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“And you know I can’t do that. It’s really quite simple, Sable. You drop that gun trembling in your right hand and you come with me and take your punishment.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Ha! Is that what you tell yourself when you look in the mirror?” His smoker’s cough sent him into fits. When it ended, she realized she’d missed a prime opportunity to face her opponent. It was too late to look back at the missed opportunity. Instead, she was forced t
o listen to his insults. “They’re using you. You’re nothing more than a little whore to them. Don’t you know what all of this is?” A beat later, he added, “It’s a front, Sable! That’s what this fortress is. These men take in women from so-called abusive backgrounds and then they use them for their own wicked pleasures! You’re nothing more than a two-bit whore!”
Sable charged forward with her weapons drawn and still. “Then considering my past actions with some of these men, I’m bought and paid for!” She ground the words out as she inched closer to the madman responsible for raising an abusive son, a man who had pounded his fists against her face while fucking her like a savage, a man who had been cruel and evil, and as mean as any thug on death row. “But when you get to hell, be sure to tell your son I forgive him. If I can’t forgive him, I can’t move on with my life. If I’ve learned anything from the McCoy family, it’s this. There are some fences you just can’t straddle. I had to choose a side, Tabor, and I chose freedom. I chose happiness.” She glanced over her shoulder, allowing Tabor the time he needed to draw his weapon first.
“I choose them,” she whispered, as she fired her gun in repetition. “I choose the possibility of a real family, the chance at true love.”
“No!” The screams resounded from both sides as Sable watched the only father figure she’d ever known wobble twice before falling facedown on the ground.
As she stood with the smoking gun in her hand, she immediately felt guilty. Somehow she pushed aside that guilt choosing to let her past die right along with the man who had indeed loved her once like he’d loved his own son.
She pressed her lips together and refused to mourn him, realizing she’d grieved Tabor and the entire McCoy family for years while waiting for word of her finalized divorce. Yes they’d been her family but they had embraced her because of their own wicked needs.
Sable was smart and quick. She was the messenger they sent when they needed an innocent face, a front for their family.
As the bullets ricocheted around her, she fell to her knees beside Tabor McCoy. She didn’t dodge the bullets by chance and plenty were fired in her direction.
She escaped death because it wasn’t her time to go. More importantly, she missed the fatal call because loaded weapons weren’t the only things she felt at her back.
There were men behind her that loved her. And without a doubt, they fought for her as if they were fighting for their last drawn breaths.
Chapter Seventeen
“Anyone seen Markie?” Draegan walked through the main gates, looking around as if he were frantically searching for Markie.
“I’m beginning to think there’s a little something-something to what Serena mentioned,” Doc teased.
“Fine time for you to show your face,” Draegan snapped. “We fought a war out there, Doc. Where were you?”
“Tending to a patient.”
“Who?” Draegan’s brow furrowed.
Doc turned to look behind him and Draegan went pale as soon as Serena came into view. “What the hell happened to her?”
“She fell off a ladder and broke her arm. I was already working on her cast when the text came through. I figured you could handle things until…”
Draegan had already pushed through the crowd and was making his way to Serena. Doc snickered. “Somebody is whipped.”
“You don’t say.” Allister shot Ellie a wink and as if she were responding to some cue, she gradually gravitated toward him, leaving her other lovers long enough to comfort Allister, which probably consisted of telling him she was okay twenty or thirty times.
Doc joined his group, thinking it was nice to feel like he had a family to call his own now, too. He’d been an only child and when his parents had been killed in a car accident, he’d thrown his efforts into work, swearing he’d make a difference in Trouble when the opportunity became available. Still, it had been a lonely life. Other than a few weekends out with the guys, he rarely went anywhere and before meeting Sable, he’d spent most of his evenings at home, alone.
“I heard someone played superhero today.”
“Heroine,” she corrected him.
“Don’t bother scolding her,” Mac said, grinning at her like he couldn’t be prouder. “She’ll tell you she was protecting us.”
“Like we need protection.” Nicholas bracketed his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “We’re supposed to protect you.” He kissed her forehead.
“Maybe next time,” she said softly, exchanging a peculiar look with Trevor.
As Nicholas, Sable, and Mac walked ahead of them, Doc hung back with Trevor and Harley. “What was that all about?”
