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I’d gone as far as picking up my phone to call him, then I imagined that exact scenario.
Something in me clicked. Or snapped. Again.
I got the gun that I was now an expert with, checked that it was loaded, put on my boots and rode out to the location Ollie had given me.
I’d given the prospect ‘protecting me’ the slip, which momentarily made me feel guilty because he’d likely be punished later. But then I realized that he was glued to his phone and didn’t even notice that I’d left.
If I could get out of there without him noticing, a deranged murderer could’ve gotten in without him noticing.
Then I didn’t feel quite so bad.
I didn’t think about much on the drive there.
Or when I got out of the car at the shitty house in the middle of nowhere. All I thought about was being chained to that wall, naked, bleeding, helpless. I thought about the men who had ridden in to rescue me. The men who had ended the life of the man who’d hurt me.
I thought about all the other people who had been involved in me surviving, me being rescued, and me being avenged.
Fury, unlike anything I’d ever felt,
embedded itself beneath my skin. It clouded my vision, brushed away all thoughts of consequences, fear, common sense. I was so fucking angry. So fucking angry at myself for not being the one to escape, to punish the man who’d hurt me. Mostly, I was so fucking full of wrath at these men for taking things from us. Hurting us.
The anger was probably what had me bursting through the front door without doing any kind of recon.
For all I knew, the rundown shack could’ve been rigged with booby tracks. I was acting on a hunch, and it paid off.
The place was filthy. It stank.
I was reminded of the smell of my own puke, urine and blood. The smell of other women’s.
I didn’t have to search long. He didn’t have her in the basement like I’d expected from all the crime shows I’ve watched. She was in the living room. It was emptied of all furniture, and she was chained to a radiator. He barely turned when I entered the room, confusion distorting his bloodstained face. He was young. Had dirty brown hair. Was naked. And hard. Ew.
I didn’t pause, didn’t let him try to beg, I just relished in the momentary fear I saw in his eyes before I calmly pulled the trigger, sending a bullet between his eyes.
He hit the ground with a thud, twitching a couple of times before going still. I eyed him for a few seconds longer. In horror movies, they always came back to life. But this was real life, and I’d just plugged him between the eyes. He wasn’t going anywhere except hell, if you believed in that sort of thing.
The reporter was screaming.
She was chained to a radiator in her underwear. She had blood on her torso, but it wasn’t gushing out. He hadn’t had a chance to do any lasting damage. Physically, at least.
I stepped over the dead body to kneel down in front of her.
At least she’d stopped screaming. A good thing too, as I hated the cliché of the screaming woman. But then again, you were allowed to react however the fuck you wanted when you were chained to a radiator and just watched your would-be murderer get shot in the face. It was a lot.
Her eyes were wide, terrified, yet hollow. Gone was the brave, determined reporter willing to do anything for a story. In her place was a terrified, traumatized woman.
He’d taken that from her. Her zest for life. He’d given her something else. Darker. Dirtier. Something that would live inside of her without her permission.
“You’re not going to be okay for a while,” I told her honestly, mimicking Hades’s words to me on the worst day of my life. “But he’s dead, and you’re breathing.”
And to that, she burst out crying.
I didn’t blame her.
The cops arrived only a minute before the bikers did. Which was a good omen for me because that meant Colby didn’t get to drag me away and yell at me or whatever.
He did all but leap off his bike, snatch my arms, do a head-to-toe scan and then haul me into his chest. I went willingly. Though I put on a really good front, I was a smidge shaken up.
Then the sheriff had cleared his throat and informed Colby he had to get my statement. Then Colby had demanded to know everything that had happened. Which was why he stood by, hard-nosed while I gave my statement. His arms around me had
constricted when he heard about me pulling the trigger.
The rest of the club milled around along with the paramedics tending to Emily. She wasn’t being rushed to the hospital, which was a good thing. She wasn’t dying. Rattled and scratched up, which was enough.
