His Secret Heart (Crown Creek) Page 18

  "Is she with you?" Dinah’s voice was thick with sleep and alarm.

  "I've got her.

  I heard a muffled sound , then the sharp tinkling of shattering glass. Dinah yelped. “I’ve got a gun!” she warned someone. “I’m not… Finn?”

  I gripped the phone tighter. “Dinah?”

  "Get her out of here, Finn. Get her out of here!"

  The line went dead.

  Then came the sound of cars. From all around us. Every direction.

  I looked it Anna. She was frozen with fear. "We have to go," I told her, tossing her my jacket.

  She didn't move. She stayed curled in a tight ball, her head shaking over and over again. Like her whole body was whispering “no.”

  I looked out the window. "Shit," I swore as a flashlight beam swung over the trailer. I ducked out of the way.

  But whoever was on the other side of the glass had seen me. I heard the shout go up.

  “Anna, we gotta get out of here, now.”

  She was still there, trapped by her fear. In another life, I’d been exactly where she was.

  But I wasn’t that person any more.

  “Ah fuck, listen, I'm really sorry about this," I informed her. Then leaned in and scooped her up into my arms.

  She screamed, a piercing shriek right in my ear. "Good thing I'm already half deaf," I grunted, still holding her tight. I bounded for the door, kicking it open with my foot.

  It bounced back just as fast. I heard a grunt from the other side, and a man fell back into the dirt clutching his nose. "Good! Hope that hurt, fucker!” I yelled, making a beeline for my car.

  “Let go of the girl," ordered a voice. A man stepped out from behind it.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  The man whose nose I’d broken stumbled to his feet.

  I was surrounded on all sides by men in the distinct garb of the God’s Chosen cult. And I was holding one of the girls they considered theirs. A girl I’d sworn to protect.

  It was time to find out just how much I’d changed. A true test of whether I was the good man Esther and Dinah thought I was. Or if, when faced with prospect of a four on one fight, I turned out to be the coward I’d always been before.

  I turned in a slow circle, still cradling Anna to my chest. I knew what I was, what I had to do. “Fuck,” I muttered.

  Because it was going to suck.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sky

  “Are you sure?” Livvy asked me one more time.

  I nodded. “I’m sure.”

  It was close to four in the morning and by now the whole Thursday night crew knew what had happened. Willa’s boyfriend Cooper showed up right after J.D. left. Now the two of them were wedged together on the loveseat, dead asleep.

  Jonah stayed by the front door all night. He was now slumped with his back against it, still barricading it with his body. Ruby had her head in his lap, snoring softly as he played with her hair.

  Ethan was out in the driveway, sleeping in his car so he could honk his horn if any Knights decided to make another appearance.

  Ryan had checked in with Cooper a half hour ago, after doing a drive-by of the Knights' garage. All four motorcycles were parked there for now, but Naomi would check in again before she headed out to work.

  And Sadie had finally gotten her hands on some sage. She'd thoroughly cleansed the front porch of all the negative energy. Then she’d made herself a nest in the corner out of everyone else’s coats. She was now sleeping with her butt up in the air, just like a little baby.

  I thought Claire was asleep at the other end of the couch from me, but she stirred when she heard my answer. “You’re a braver woman than me.” She opened one eye and shot me a tired smile. “I was scared shitless when J.D. came back.”

  “Me too.”

  “If you tell anyone though, I’ll kill you,” she mumbled as her eyes closed again. “Especially Ethan.”

  I grinned.

  “When?” Livvy wanted to know. She was still sitting on the floor with her back to the couch. I had no idea how she was still upright.

  “First thing,” I said. “I’m tired of waiting to see what’s going to happen.” I licked my lips, tasting the red wine that still clung to them. “I’m ready to stop being scared and start finding answers.”

  She yawned and looked around at the people strewn around her house with a fond smile. “Didn’t I tell you you wouldn’t have to do it alone?” she asked me.

  I swallowed back the tears that kept threatening to fall, and instead squeezed her hand. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  My head was clogged with red wine and spent adrenaline. I should have slept like a rock.

  But instead, I laid there listening to the sleep noises of the people around me and tried to think about what I’d say to my brothers.

  I say tried, because my mind kept drifting to what I’d say to Finn instead. I get it now, I’d tell him. You didn’t see how many people loved you, because you didn’t love yourself enough to notice. I’m guilty of that too.

  But did you notice me?

  Could you tell?

  Was my love clear and bright? Or was it buried under too many layers of self-centered narcissism for you to see it?

  Would you let me show you if I saw you now?

  I stared at the dark window. Now that I realized it, I wondered how I’d ever thought it was anything else. Friends? Fuckbuddies? We weren’t any of the things I’d tried to force us to be. We were soul-mates, two points on the same compass trying to lead each other home.

  I loved him. And I’d left him behind.

  I stared at the window, adrift in that sea of guilt, until it lightened to the point where sleep was pointless. I sat up again and stretched the kink out of my back, then picked my way towards the bathroom.

  I ran the water into the drinking glass as quietly as I could. But even with my best efforts, I couldn’t escape my cousin’s watchful eye. She appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. I wondered if she’d been awake all night too.

  But when she dropped her hands to her sides, she looked alert and decided. She nodded at me and grabbed her purse. “Ready to go?”

  “You should stay,” I tried to tell her. “If something goes wrong -.”

  “Then I’ll be your back-up.” She squeezed my wrist. “Haven’t I told you all along?”

  “I know,” I sighed. “I’m not doing this alone.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Finn

  I've been in fights. Lots of fights. I fought my way through grade school, middle school and all the way through high school. I fought with all three of my brothers. Play fights. And also vicious real ones that broke furniture and left holes in the walls.

  I’d never fought for my life, though.

  I’d also never fought for someone else’s.

  I sure hoped the same basic principles applied.

  “Put the girl down,” the oldest Chosen dude ordered.

  “I get you’re used to giving orders and all that,” I laughed. “But, in the words of my little sister, ‘you’re not the boss of me.’”

  “This is kidnapping!” shouted the youngest guy. Only I’d fucked up his nose pretty thoroughly. So it came out like, “Did id kibnabbing!”

  “You should go to a hospital,” I told him, as I turned in another circle, keeping my eyes everywhere at once. “Get that looked at. Also, like fuck it is. She came to me. I didn’t kidnap shit.”

  “Anna!” boomed the old guy.

  Anna’s head snapped, jerking with the habit of obedience. She looked at him and immediately dropped her eyes.

  “This is not you,” he said in a soothing voice that curdled my blood. “This is not your doing. I know. I forgive you. We will forgive you."

  "Father," she said. She stiffened.

  With a sinking heart, I let her slide down until she was standing on her own. But I kept my hand on her shoulder. I didn’t trust these manipulative assholes for a second. What
ever happened next, I was gonna be certain it was her choice. I leaned forward. “What do you want to do?” I asked her under my breath.

  She answered with a lift of her chin and looked her father in the eye for the first time. "I won't let you hurt me any more." He started to sputter, but she held up her hand and looked right in to my eyes. “Get me away from them.”

  “Anna!” her father barked. “Do not get in that car!”

  “Get in the car,” I shouted.

  Just as he lunged for her.

  I reacted on instinct, flattening him with one solid crack to the jaw. My hand stung viciously, but adrenaline made sure I didn't feel it. “Get in!" I shouted again. “And lock the doors!" I hoped like hell she knew how to do that.

  Four against one is shitty odds, but I had the advantage of being young, strong, and easily pissed off. Maybe if Anna's brothers had come to fetch her - young guys strong from working the fields and lifting the wood to build houses - I might have had an issue.

  But Chosen Elders, they're soft. They're used to being waited on by their wives and daughters. They lived a life of leisure at the expense of others. And it showed in every move they made.

  Also, I’d been itching for a chance to fuck one of these guys up ever since I started working with Dinah. So maybe the odds were pretty even after all.

  After I flattened Anna’s creeper of a dad, the two that were still uninjured hesitated. I let out a savage yell as euphoria flooded my veins. “Try it!” I urged them, beckoning with my hands. “Just try and make her come with you. I’ve been wanting to punch one of you fuckers in the face for ages now, so fucking try me!”

  The one closest to me turned and spat on the ground. “You’re a demon. Hell-spawn.”

  "Nope! I'm just your garden-variety asshole.” I punctuated that with solid jab to his solar plexus. He reeled back, winded and I whirled on the last man standing. “You gonna try your luck, Beard-o?” I tugged at mine. “You think you’re a big man pushing little girls around? You don’t deserve a beard like that. Come here so I can pull it off your face!” I lunged at him.

  He turned and ran.

  That was my cue. I sprinted to the driver’s side door and tugged at the handle. Anna fumbled at the lock until I could swing it open. I threw myself inside and hit the lock again. Then let out a long, slow breath.

  I didn’t have time to think about what I’d done, or even what it meant. I still had a job to do. "You wanna get the fuck out of here?" I asked Anna.

  She folded her hands in her lap and primly watched the men still struggling in the dirt. She almost looked… happy. “Please," she said, as polite as can be.

  "You're a bad ass," I muttered. "You're gonna do just fine.”

  She turned and fixed me with a radiant smile. "Thank you, Finn.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. "Don't thank me yet," I said. The Chosen Elders were struggling to their feet.

  "Do you know where we’re supposed to go next?” I asked her.

  She pressed her lips together. "Dinah was still trying to get it together."

  "Fuck.”

  I started the engine and floored it. We bumped over the rutted dirt road at a truly unsafe speed.

  But it wasn’t fast enough. Where a second ago there had been only darkness in my rearview mirror, there was now the bright, threatening beam of headlights. And they were gaining on us.

  I shot out onto the main highway, the back tires skidding wildly as I cut the wheel hard to the right. In the direction of Crown Creek.

  I’d been avoiding it all this time. But now my hometown screamed safety. I nudged the car faster, putting distance between us and the camp. The headlights receded. They had no chance. I knew every twist and turn of this road.

  This was my home,

  I whipped around a familiar turn and then yanked the wheel sharply to the left. Anna screamed as we careened off the shoulder and bounced straight into a cornfield. “It’s okay!” I promised, shouting over the noise of the dead corn slapping and scratching at the car. “It’s okay!”

  Just as I’d known they would, the dead, drying stalks bent as we rolled over them. Then bounced right back up again, closing us in.

  We were hidden, surrounded on all four sides with cornstalks. I cranked off the engine and cut the lights.

  “Where are we?” Anna panted, pressing her hand to her head I wondered if she’d hit it when I took us spontaneously off-roading.

  “Cutter’s farm,” I said with a heavy sigh. “And he’s gonna have a fit about it too.”

  “How’d you know to come here?”

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve used his cornfield as a cut through,” I confessed. “Or a place to hide from someone chasing me.” I looked in the rearview mirror. “Feels weird that they’re not the cops.”

  The darkness around us was all encompassing. I let out a long breath. Anna exhaled too, and then I heard her whispering. It sounded like praying.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Sky

  The sun was barely peeking over the treetops when we pulled up to Knights’ garage. It was so early, the front gate was closed up tight. “Do you think we came too soon?” Livvy asked as we both stared at the high chain link fence that surrounded the lot. “Maybe no one is here yet.”

  As if in reply, the mechanical gate whirred to life. It rolled open to allow Livvy to pull in, then clanked shut again with an ominous bang.

  “Well then!” Livvy let out a nervous laugh. “That’s certainly ominous.”

  “Are they trying to scare us?” I wondered. Then gritted my teeth. “Because it’s not going to work.” I pulled my bag up close to my chest and patted it for the millionth time to make sure the lawyer’s letter was inside. The deed, however, was safe with Claire.

  I was scared, but for once I wasn’t being stupid. Like Livvy kept saying, I wasn’t doing this alone.

  The office door swung open and I caught the silhouette of a man peering out at us. “And there’s the welcoming committee,” Livvy, sighed. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  I nodded. “Let’s go.”

  I stepped out into a day that was growing brighter by the minute and shielded my eyes. “Which one are you?” I called to the silhouette.

  A chuckle was my only answer. But he was joined by another silhouette. “Sis? Is that you?”

  “That’s Maddox,” Livvy whispered to me. “Be careful.”

  “Where’s J.D.?” I demanded. “Where’s the only one of you who’s not a dick?”

  “Here!” came the call from inside. J.D. jostled his way past his looming brothers and shielded his eyes. “You don’t waste any time!”

  “You want to talk? Let’s talk!” I called back.

  “Come on in, then.” J.D. made to turn back. But when I made no move to follow him, I could hear his sigh from over here. Livvy shot me a worried look as we both heard the sounded of a fiercely whispered argument between the brothers.

  “I said scat!” J.D. suddenly bellowed, lunging.

  Maddox’s wild laugh echoed off the building, but he and the quietly dangerous one slunk back into the building. “Come on it, then,” J.D. called to me. “They won’t bother you.”

  I looked at Livvy. “Claire’s watching the clock,” she murmured, reminding me. “If we don’t call her in a half hour…”

  I nodded and swallowed hard. “I’ll go first.”

  Crossing the wide lot felt a lot like walking down that long, lily-lined hallway to see my father’s body. Knowing that I had no idea what I would see at the end, but certain it would change everything.

  I blinked as I entered the office, letting my eyes adjust to the light before going in all the way. The space was mostly taken up by a huge corner desk covered in a jagged mountain range of files. An ancient computer whirred, and the light breeze from its fan set the papers on the wall to dancing.

  And there were so many papers. Every available surface seemed to have some kind of notice or invoice stuck to it. Their rustling
reminded me of walking through autumn leaves. I leaned in and glanced at one of them. It was an invoice dating back over five years now.

  And it was written up in my father’s distinctive scrawl.

  I stepped back hastily. “You can sit,” J.D. drawled. “No need to be checking our books for us or anything.”