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And it was in that moment that Belle padded in, a toy bunny dangling from her chubby fingers, eyes thick with sleep. I grinned at my niece, knowing she would have some of her aunt’s rebellion about bedtime, and about other things. The grin froze on my lips when I saw the man following her, pointing a gun to the back of her tiny head.
Gwen shot up, wineglass flying from her hand and shattering to the floor. She was about to run to her daughter when the man stopped, grabbing Isabella’s arm so she dropped her bunny, but not tight enough to alarm her.
“Don’t move,” he commanded, voice flat. “Unless you want this to be your daughter’s last day on earth.”
I was standing by that point too, and both Gwen and I froze in absolute horror. Helplessness washed over me like acid.
Belle was still blinking away sleep, still not aware of the situation, thank God.
“My husband is going to kill you. Slowly. I’ll make sure he lets me play with you first.” Her voice was thick with fury and promise.
I was struck frozen.
“He won’t, I don’t think,” the man said. “Not once we’re done, at least.”
“What do you want, asshole?” I hissed, fury and terror pulsating through me. “Whatever it is, you can have it. Let her go.” Despite everything I’d been through with the club, laws we’d bent and broken, we’d never experienced this. We never hurt children.
He would die. If it was the last thing I did.
The empty gaze went to me. “So nice of you to ask, Rosie,” he said with a familiarity that made my skin crawl. “It’s you we want.”
I stepped forward immediately, before he even finished speaking.
“Done,” I said.
“Rosie, no,” Gwen choked, torn between her need to get her daughter out of harm’s way and her worry for me.
I ignored her. “Take the barrel of your gun off the four-year-old girl, motherfucker,” I hissed.
For the longest and most horrible moment, I thought he wouldn’t. I thought the finger resting on the trigger was going to squeeze and I’d watch the most sickening thing that could be done, a real-life nightmare. Something we’d never come back from.
Then the gun moved and I exhaled as it rested on me. I snatched my beautiful little girl, sniffing her hair one last time before I handed her to Gwen, tears in her eyes.
“Rosie, don’t do this,” she pleaded, kissing her daughter’s head.
“Tell Luke I love him. You already know I love you,” I said.
Then the man snatched my arm roughly, pressed the cold steel into my temple and we left.
To Death, up close and personal, I presumed.
I wasn’t knocked out.
Or blindfolded.
Which didn’t mean good things for me. Generally when people kidnapped other people with the intention of eventually letting them go, they made sure no evidence could lead back to them. Hence the need for blindfolds and chloroform and such.
“You’re one of Fernandez’s men, aren’t you?” I asked the silent man driving the SUV.
He hadn’t spoken since he’d bustled me into the car and told me he’d come back and shoot Gwen and the children while I watched if I tried any “funny business.” Yes, he said “funny business.” It would’ve been funny if he hadn’t been dead serious.
“The big bad crime lord really has to point guns at little girls to get who he wants?” I continued, fury turning my voice to ice. “I shouldn’t be surprised, since he picks on defenseless girls, makes money off their suffering. He’s a coward. Picking on people who can fight back isn’t actually his style, is it?”
Silence.
“You’ve got a mother? Wife? Daughter? How do you think they’d feel about this shit?” I spat.
More silence.
“I’m going to kill you. One day. And I can’t wait for that day to come, because you won’t be feeling so fucking mute. You’ll be begging for your life,” I promised.
He didn’t say a word.
I huffed, slamming my back into the seat and crossing my arms. Then my fingers snaked down to the knife in my boot, toying with the top of the handle.
I itched to sink it into the soft part of his neck. It would be easy. The car might crash, but the man who’d pointed a gun at my baby niece would be dead. Not a bad tradeoff. Then I remembered his promise. I didn’t doubt that another spineless evil prick would replace him to carry that out.
I let go of the knife, accepting my fate. But far from peacefully or happily. I didn’t want to die that day. There was too much to live for. How could it be the plan that everything I’d ever wanted was in my life and now my life was over?
“That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” I whispered, mimicking Lucky’s words.
Maybe that’s what happened. People died when they got every single thing they’d ever wanted. Because human beings weren’t designed to get everything. Something needed to be taken away to balance that out.
