Sons Of Audiemar 3: An Unhinged Romance Finale

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

SWEET DREAMS

“Inari, baby—” Moose knelt and reached for her.

She flinched at the thought of his touch and yanked away. Eyes shutting tight to block the burning tears, Inari whimpered.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” she screamed, tears streaking her face before finally breaking down and staring into her phone where the video played.

She knew what she saw, but her heart didn’t want to believe it. Not her sister. Not Ayla. Shaking her head, she rocked without consent, chest tight, like her next breath would never come. Her pain quickly shifted into anger after reading Danilo’s message again.

“What’s happened?” Moose pried, squatting in front of her.

She finally brought her eyes up to meet his. This man. He’d quickly made himself a factor in her life, and now she hated him for it. Examining his muscular frame and handsome face, something cracked inside her. Just another thing in her life swirling the drain.

“What happened! You want to know what the fuck happened?” Inari jumped to her feet. “My sister is fucking dead!”

Moose’s brows immediately wrinkled together when he stood.

“What you mean? I just saw her at the Shack not long ago.”

“What?” This was news to Inari.

“She was there when I went to get our food. She said she was going back to the house, but some dude approached her when we stepped outside.”

“What dude?” Inari’s face dissolved into a grimace.

“I don’t know. Justin, I think. She said she knew him from school, and she was good, so I left.”

Now there was an empty sinkhole in the pit of his stomach.

Slowly, his eyes closed, and he thought about how every instinct he had told him not to let her leave with that nigga.

He was too worried about getting his hands on his product.

Inari’s gaze shifted from Moose, and she tried to remember this Justin person.

She was drawing a blank, and it pissed her off.

She and her sister had been so disconnected lately, and that wasn’t like them.

Inari snatched her gun off the floor and let it linger at her side before diverting her oval-shaped eyes to Moose.

“You left?” Inari repeated.

Moose eyed the gun in her hand and then stared her dead in the face.

“She said she was good. I was there long enough to watch them get in her car and take off. Who sent you the message?” Moose reached for her phone and tapped the screen.

What he saw made his blood run cold. The fire, Ayla bleeding and unconscious. It was enough to trigger his nervous system and make him nauseous. Stroking his beard, he shook his head.

“Fuck!”

“You said you would take care of Danilo and Mira. That’s what you said.

” Inari’s voice was deadly calm, sending chills over Moose’s flesh as he watched her warm eyes shift into something dark.

“Now, my fucking sister is dead! This is why I don’t put my trust in anybody.

I don’t even want to talk about what you did to me at Vintage Vault!

” She brought a hand up like she wanted to swing but waved it to shake off the spirit that was itching to take over.

“Nari, that—”

“I don’t want to fucking hear it!” she spat, getting in his face. “You’re a liar! Stay the fuck away from me!” She bumped past him, but Moose wasn’t letting her just walk off.

When he grabbed her arm, Inari immediately turned the pistol on him, and something slipped out of his jacket pocket.

Moose released her, throwing his hands up in surrender.

He didn’t want that kind of smoke with her.

Anybody else, he would have already put a hole in their head and watched them bleed out on his floor. This was different.

“Touch me again, and I’ll send you to your mama,” Inari snarled coldly, eyes drifting to the floor.

It was fucked up, like a punch to the gut, but Moose had to take that.

She was grieving and hit with the memory of what he did to her the night of the heist. Lashing out was all she could do in the moment, or she’d end up on the floor crying and would never stop.

Ayla is dead. It played on repeat over all her other thoughts.

“Is this what you left her for?” Inari scooped up the cocaine off the floor. “Too small to be a distro pack. So, it must be personal.” Scoffing, she shook her head and shoved it into his chest.

How had she ignored all the signs?

Moose studied the hatred bouncing around her orbs, and his chest tightened. The admiration she used to hold for him was gone, and he didn’t think it would ever come back. She snatched up the duffel bag full of her things she’d packed, along with her purse, off the couch, and stormed out.

Letting go of a harsh breath, he shook his head and fished his cell from his pocket. He listened to Inari leave his house, get in her car, and speed off his property while dialing Kong.

“What’s up?” He picked up.

“Where are you?”

“On my way to the hospital. What’s wrong?” Kong questioned.

“Bro, I don’t want to tell you this shit over the phone. I’ll meet you at the hospital.” Moose rushed to the stairs.

“I called Ayla, but her phone is going to voicemail. She didn’t know I had her location. It’s showing she’s still at the Shack, though. I thought you said she left.”

“She did,” Moose replied, assuming her phone more than likely was still in the Snack Shack parking lot somewhere.

“Moose, the fuck is going on?” Even from the other side of the phone, Kong sensed something off with his brother.

“Kong, I’ll tell you when I see you. I’m heading out now.” Ending the call, Moose shoved his phone into his jacket pocket and entered his garage.

He opted for his bike this time, pressing the garage entry button so he could let himself out.

Once he’d secured the helmet on his head, he turned the switch to start and revved it up.

Backing out of his driveway, he sped down the winding road to his gate.

Smashing on the gas, all he could see was the look in Inari’s eyes before she left.

The way his heart cracked in his chest was something he didn’t even think was possible again.

When Moose whipped his bike into the hospital parking lot twenty minutes later, he spotted Kong’s G-Wagon parked and his brother pacing beside it with his phone pressed to his ear.

Brows dipped in concern, he immediately hung up and flicked the Newport he’d been blowing into the wind when he spotted Moose.

Sliding into the empty space beside his truck, Moose killed the engine and placed his feet on the ground.

He kicked the stand down, removed his helmet, and pushed himself off his bike.

“The fuck is going on?” Kong threw his hands up. “Ayla’s not picking up, and Yasmine said she hasn’t been back. What else did she say when you saw her?”

“Bro, something happened.” Moose set his helmet against the bars on his bike.

Kong picked up on his tone and the way his dark eyes flickered with somberness.

No stranger to receiving bad news, something about Moose’s piercing stare unnerved him.

His heart thrummed loudly in his ears, and he held his breath.

People held a certain tone and a desolation that only someone who had been there before can recognize.

“What you mean something happened?”

“I was just with Inari. She got a message.”

“A message about what, Moose? Where the fuck is Ayla?” Kong roared, eyes glistening for reasons unknown.

“She’s gone,” Moose voiced.

His brows cinched together, and Kong turned his ear as if he hadn’t heard him.

“What you say?”

“She’s gone, bro. There was a car explosion. Ayla is dead,” Moose revealed.

Kong rushed him, grabbing him by his jacket and slamming him into a nearby car, with his face only a few inches from Moose's.

“What the fuck happened? Tell me everything!” Fire ignited behind his eyes as Kong grit his teeth.

“It was Inari’s bitch ass baby daddy and his auntie, that bitch Mira who runs hoes for Donahue. They were blackmailing Inari for some shit that happened when her and Ayla were kids. Inari stopped complying, so they went after Ayla,” Moose expressed.

“Why the fuck you ain’t say shit?” Kong spat.

“I just found out. I told Inari I would take care of it—”

“How the fuck is she dead then, Moose?” Kong’s grip tightened on his brother’s jacket, and his dark eyes bounced over Moose’s red and glossy ones. “Was you too fucking high to stay on point with this shit?”

Moose gathered his strength and pushed Kong off him, a menacing scowl now crowding his face.

“The fuck off me! I ain’t the one who was playing with her!”

“But you knew what was going on, and you sat on the sidelines on some bullshit!”

“I did everything I fucking could!” Moose clapped back, standing toe to toe with his big brother, both huffing and puffing.

“I got the intel on Mira’s operation. I was waiting for the word from my inside man on when to move.

I couldn’t go in there on some half-ass shit because it would have gotten Inari fucked off too. ”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” Moose sighed, lowering his eyes to the ground. “She found out about me and the heist and then got the message about Ayla, so she left.”

“I suggest you push all that other shit to the side and find her! The fuck you think they gon’ do to her now? Inari ain’t got shit to lose at this point. How do you think she’s gon’ come at them now that her sister is gone?” he questioned.

Kong was surface-level calm. Underneath, every part of him trembled, and there was an ache in his heart that he’d been trying to prevent this whole time.

Ayla. Pretty, sweet face, soft voice. Gone.

He couldn’t connect the words and make them make sense, so he took a step away from his brother and quit trying.

Bobbing his head, Moose adjusted his jacket around him. Lucky for him, he had Inari’s location too. Kong wasn’t wrong, but Moose wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with her now. Dragging his hand down his face, he took a breath.