare, and now, Miles’ mother. She would never talk about her past in front of me. I wasn’t even sure how much my father knew and even though I had thought about digging deeper into the Cross family, I never did simply out of respect for my father. He wanted me to accept them and I did, but that didn’t mean I had stopped wondering exactly who my stepmother and stepsiblings were.

  Before I could speak another word on the matter, I heard the front door shut and my eyes lifted just as Darian walked through the Christmas lights that hung over the entrance into the medical room.

  Like usual, Dare was dressed in black cargo pants, black strapped up boots and a black hoodie. His dark brown almost black hair was shorter since the last time I saw him too.

  He caught my gaze for a moment before he looked down at Miles on the ground. “What the hell happened?” He asked.

  Lila faced him. “I don’t know. I found him on the ground outside my door. Can you help me get him on the table?”

  Dare shook his head but kept the questions I saw burning in his jade green eyes to himself as he kneeled beside Miles. He grabbed one of his arms and pulled it over his shoulder before he lifted Miles’ weight and his own. I pressed my back into the wall, so that I wasn’t in his way as him and Lila got Miles onto the table.

  Once that was over, Dare took a step back and stared down at his brother as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, while Lila went to work.

  “Lesley, can you get Dare ready for the blood transfusion?” she asked a second later.

  My gaze met Dare’s and then I pushed off the wall. I was no expert when it came to being a doctor like Lila was, but I had learned a few things from her just by being here when patients showed up. I made my way over to the machine, grabbed the IV kit and the thick rubber band that Lila had set out a moment before.

  When I turned back around, I saw that Dare had pulled up a chair and was currently sitting in it with one sleeve of his hoodie pulled up to his elbow. I walked over and he lifted his gaze to mine as I sat the IV tubing down on the table next to Miles before I took the rubber band, wrapping it around Dare’s arm tightly, causing his veins to pop. Once that was done, I grabbed the IV line that also had a needle attached to the end of it and turned back toward Dare.

  “This might sting,” I said.

  He looked away, “I’m fine.”

  I took his word for it and found the best vein in his arm that I thought would work before I gently inserted the needle. Dare took a deep breath and made a fist with his hand, but he didn’t complain about the pain.

 
“He’s ready,” I said and stepped back from him to watch Lila as she went over to the machine, already having inserted a needle into Miles’ arm, and flipped it on.

  My eyes dropped to the IV line hooked into Dare’s arm. I watched as his blood flowed through it and then straight into the machine before it went through the other IV line hooked to Miles’ arm.

  “Is there a reason Dare had to be here for this?” I asked.

  I half expected him to answer, but it was Lila instead. “Yes, Miles and Dare both have O negative blood types. They can donate to everyone, but they can only receive O negative.”

  My gaze met Dare’s and he shrugged as if this wasn’t something out of the ordinary for him, which made me realize that he was Lila’s blood source. I knew for a fact that she usually kept bags of blood in the freezer for emergency situations like this one, but she must not have had any this time.

  “Oh,” was all I could say as she continued to work on patching up Miles’ injuries.

  I had no idea how Miles got into this situation and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but it was clear that something big was going on here.

  Something that made every suspicion I had about the Cross family seem true.

  Miles was shot for a reason by someone and fear leaked into my veins as I thought about this person coming back to finish the job.

  But as I looked around at Lila and Dare, I realized that despite seeing fear in Lila’s eyes earlier, neither one of them seemed to want to know the answers as to how Miles got in this condition.

  Or maybe, they weren’t even sure how Miles got into this situation.