Abigail
The sound of shattering glass jolted me from sleep. I sat upright in bed with my heart hammering against my ribs and the sheets pooling around my waist.
Beside me Finnegan was already moving and his hand reached for the gun in the nightstand drawer.
"What was that?" I whispered as the sounds of men shouting and shots being fired filtered in from outside. What on earth was happening?
"Finn?"
"Stay here," he ordered.
Like hell I would.
I scrambled out of bed and grabbed the silk robe from the chair and shoved my arms into it as I followed him. We moved down the hallway carefully. Annette was at Jade’s place, thankfully.
We reached the living room and Finnegan froze with his grip tightening on the gun.
"Devin?"
I peered around his shoulder and my breath caught.
Devin Wolfe stood in the center of the living room like something dragged up from a nightmare.
He was drenched in blood and his clothes were torn and plastered to his body and his dark hair was matted back and his eyes were wild and bloodshot.
His left arm hung at a strange angle with blood dripping steadily from his fingertips onto the white marble and pooling around his shoes.
"You," he spat. "This is your fault. All of it."
"Keep your hands where I can see them," Finnegan said.
Devin screamed, the sound tearing from his throat like shredded fabric, and lunged forward with a gun raised.
Finnegan raised his weapon. "Stop! Devin, stop right now!"
But Devin didn’t stop and he barreled forward and crashed into Finnegan.
"Abigail, run!" Finnegan shouted, wrestling his brother back while my heart slammed against my chest as I watched them grapple. Devin swung wildly and Finnegan knocked the gun from his brother’s hand.
"Now, Abigail!"
I ran for the phone in the bedroom with my hands shaking so badly I could barely dial.
When I returned Finnegan had Devin pinned against the wall with his forearm pressed against his brother’s throat and of all the things I had ever expected to witness in my life, seeing my parents’ killer sobbing like a broken child was not among them.
"She’s dead," he choked out with his voice splintering apart. "Mother is dead, you stupid bitch. They shot her. She fell and there was so much blood, so much blood!"
Finnegan went very still and the color drained from his face. "What? Devin, what are you saying?"
"Mother!" Devin screamed and shoved Finnegan off him.
The sirens were screaming now and red and blue light strobed through the windows but all I could hear was Devin’s voice and that terrible promise wrapped inside it.
Police burst through the door with their weapons raised and shouted commands but Finnegan ignored all of it and his grip on me tightened as he pulled me against his chest.
My arms wrapped around him and his heartbeat hammered against my ear, hard and fast.
He was in shock and I couldn’t blame him. Nothing could have prepared him for being dragged from sleep to hear his brother say their mother was dead.
"Is it bad?" he whispered into my hair with his grip tightening.
"Is it awful of me that I felt relieved when he said she was dead?"
Tears burned at the corners of my eyes and my chest ached for him. Finnegan had lived most of his life with Gina telling him he would never be enough and even now with her possibly gone he was still questioning himself.
"Can you imagine? Relief," he whispered the word like it tasted bitter.
"Like a weight lifted off my chest. Is she my mother, the woman who gave birth to me and raised me, or the woman who spent years trying to destroy me?" He let out a laugh that broke apart before it finished.
"What kind of monster does that make me? Is it awful to feel relief that she’s gone?"
I held him tighter and pressed my face into his chest. "You are not a monster. You are human, Finnegan. And I am so sorry. I am so sorry you are carrying any of this and I wish I could take every bit of it away from you."
He buried his face in my neck despite the chaos churning around us as police swept the house for Devin, who was long gone.
At this rate Devin felt like one of those impossible things that no matter how many times you cornered and closed in on, somehow always found a way to slip through your hands.

Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: The Stranger Behind My Orgasm