Junior For The Mountain Man

by Crowne, K. C.

  It felt like hours had passed when I made it to huge fence. I felt along the fence until I found the gate. It was locked.

  Dammit. I slammed my fists against it. It rattled, then something clicked and the gate opened before me. A man the size of a professional wrestler stood in front of me. He didn’t say anything, he just motioned me inside. I stepped inside the fence, the gate locking behind me. I flinched at the sound, knowing there was no going back now. Not that I would have, but if anything had happened to Caleb, I was stuck there, inside those gates as well.

  “Follow me.” The man’s deep voice shook something in my body.

  I nodded, unable to speak. We walked toward the house and up some stairs. I stumbled, grabbing the bannister to regain my balance. The man in front of me kept walking. I continued up the stairs, trying to hurry so he didn’t leave me behind.

  He opened the front door of the house but stayed outside. He obviously wanted me to enter.

  I stepped inside the house into a giant foyer. The home was pretty damn large for Liberty. And it looked custom built and new. Totally out of place for a town like this. Even Andy’s house, while large, still retained the mountain cabin feeling. This place was gaudy and felt like a mansion out of some Mob movie.

  Hell, I felt like I was in a Mob movie.

  I was greeted by yet another large man, and several others surrounded me.

  “We must search you.”

  I raised my arms, and his hands moved over my body. I felt so dirty, even though the act itself wasn’t meant to be. He didn’t touch me inappropriately, but the fact that he was touching me at all sent chills down my spine.

  “She’s clear,” he said, nodding to another man who stepped up behind me.

  That man grabbed my arms, holding them together as he pulled me along.

  “Take me to Caleb, now. I need to see that he’s okay before I do anything for you.”

  The man who’d checked me for weapons sneered. “You don’t give the orders around here, Ms. Davis.”

  “Obviously you want something from me. I don’t know what it is, but I will not work with you until I know Caleb is still alive.”

  A deep voice came from down the hallway a bit.

  “He’s in here. Bring her to me.”

  I knew that voice. Grant had been right. Russo was behind this all along, but why?

  The man who had my arms dragged me to the room. He held onto me until Russo said, “You checked her for weapons, right?”

  Lars Russo sat behind a large wooden desk. This appeared to be his office, with his diplomas and other awards hung on the walls. Shelves full of books and family photos surrounded us. It almost looked normal except for the despicable man sitting there, smirking at me. I took note of the gun sitting on the desk, within arm’s reach.

  Russo nodded. “Let her go. She’s defenseless.”

  The man let my hands go. The feeling of freedom was such a relief. I scanned the room but didn’t see Caleb anywhere.

  “You said he was in here,” I said.

  Lars motioned to the man who’d brought me into the room. “Bruno, get the boy.”

  Bruno walked around me, and on the left side of the room, I noticed a door. It looked to be a closet door, nothing more. He reached for a key in his pocket and unlocked it. As soon as he did, Caleb ran out. Bruno grabbed him, but Lars said, “Let him go.”

  Caleb’s cheeks were stained with tears, and as soon as he was free, he rushed to me. I ran to him too, kneeling on the ground to scoop him up. Once he was in my arms, I felt like I could breathe again. He was alive. Thank God, he was alive.

  I looked him over for any sign of injury. If they’d hurt him, I might have lost my fucking mind. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” Caleb said, sniffling.

  “We didn’t lay a hand on the boy. We’re not monsters, Ms. Davis,” Lars said.

  I stood up, lifting Caleb with me. I would never let him go again, if I could help it. I glared at the vicious man behind the desk. “Could have fooled me. You took a boy from his bed in the night. Now what do you want from me?”

  He slipped something across the desk, urging me to move closer.

  I didn’t really want to, but Bruno stepped closer to me, cornering me and pushing me toward the desk. I relented and stepped closer to Lars’ desk.

  “What is this?”

  “You’re going to sign over that property to me,” he said.

  “Which property? I don’t own any—”

  “Ms. Davis, let me be straight with you. We invited you out here expecting your shitty little car wouldn’t be able to make it, and this would be an open and shut case. But since you complicated things by living, we only have two options. One of which is to find a way to kill you, like we did Andy, but that would be pretty tricky right now. We’d have to kill both you and the boy and somehow make it look like an accident. Do you know how hard it is to make murder look like an accident?”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said sternly. “I’ll do whatever I can, but you’re mistaken about one thing. I don’t own any property. The property belongs to Caleb, and until they give me custody, I can’t do a damn thing with it.”

  Lars sighed and looked past me at Bruno. “What should we do about this, Bruno?”

  Bruno shrugged.

  I had to figure out something. “If you let us go, I can still get custody of the boy and—”

  “Like hell you will,” a familiar voice spoke up from the doorway. “No one in their right mind would give you custody of that boy now. You guys fucked this all up.”

  I turned and saw my Thomas standing in the doorway. My heart felt like it might fall out. My family was behind the kidnapping and my possible death. Maybe Caleb’s too.

  “Why?” I asked.

  His eyes turned to me, and there was nothing in that look. No emotions. No regret. Nothing.

  “You already have millions of dollars, Thomas. Why do this?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, sweet pea,” he growled, stepping into the room. “Because Andy was handling a case for us, defending us against some bullshit lawsuit, stating that we knew one of our hotels wasn’t up to code, causing the death of several families when there was a fire yada yada. Anyway, long story short, Andy caused us to lose everything, and now Andy is going to help us get it back, dead or alive.”

  I held tighter to Caleb as Thomas moved closer to us. He walked past us, however, and stopped at Lars’ desk, leaning over it. “I told you we could just make her look incompetent by stealing the boy. We’d get custody and then work with you directly once we had the property. Why did you have to involve her?”

  “Because I didn’t trust you, Thomas. You said Grace would have custody by now, and you missed the deadline. I had to take things into my own hands.”

  “Well, now you leave us no choice but to kill her and the kid,” Thomas said, throwing his hands in the air. “Then who the fuck knows who’ll get the property. It’ll be held up in litigation, and—”

  An explosion caused Caleb to scream, and he buried his face in my shoulder. Thomas was standing beside us one moment, the next, he was crumpled to the floor with a gunshot to the face. I tried not to look down at him, but I’d already seen too much. My uncle was gone.

  Lars put the gun back down on the desk.

  Caleb was sobbing, but I could hardly hear anything. My ears were ringing; everything sounded hollow. I felt him shaking against me, but I couldn’t hear him.

  Bruno grabbed my uncle’s body and dragged him from the room. He shut the door behind him, leaving just Lars, Caleb, and me in the room. Lars stood up from the desk and walked over to us. I stepped back as far as I could go, until I was backed into the wall.

  “Please, I will do anything you want. Just don’t hurt Caleb. He’s just a little boy.”

  “He’s old enough to talk, isn’t he?” Lars asked.

  He reached for Caleb, his hand brushing against the back of his head. Instinct took over and I swatted the ha
nd away. “Don’t fucking touch him.”

  “Or what?” Lars wondered dangerously. “Not like you can fight back. A slight little thing like you.”

  My blood was boiling. He was lucky I had Caleb. Had it just been me, I’d have fought with everything in me. But I had to protect Caleb. If something happened to me because I acted rashly, Caleb would be defenseless. I had to hold it together, and hopefully we’d both come out of this alive.

  Lars pushed forward, my back firmly against the wall. He was close enough to me that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.

  “What are we going to do about you, Ms. Davis, hmm? You know too much now. I really didn’t think you’d make it, and it looks like you almost didn’t.” He reached out and ran his hand down my face, coming back with some dried blood on his fingertips. “Were you in a little accident? You’re a determined one, aren’t you? Trekking all this way in the snow with a head injury. You love this little boy, don’t you?”

  I nodded my head, not trusting my voice to speak. Even on an empty stomach, I felt like I might get sick from his touch and the proximity to him.

  “You’d do anything for him?”

  Again, I nodded and managed a weak, “Anything, yes.”

  “Even take the fall for your uncle’s demise so your aunt Grace will get custody and sign over the property to me?”

  I felt like I had no choice but to agree in the moment, even if it made me sick. Hopefully, I’d think of a way out of this predicament. I pretended to ponder his offer, then lifted my head to stare into his face. “Yes. I said I’d do anything, didn’t I? You tell me what I have to do to get us both out of here alive and—”

  Before I finished my sentence, glass shattered behind us. Lars swung around, and I saw Grant coming through the window. Glass littered the floor around his feet, and his fist was a bloody, mangled mess. But God, I was relieved to see him.

  My eyes fell on the desk just as Lars rushed toward it.

  “Grant! Get the gun!”

  Grant was closer and managed to snap it up.

  Lars rushed him just as the door opened and Bruno stepped inside, guns blazing. Shots rang out, and I dropped to the floor with Caleb, shoving him against the wall and shielding him with my body and whispering, “It’s okay, Grant’s here. It’s going to be okay.”

  His body shook in my arms, and he screamed in my ear. The sound of his fear killed me and intensified mine, and all I wanted to do was protect him from everything. I wished I could take him away from all this, just make it go away like a stupid nightmare.

  Grant called out to me, but I couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in my ears. Just my name. I turned and looked over my shoulder. Bruno was dead, but Lars was still alive. He had Lars at gunpoint, but there were footsteps coming down the hall.

  “Keys are in the truck,” his lips read. I couldn’t hear him, but he mouthed the words so I could make them out. “Go, now. I’ve got this.”

  I nodded, and with Caleb in my arms, I ran for the broken window. I jumped out without even seeing how high it was. Thankfully, we were on the first floor and the snow cushioned our fall. I scrambled to my feet, lifting Caleb tightly into my arms, and took off toward the fence. When I’d come inside, only one man had been outside. I watched for him, but instead of men, I found blood-soaked snow and stopped having to look. There was so much red liquid mixed in with the snow, I knew Grant had killed whoever was guarding the fence.

  He did it to get back to us. To save us.

  Now I needed to get out of there to save Caleb.

  My heart screamed at me for leaving Grant behind, and it was a choice I wished I hadn’t had to make. I was protecting Caleb at all costs and hadn’t even thought about Grant until it was too late.

  My heart ached. I loved him. He loved me. I prayed for some way that we would all get through the horror and be a family.

  I reached the fence and wasn’t sure how I’d get out. But Grant must have thought about that too. The keys that had unlocked it were dangling in the lock, and I turned the knob. It opened. I ran out, shutting it behind me, leaving the keys. Grant would still need to get out. The fence wasn’t that tall; he could climb it if he had to, but I wanted to give him an easier way to escape.

  I ran in the direction of his truck, trusting it to be there even though I couldn’t see it in the thick, blowing snow. Finally, I saw it. Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to run so far with Caleb in my arms in the snow. But the adrenaline coursed through my body. I knew I would hurt in so many places the next day, but I’d be thankful we survived the day.

  I got to the truck and climbed into the driver’s side, Caleb still in my lap. The keys were in the ignition. We could leave, run off to safety, but Grant would be stuck here. No way to get out.

  I couldn’t just leave him, but I needed to get Caleb out of there. My eyes fell on Grant’s phone in the center console. I also knew he kept several hunting rifles in the back sometimes. He’d probably taken one, but I needed to make sure we had something to defend ourselves with too.

  “Caleb, I’m going to get out of the truck and check the back. Okay?”

  “No! Don’t leave me!”

  “Baby, I have to get something to protect us,” I explained as I lifted him and put him in the seat next to me. “I’ll hurry.”

  I could hear his tears as he cried, but I got out of the truck, opened the back hatch and found a rifle.

  “Thank God,” I muttered, pulling it out.

  I climbed back into the vehicle and called for help, praying that Grant was still alive when help arrived. Either way, I was prepared to defend Caleb with my life. Nothing and no one would get close to him.

  Chapter 21

  Grant

  “Fuck, now I need to get a new leg,” I growled.

  I had Lars at gunpoint. Two other men had tried to come in; they lay on the floor. They got me, sure. Once in the shoulder, but it was just a graze. The other in my prosthetic leg, which meant getting around would be a bit harder. But I got them too. One looked to be dead; he hadn’t moved since I shot him in the chest. The other was moving but in bad shape. I’d hit him in the stomach; he’d be lucky to make it.

  “Anyone else here?” I turned to Russo.

  The man shrugged, not about to tell me anything.

  I listened. My ears were still ringing, but I heard no other movement. I kept an eye on the doorway just in case.

  “What am I supposed to do with you, huh?” I asked in a friendly tone, as if we were just chitchatting.

  I was seeing literal red, and it wasn’t blood. My insides were boiling, and I was on the verge of ending this man’s life. He messed with the people I love, and all my hatred from before - at the people who killed Firash and his family - came spewing out. But that wasn’t me. I’d killed, yes, but only in self-defense or at war. This man was helpless for now, but I couldn’t turn my back on him, I knew he’d shoot me as soon as he could get his hands on a weapon. He likely had them stashed all over.

  But I also needed to get to Piper. I’d tried to clear all the guards I came across, but what if there were more? I couldn’t be sure she’d made it. I was pretty sure, but until I had her in my arms with Caleb between us, I wouldn’t relax.

  The sound of a gunshot in the distance jerked me out of my thoughts. My heart stopped. I listened, afraid of what else I might hear. Someone else was out there. I had to get to Piper and Caleb.

  The sound had distracted me, and Lars used that to his benefit. That moment of panic was all he needed to smack my arm, sending the gun flying across the room. My rifle was out of bullets, and I’d dropped it near the window. That gun was all I had.

  That and my strength. Lars wasn’t a fighter. He was a bigger guy, more robust than me. But it wasn’t muscle. I pinned him against the wall. I could hold him for a while, but I couldn’t stay there forever. I had to do something, and quickly.

  I saw the gun sitting in the corner of the room. Lars was eyeing it as well. I knew it was a
risk, but I had to take it. I had to count on being able to get over there before he did, even with my prosthetic damaged.

  I leapt toward the weapon, freeing Lars. He didn’t go for the gun on the floor, and I grabbed it, turning around to find him armed with another weapon he’d pulled out from his desk drawer. Both weapons were drawn and pointed at each other.

  “Had you left us alone, your girl and I had struck a bargain that would have kept everyone alive,” Lars said.

  “Bullshit.”

  I was a Marine. Lars was a real estate developer. He might have a gun on me, but I bet my life on the fact that he didn’t know how to use it. Not like I did. I could also move better, or I could if my leg wasn’t damaged. I had to try.

  I ducked out of the way as shots rang out. He missed. I took aim and pulled the trigger, hitting him in the shoulder. Lars’ arm flew back, but it wasn’t the one with the gun. He turned to me and shot, narrowly missing me, giving me just a second to aim again. I went for the other shoulder and hit him exactly where I’d aimed. He dropped the gun and fell to the ground, blood spurting from the wounds. The first one might have just been a surface wound. The second? Not so much. He wasn’t going anywhere. If he didn’t get help soon, he’d bleed to death on the floor of his office. I’d seen enough gunshot wounds to know that.

  I didn’t hesitate to get the fuck out of there. I had to get to Piper and Caleb, and fast. I moved toward the window and cleared it, landing in the snow. I did a quick inspection of my leg and noticed it was mostly surface damage. None of the major parts were broken. It felt a bit stiff, but it would have to keep working.

  I had to keep going.

  I sprinted awkwardly across the yard, going as fast as I could. I was prepared to go over the fence again, but thankfully, I didn’t have to. Piper had left the keys there for me. I opened the gate and pushed on toward the truck. When I got close, I stopped in my tracks.

  The snow was drenched in blood and a body lay nearby. My heart stopped momentarily until I looked up to find Piper standing next to the truck with one of my old shotguns in hand. She was shaking but standing her ground, prepared to shoot at anything that moved.