Page 75 of Butch

“Come on, Edmund. You’ve always been jealous of me and Raelynn. Now’s your time to let her go and come after me,” Daddy said.

“You don’t think I’ll shoot her?” Edmund laughed. “I don’t need to have her, but you do. One slip of the finger and she’s dead, leaving you mourning her for the rest of your life. But me? I’ll just find another girl to replace.”

“You aren’t going to do that though, are you?” Daddy asked.

“What makes you think I won’t? She isn’t the first person I’ll have killed. You ever wonder where the unmarked graves came from? Me. It was all me. Those bastards didn’t know what was coming to them, but I murdered them,” Edmund said. “To feel my blade sink into their skin. Or hearing the bullet go through their brain. Music to my ears.”

Raelynn gagged at the thought. What was he thinking? How did he find that satisfying to listen to? She had known something was always off with him, but hearing him say those words put it all into perspective.

Edmund was a total nutjob.

Daddy stayed quiet as he just looked at him.

“Raelynn would have been one of them if your parents didn’t offer her on a platter to me. I stalked her to make sure I knew her. I even had a date picked out for her. Your birthday. I wanted her to celebrate it by herself, like she had in the year prior. I wanted you to suffer knowing she was celebrating you but ended up dying on your birthday. But I got something better. Seven years of torturing her. Seven years of keeping her on her toes. Never knowing what was going to happen next,” Edmund continued. “And within those seven glorious years, I had the time of my life, knowing you weren’t coming for her because you didn’t know where she was.”

“What did we ever do to you?” Raelynn couldn’t help but ask.

Edmund pressed the gun even further into her temple. “What did you do to me? Everything. You were going to be mine, and then he swooped in and stole you. We were going to have a life together. A life of happiness. But your mother decided to marry his father, and he decided to make you his⁠—”

“Just let her go and take me instead,” Daddy interrupted them. “You want me. I’m the one who took her away. I’m the one who made her mine, so you can let her go and take me.”

“Daddy, no.” Her voice broke.

“Now,” Daddy commanded.

Before Raelynn could say anything, hot liquid splattered all over her face. Screaming, she fell backward, on top of Edmund.

“I’ve got you, Little Fairy,” Daddy soothed as he pulled her up. She wrapped her arms around his body as he held her tightly. “I’ve got you. Daddy’s right here. I’m not going anywhere. Let’s get you home.”

“Wh-what happened?” she asked.

Raelynn tried pulling away from him to see what happened, but his hand firmly kept her head down.”

“It’s nothing you need to see, Little Fairy. Let’s just say you don’t have to worry about Edmund any longer. Daddy has you, and he’s never going to take you again.”

Tears ran down her face as Daddy walked.

“Is she all right?” Reaper asked. “I didn’t hit her, right?”

“You didn’t hit her, but she’s pretty banged up. We need to get her home so Doc can look after her and so she can spend time with her Daddy,” Daddy replied.

“You get in the car, and I’ll drive,” Reaper said. “Everyone else will clean up the mess.”

Raelynn held on to Daddy’s shirt, not wanting to let him go. He was real.

“You came for me,” she whispered.

“Of course I came for you, Little Fairy. When you weren’t replying to my texts, I went to the coffee shop. And when I didn’t find you there, I had everyone in the club searching for you,” he replied. “I knew something had happened when I found Reaper slouched against the coffee shop, unconscious.”

Her eyes went wide as she pulled back and looked at Reaper. “Are you okay? What did they do to you? Do I need to go back and avenge you?”

Reaper chuckled and shook his head. “No, Little Miss, you don’t need to go avenge me. And I’m perfectly fine. They just hit a pressure point and knocked me out. I woke up soon after Butch came and was looking for you.”

Her body relaxed into Daddy’s. Everything was going to be all right.

“Let’s get you home,” Daddy whispered as he got into the car.

CHAPTER 32