Decked (The Invincibles Book 1)

by Heather Slade

  “You sure can, Kitty. Get my fucking father on the phone.”

  The woman cleared her throat. “One moment. I’ll see if he’s available.”

  I sat on the steps of the front porch and lifted my face to the sun, remembering days when my mother and I would do the same thing.

  “Mila.”

  “Judd.”

  “Not funny.”

  “Did you expect me to call you Dad?”

  “Where are you, Mila?”

  “I’m at my house. The one that becomes mine when I’m thirty.”

  “You found out about that. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “That’s what I’m calling about. In part, anyway. I need money.”

  “I see.”

  “As I’m sure you know, I paid off Granddaddy’s bills, and Sybil’s too. You know, my sister, Sybil.”

  “That’s enough, Mila.”

  I laughed. “Oh, I’m just getting started. Want to know how to get me to stop? Twenty-five thousand dollars should do it.”

  “Is that all?”

  “I’m not greedy, Judd. I just need enough to get back on my feet. The same day I got a call saying my sister was dead, I lost my job. And, as it turns out, the apartment building I live in happens to be owned by the man who tried to rape me when I was seventeen years old. You remember, right? Marshall Livingston? Yeah, I live in a building he owns. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Is there a reason you think I would give you twenty-five grand? After all, I did give you a house.”

  “I’m sure you had an ulterior motive for that particular gift, like maybe keeping it out of my mother’s hands. As far as why you’d give me the money I’m asking for, I have billions of reasons. Billions and billions of them.”

  He chuckled at my accusation about the house, but his tone changed with my threat. “Come to the office and we’ll talk.”

  “I don’t think so, Daddy. Remember what happened the last time I was there? You can wire the money. I’ll expect it tomorrow.”

  I ended the call, stood, and went inside. That hadn’t been as hard as I thought it would be.

  The next call I made was to the electric company, who, after keeping me on hold for almost fifteen minutes, told me that according to their records, the power was on at the house.

  I walked over and flipped a switch. “Nope,” I told the woman.

  “Have you tried the circuit breaker?”

  “The circuit breaker? Where would that be?”

  “I couldn’t say, miss, but I could schedule someone to come out and take a look next week.”

  “I’ll see if I can find it. If not, I’ll call you back.”

  I remembered the electrical panel at my grandfather’s house was in the garage. This house didn’t have a garage. It had a basement, though. I had no idea why I remembered that, but I did. It was unusual for houses in Texas to have them, another fact I had no idea how I knew.

  Grabbing my phone, I pried open the door that was between the kitchen and the back porch, and then remembered the porch was partially collapsed. I went back inside and out the front of the house. The double doors that led to the basement were around the back, closer to where the garden had been. I vaguely remembered that my mother kept root vegetables we’d grown down there because they’d last longer.

  I was stunned at the random memories that continued flooding back to me.

  The doors I thought might be hard to open, did so very easily. Shining the light from my phone ahead of me, I walked down the stone steps.

  When I got to the bottom, I moved my phone in a semi-circle. It was creepier down here than I remembered, probably because I’d never been down here without any light.

  I also didn’t remember it being this big. At first glance, there was nothing resembling an electrical panel. There had to be a furnace, though, right? And a water heater? Maybe the panel I was looking for was in the same vicinity.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed when I opened a door to my right and saw not only the furnace but, behind it, the electrical panel. I tucked my phone under my chin and pried the panel’s cover off. At the very top, there was a breaker larger than the others. When I flipped it one way, my phone slipped and fell on the dirt floor. “Dammit,” I mumbled and flipped the switch back the other way. I leaned down, picked up my phone, and shined it near the doorway. There was no switch, but there was a string hanging down. Who knew how old the light bulb in it might be, but it was worth a try.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed again when the light went on.

  Feeling very proud of myself, I pulled the string again to turn the light off and pointed my phone at the way back out.

  I switched it off when I got close enough to the steps that the light from outside shone in.

  Not only had I called my father and told him I needed money, which I thought he’d agreed to send—mainly because of my veiled threat—but I’d also turned my own electricity back on. That probably wouldn’t seem like a big accomplishment to someone like Decker.

  Decker. After being with him around the clock for the last few days, now that I wasn’t, I missed him. Even I didn’t understand my reaction to him earlier; it was totally illogical. One minute, I trusted him, wanted him, enjoyed being with him, all implicitly. The next, I was so angry, I couldn’t stand the idea of him touching me.

  What had he done wrong? Nothing. He’d been kind and loving, protective, and so fucking sexy that imagining him naked made me almost lose my footing.

  I wondered if he and the rest of the Invincibles were still meeting. I smiled at the name I’d given them and his warning that they were an arrogant bunch and didn’t need me pumping their already overinflated egos.

  When I got to the top of the steps, I tucked my phone in the pocket of my shorts and closed the two doors. I pulled it back out and swiped the screen. I needed to call Decker and apologize. Looking at both, I wondered which of his numbers I should call first.

  “Hello, Mila,” I heard someone say from behind me at the same time he reached around and snatched the phone from my hand. “Remember me? We have some unfinished business.”

  I spun around and looked into eyes that looked so familiar. They were Adler’s eyes, but he wasn’t the man standing in front of me, sneering.

  35

  Adler

  “Do you know how much money that bas—, man stole from our family? Billions.” I told the woman who had been relentlessly questioning me for what felt like hours but was probably not even thirty minutes.

  “Walk me through it, Adler. You and your father blackmailed Sybil Knight—”

  “No! We didn’t blackmail her. She needed money. We offered to pay her to get the information from her father that would prove my father should’ve been listed as the real inventor on Knighthawk’s patents. That was it. It took her a few months, but about a week ago, she made contact and said she believed she found what we were looking for. I told my dad, thinking he’d tell me to make arrangements to get it from her, but he said he’d handle it himself.”

  The woman was studying something on her phone. She walked to the other side of the room, and I could hear voices but not what they were saying.

  “Jesus,” I heard her mutter.

  “What?” I asked, but she didn’t respond. Whatever it was, held her attention for several more minutes. She opened the door that led to the outdoor patio and closed it behind her. When she came back, she looked even more pissed off than she’d been before.

  “We’re gonna start all over again, this time on a completely different subject, Adler. Now we’re gonna talk about Mila Knight and what your sick fuck of a father did to her.”

  36

  Decker

  “What do you mean you left her there alone?” I was ready to tear my hair out. “Do you not understand that her sister was murdered for this?” I held up the flash drive. “It didn’t occur to you that either Marshall Livingston or her own father might assume she has it since she was given her sister’s effects? Fuck!”

>   Spinning around, I went back the way I came in. If I stayed another minute longer, I’d rip Grinder’s damn face off. I pulled my phone from my pocket and swiped the screen. Mila’s cell rang three times and then went to voicemail. Classic avoidance; she’d manually declined my call.

  “Goddammit,” I swore at the phone. Now wasn’t the time for her to avoid me. I needed to know she was safe.

  I climbed back into the Bummer, so pissed that I’d been two minutes away from her place when I decided to turn around and go back to the ranch. It would take me ten minutes to get back there if I took the fire road, fifteen on the highway.

  “Decker!” I heard Edge yell right before I pulled away.

  “What?”

  “We put a tracker on Judd Knight’s vehicle. He’s at the house with Mila,” Edge yelled.

  “Go!” Grinder added. “We’re right behind you.”

  Edge ran around to the other side of the Bummer, but he was too late; I’d already peeled away.

  When I pulled in behind the barn, I cut the engine. From there, I could see Judd standing near the back of the house. He looked like he was in a conversation, and while I couldn’t see whom with, I assumed it was Mila.

  I ran as close to the side of the barn as I could, gun drawn. I’d have to cross in the yard out in the open, but if Judd saw me, at least he’d know I was near enough to get a clean shot off if he tried anything.

  I took off running, and Judd saw me, but his reaction was one I didn’t expect. I was close enough to see the terror that flashed in the man’s eyes. Judd didn’t want the person he was talking to, to know I was there.

  When I got closer to the house, I stayed near the exterior wall where I could still see Judd—more importantly—I could hear him.

  “Let her go, Livingston. It’s me you want,” he said, raising both his hands.

  “Fuck you, Knight. I don’t want you. I want my money. All the money you stole from me. Every goddamn penny.”

  “Let her go and you’ll get it.”

  The cackle I heard from the other man sent a shudder up my spine. It was identical to what I’d heard in the surveillance video.

  When Judd lowered his chin and then raised it again, I peered around the corner.

  Marshall Livingston held Mila around her waist and had a gun pressed firmly against her temple.

  37

  Adler

  “No! It can’t be!” I screeched when the woman played the video on her phone.

  “Watch it,” she seethed, shoving the screen into my face when I tried to look away. “Who is that, Adler? Look at it and tell me!”

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  “I don’t care if you throw up all over yourself; you’re gonna watch every minute.”

  I shook my head as tears ran down my cheeks. There was no denying the man in the video was my father. It was the third time she made me watch and listen to the vile things he said and did.

  “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know,” I cried.

  “Where’s your father now, Adler?”

  When I shook my head, she slammed her fist into my nose and then grabbed the hair on the back of my head. “Where…is…he?”

  “He’s in Texas,” I cried as blood poured from my broken nose.

  38

  Mila

  I breathed as deeply as I could through my nose and then let it out through my mouth, counting the seconds as I tried to slow my heartbeat. If today was the day I’d die, I wouldn’t give Marshall Fucking Livingston the satisfaction of showing fear or begging for my life.

  Listening to the two men argue, I got a clear picture of what had happened with Sybil. My father didn’t kill Sybil; Marshall Livingston had when she refused to hand over the flash drive with the documents he’d paid her to steal from Knighthawk. Instead, my sister ran from the same house where we all were now. Marshall had gone after her, firing into the darkness, but lost her. Until Adler told him he was on his way to Texas with me, Marshall believed she’d gotten away.

  He’d sneered when he told my father that, instead, his son told him that I was with the medical examiner, identifying my sister’s body.

  “You killed your own flesh and blood,” my father yelled at him.

  “How is that different than you abandoning yours?”

  “Tell me this, Marshall,” I heard my father say. “Did you rape my wife?”

  The man holding the gun to my head laughed. At that moment, I wanted to kill him more than I ever had before. He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. His cackle gave both me and my father the answer.

  I studied my father’s face, watching the emotions play out on it. I saw both pain and fear, but then, I saw something else.

  My father’s eyes flashed as though he’d seen something, or someone, in the direction of the barn. Seconds later, I saw him slowly lower and then raise his head. It was a fraction of an inch, but I saw it. Was it a signal of some kind? Was someone else here? Was it Decker?

  “What’s it going to be Livingston? You kill her and you won’t get a goddamn penny, and that’s if you live long enough to see the inside of a prison cell. Let her go and we’ll negotiate.”

  39

  Decker

  While I listened to Judd try to negotiate with Marshall, I sent a message to Rile, telling him that Mila was being held at gunpoint and that he should communicate with me through the headset.

  “Understood,” I heard Rile respond through my earpiece.

  “Where are the records being stored?” I heard Marshall yell at Judd.

  “In a safe location.”

  “Tell me where, you goddamn mother fucker!”

  I peered around the corner and saw Livingston tighten his grip on Mila.

  I was running out of time. There was no clear path for resolution here. Even if Judd told him where the files were, Marshall wouldn’t let either of them just walk away. If only I had a way to tell Judd to give Marshall something, even if it was a lie. At least then the man would attempt some kind of move. While there was a fifty-fifty chance Livingston would shoot Mila first, my gut told me the man would shoot Judd.

  “We have eyes on the scene,” I heard Rile say.

  “I have a clean shot from the south,” Edge added.

  I was on the north side of the house, and the gun Marshall held on Mila was in his right hand. If I fired, there was a chance Livingston might jerk, causing his gun to go off.

  “Take it,” I responded at the exact same moment Livingston lowered his arm and fired at Judd. Edge’s shot went off a split-second later, hitting Marshall in the head. I surged forward as both men fell to the ground and caught Mila in my arms.

  “You’re safe. Everything is okay,” I muttered, repeating myself as I walked her away from the scene.

  Her skin was cold and clammy, breathing shallow, and her heart rate had to be skyrocketing based on what I could feel when I rested my fingers on her pulse. When I felt her legs give out, I caught her a second time and held her in my arms.

  “Shh,” I whispered. “Everything is okay. You’re safe.” I carried her over to the Bummer, set her in the front seat, and then raced around to the driver’s side.

  As I drove back to the ranch, I glanced over at Mila every few seconds. Her back was ramrod straight as she stared out the front window.

  I pulled up to my garage and opened the door, but didn’t drive inside. I parked and came around to open her door. When I took her hand, Mila turned her head and looked at me. “Is he dead?” she asked.

  “Livingston is, sweetheart.”

  “What about my dad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mila slowly got out of the Bummer and held tight to me as I walked her inside. Once I had the door from the garage to the house open, I picked her up and carried her the rest of the way. I didn’t stop until I got to my bedroom, where I laid her on my bed. I brushed the hair from her face and looked into her eyes. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

  “Okay,” she whispe
red, nodding.

  I rushed to the front of the house, went out and locked up the Bummer, came inside, and closed the garage door. On my way back to the bedroom, I sent a message to Rile.

  Judd’s condition?

  Critical. Transporting now, came the quick reply.

  I went into my room and toed off my boots. I sat on the edge of the bed and slid Mila’s shoes off before lying down next to her.

  She rolled to her side and lifted her head so I could put my arm around her before resting her head on my chest.

  “I took my phone out to call you. He came up behind me.”

  I nodded, unsure where she was going with this, but knowing she needed to talk.

  “I was going to tell you how sorry I was for the way I acted.”

  “You don’t need to apologize for anything, Mila.”

  “I don’t know why I got so upset with you. It wasn’t fair. You didn’t do anything but tell me what you discovered.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re here and you’re safe. That’s all I care about.”

  “Marshall killed Sybil, not my father.”

  “Did he confess?”

  “He taunted my dad with it, but I don’t think he cared.”

  “I’m sure somewhere deep inside he cared, Mila.”

  “He asked Marshall if he raped my mother.”

  “Did he confess to that too?”

  “Not with words.”

  “Why was your father there?”

  “I don’t know, really. I called him earlier and told him I wanted money. He asked where I was. Maybe he came to give it to me; maybe he came to tell me he never would.” Mila rested her chin on my chest and looked into my eyes. “How did you know to come?”

  “I left shortly after you and Grinder did. I needed some time alone. When I came back, Grinder said he’d left you at the house alone.”