High-Sided: An Armed & Dangerous Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

joined him. Thunder rumbled overhead, the smell of rain in the air. Sighing, I looked to the storm rolling in. “I hope Levi went home to get his car before coming over here.”
    “I’m sure he did. It’s not fun riding in the rain.”
    I looked down at his bandaged hands. I’d spent the last two hours cleaning them up. “Why did you have to fight Jacob? All you had to do was walk away.” His left eye was slightly swollen, but that was the only other visible injury. Jacob and Sean were about the same size, but he was no match for Sean.
    Huffing, he averted his gaze to the mountains. “I couldn’t, not after what the bastard said. And he had no business touching you.”
    “True, but I can handle myself. A swift kick to the nuts would’ve worked fine.”
    “That would’ve been hilarious.” He chuckled.
    The rain came down and the thunder rumbled again. I loved the sound of the rain hitting my tin roof. It felt like such a long time ago when my sister and I would sit on the front porch of my parents’ house and watch it rain.
    I closed my eyes and breathed in the clean, mountain air. “I miss the way things used to be,” I whispered, opening my eyes back up.
    Sean looked over at me. “Like when?”
    I shrugged. “When I was younger. Things were much easier back then. I miss my mom and Maddie.”
    He squeezed my shoulder. “I know you do. I miss my dad too. But that’s why we have each other and our friends to help us through.”
    A set of headlights blared from the top of my driveway and I stood to see who it was. I thought it would be Levi, but it turned out to be my father, in his old, red truck. “Uh-oh. This isn’t going to be good.”
    Sean got to his feet and joined me, trying his best to keep his bandaged hands out of view. My father pulled down to the front of the house and took his time getting out of his truck. The rain poured harder, but he slowly walked up, seemingly not caring that he was getting wet. He hadn’t even looked at us either, which wasn’t a good sign.
    Trudging up each step like the world was on his shoulders, he finally lifted his head when he got to the top. He stared at us and I waited for him to speak, but he never did.
    I held up my hands. “I know what you’re going to say, but I’ll go ahead and tell you upfront, they deserved it.”
    His brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
    I glanced at Sean and he was as clueless as me. “I figured you came because of the fight,” I said, turning my attention back to him.
    He shook his head. “What fight?”
    “The one between Mark and Jacob and me and Levi,” Sean answered. “We thought that was why you were here; to bitch us out for being stupid.”
    Eyes wide, my dad’s face went pale. He got a good look at Sean’s face and hands. “What was it about?” Sean’s jaw clenched and he glanced at me. “What was it about?” my dad repeated, near shouting. He grabbed Sean by the shirt, his expression wild and dangerous. I’d never seen him so out of control, not even when he fired Ethan.
    Sean snarled and jerked out of my father’s grasp. “The cocksucker touched your daughter and made a comment about fucking her. If you were there, I’m sure you’d have done a lot more damage than I did. Personally, I wanted to beat his head against the concrete.”
    My dad stumbled back, almost as if he was drunk. “When did this happen?” he asked, his voice thick.
    “A couple hours ago,” I said.
    He ran a hand down his face and leaned over the front porch railing. His breathing became shallow and his knuckles turned white from clenching the railing so hard.
    “Dad, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.”
    His body shook and he jerked around, his face and eyes red. “I got a call. Levi’s dead,” he choked out.
    I sucked in a ragged breath and shook my head, throat closing up. “He’s on his way here. That can’t be true.” There was no way he could be dead. We’d seen him not too long ago.
    Tears fell