by Vivian Ward
Chapter 14: Gage
As I flung the door open on the car, still cursing about the coupon woman in front of me at the grocery store who’d been holding up the line, I heard a scream. It wasn’t just any scream; it was Anita.
But that would be impossible because she was inside with Henry. There wouldn’t be any way that I could—
“Gage!” she screamed again.
Looking over to the area where her dad had been blown up, I saw her standing with a man who was dressed all in black. The two of them began fighting as she tried to run away from him, but before she could break loose, the guy grabbed her and hooked his arm around her waist.
I dropped the bags that were on my arm and rushed over to where they were.
“Put her down!” I said, slowly reaching for my 9MM in the back of my waistband. “Just let her go.”
A sinister laughter filled the air, and I recognized it right away. All this time I had assumed that it was terrorists who’d planted all of these things on her family property, but this man had no accent. He was very American.
“Don’t you fucking wish, Gage!”
He pulled the dark covering off of his head, and I saw that it was Mask. The same fucker we’d been trying to track for weeks. The same fucker who’d eluded us at every turn, and the same asshole who was into human and drug trafficking. And now he had his hands on my woman, threatening her very life, the same as he did her old man.
“What do you want?” I asked, steadily placing my hand around my gun, securing my grip on it.
I was a damned good shot; I’d practiced nearly every day when I was in California. The problem I was going to have was Anita. He was using her body as a shield to protect himself. I’d never shoot in a million years if it meant harming her.
“I want this land, all of it. It’s the perfect place for me; it’s everything I need. Had I known that your bitch owned it, I would have come after you first and took what I wanted. I didn’t realize you had ties here,” he laughed, tightening his grip on Anita as she struggled to get away.
The tears were rolling down her cheeks, and I swore I could read her damned mind. Call it telepathic, clairvoyant or whatever that shit’s called, but I knew every damned thought that was going through her mind.
I could see and feel her fear, and her pain. I never believed in it before, but she was pleading for help, begging for her life and praying for all of us.
“The perfect place? For what? You’re a city boy, Mask; through and through. There’s nothing for you in the middle of Podunk U.S.A. so tell me why you’d want land in Millington, Tennessee of all places.”
Hopefully, I could distract him, and Anita would seize the first opportunity she had to get away and run for her life. Just as he was about to answer me, Henry came outside, calling Anita’s name but stopped when he saw my car and then spotted the three of us near the edge of the woods. He quickly ran to my side.
“What the hell? What’s going on?” he asked.
While Henry was running toward us, Mask grabbed his gun and pointed it at Anita’s head. Every moment that we’d ever kissed made love, laughed together and played with our son all flashed right before my eyes.
“Get back! Stay the fuck back or I’ll blow her brains out all over the side of this fucking tree!”
He jerked her head, wrapping his arm tighter around her neck as he cocked the hammer back on his gun.
“Okay, okay,” we both put our hands up in the air as a sign of surrendering. “No problem.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Bethany walking towards us. I snatched her up before she had a choice in which side she was going to be on.
She gasped as I jumped in mid-air and took her down like a football player tackling his opponent and pinned her to the ground.
“Let go of her,” I said to Mask, yanking Bethany up off the ground. “Or I’ll kill her; she doesn’t mean shit to me.”
I cocked the hammer back on my gun and lodged it against her temple.
Mask laughed, temporarily taking his gun away from Anita’s head.
“You must think I give a shit about her. She’s just another wet pussy someone can fuck so I can make some bank off of it. Do it,” he bellowed as he nodded his head with a wicked grin spreading across his face.
He trained his gun back on Anita. I knew she was fucking scared, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. He’d called my bluff. I couldn’t kill Bethany; it was my boss’s daughter, and even if I did, it wouldn’t mean anything to Mask at all.
A police car pulled up to the house and parked behind my jeep. I looked to Henry, thinking he called the police, but he shook his head no.
“Give it up, Mask! They’ll take you down in a blaze of bullets without a second thought.”
We heard a car door slam shut before the cop started calling for Shawn. Caving under the pressure and scared out of her mind, Anita started crying and tried to scream.
Mask attempted to cover her mouth to shut her up, but it was too late. The cop turned and spotted all of us standing along the edge of the woods and quickly withdrew his gun from his holster and took cover by the passenger tire of his cruiser.
“Everyone lower your weapons!” he shouted, pulling his radio close to his mouth.
Shit.
I never wanted the cops to get involved. Mask might get spooked and blow a hole right through her head. It would also be bad for the business, but they could consider the whole property a damned crime scene and possibly seize it—for however long they saw fit.
The cop pointed his gun and demanded that we drop our weapons again. I laid mine on the ground and put my hands in the air, letting the police know that I was surrendering.
Mask howled the most sinister laugh I’d ever heard before pointing his gun at me.
“Die, asshole!”
A loud, deafening blast rang through my ears before I had a chance to respond or react. Henry’s body floated past me in slow motion, and his body made a sick thud as it hit the ground. The bitter gunpowder floating through the air stung my senses, and I thought for sure I’d been shot.
Checking over my body, I realized there was no pain; no blood. Nothing; anywhere. I was fine. Looking down at Henry on the ground, he’d been shot in the gut and was bleeding through his shirt.
“You stupid son-of-a-bitch!” Mask hissed.
At another attempt on my life, he cocked his gun back again and tried to fire it at me but his gun jammed. I was still knelt down, tending to Henry when Anita broke my concentration from him for a split second as she cried out, scared for her life.
The police officer began firing shots at Mask, realizing the danger everyone was in.
“Get down!” I screamed at Anita.
For the second time in my life, I felt like a scared boy; completely helpless. The only other time I’d felt like this was when I was about eight years old. I’d just came home from school and saw my mom with her newest boyfriend, fighting in the kitchen.
Normally, it wasn’t a big deal; she fought with boyfriends as much as she probably changed her cum-stained panties, but this day was different.
While most kids would have gone to the kitchen for an after-school snack, I never did. There was never anything to eat in the house.
Mom never had any money, and none of the guys she dated gave a shit if there was something to eat in the house. All they cared about was making their next score; didn’t matter if it was dope or pussy.
I went into the kitchen to see what was going on. I’d be lying if I said none of her boyfriends ever hit her because I’d seen my fair share of hand prints on her face or finger marks on her necks, but I’d never seen or heard it going on—until that day. When I walked into the kitchen, the two of them were standing near the kitchen table.
Her long stringy, greasy hair covered her profile and the guy she was dating—some loser with a fucking mullet—yelled at her while she screamed back.
I watched her bring her finger up, pointing at his c
hest, and the next thing I knew, he hauled off and punched her in the face. I tried to yell stop, but neither one of them could hear me over their loud arguing.
I tried tackling him, but he threw me right off of him and my back slammed into the kitchen cabinets. I was such a scrawny little shit; that’s why I dedicated my entire life to lifting weights; I started in middle school and never stopped.
After that day, I vowed to myself that no one would ever treat me, or someone I loved, like that again. Not that it mattered much afterwards, though. Mom got with some truck driver who had some family in Texas, and she packed up and left with him at the end of my freshman year of high school.
Looking at Anita, I could see the fear in her eyes. She was truly terrified for her life, and I hated myself for letting her be in that situation. I could—and would—always protect her. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a second cop car rolling up to the scene, and then a third cruiser right behind him.
Fuck this. I’m not waiting for them to let her get killed.
Reaching out in front of me, I grabbed my gun and cocked the hammer. I’d never been so grateful for all the target practice I’d taken in my life. Closing my left eye, I aimed the barrel of my gun at Mask’s head and prayed to God that he wouldn’t let Anita get up off the ground, and squeezed the trigger.
All I could hear was the blast from my gun, and the smoke from the gunpowder clouded my vision. Several gun shots from behind me ensued but quickly halted. Nobody was standing, not even Mask.
I looked over at Anita and saw her lying on the ground in a pool of blood; her last scream still echoing in my mind. My heart dropped a thousand feet into the pit of the Earth, and my soul felt empty; my lover, the girl of my dreams, was gone.
We’d barely gotten our life started together. We’d only been reunited a couple of weeks ago, and now she was gone. I wanted to rip the beating heart of my chest and put it in hers; our baby needed his mother. The only mother he’d ever known.
She was the best mom any baby could ask for. She was so attentive to his needs, she knew what he wanted, what he liked and most of all, she was the only person who could understand his garbled words.
I remembered the last time I made love to her, and how good she felt. Her moaning as I bit her swollen, plump lip as I sank deep inside her was the first thing that ran through my mind. And how she was snuggled up next to me, wearing one of my oversized t-shirts as she slept like an angel, curled up next to me.
And now she was an angel again. Watching over us; watching over Bentley, the only person she adored in this world. She lived for that boy.
Henry’s hand grabbed my arm, and his lips started moving, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. The gun shots were still ringing in my ears, temporarily deafening me.
No matter how many times I asked him what he was saying, I couldn’t hear him, and soon, I was unable to see as the tears obscured my vision.
Chapter 15: Anita
I had never been so scared in my life when all the bullets started flying. The first thing I thought about was Bentley, and how I’d left my beautiful boy sleeping inside. I was going to die by the hands of some fool only feet away from my sweet baby. All because I wanted to be nosy.
If it hadn’t been for me wanting to see where my dad had been hurt, and see what else might still be in the woods, none of this would have happened.
This scary asshole would’ve never had the opportunity to grab me, and I wouldn’t have been standing in the middle of a gun fight. I was hoping that Gage would have shot him dead right off the bat, but the way he was holding me, there was no way that Gage had a clear shot to take him out.
The scariest part of the whole ordeal was when Gage and the police started firing bullets just moments before I jumped out of Mask’s death grip that he had on me. When the police shot him, he landed right on top of me, smearing his blood down my arm and back.
Lying on the ground, I looked over and saw Henry holding onto Gage’s arm while he stared into my eyes. The look of terror on his face was something I’d never seen before. He’s always been so tough; inside and out. It looked like someone had told him the saddest thing in the world. Henry was saying something to him, but I couldn’t make it out because the gunshots were still ringing in my ears.
Three officers carefully approached us, with their weapons drawn, shouting at us. Even though it was impossible to hear what was being said, we all simultaneously raised our arms in the air, surrendering to the police.
Suddenly, I could partially hear what they were saying and abided their orders to get up on our knees with our hands behind our heads.
Slipping in the bloody mud, I struggled to get up on my knees but managed to assume the position and placed my hands behind my head.
Gage’s face contorted, his head tilted to the side before his eyes lit up and he donned the biggest smile I’d ever seen—like a kid opening his favorite present on Christmas morning.
One of the cops grabbed him first, I presumed since they’d seen him with a gun and he fired a shot and started putting him in cuffs as they arrested him. Still only partially able to hear, I could hear him laughing as they picked him up from the ground, grinning like a fool as they carted him away.
The others grabbed Henry and me, placing me in cuffs while they motioned for the emergency responders to assist Henry.
“I’ll be okay,” Henry said to me as the cop walked me past him.
We trekked over to Bethany, who the agent also placed under arrest and made our descent down the hill where we were escorted to separate patrol cars. As the officer walked me past the cruiser that Gage was sitting in, I looked inside the darkened window, and he mouthed the words, “I love you,” to me and blew me a kiss.
Confused as to why he was so happy, I smiled as the cop pushed my head down into the backseat of his patrol unit and shut the door. No longer able to see Gage and finally able to think for a moment, I realized that I needed to tell someone that Bentley was still inside the house, all alone!
Screaming did me no good because nobody could hear me—or if they did, they were doing a fantastic job of ignoring me. Finally, I turned my body and began kicking my legs across the back of the patrol car, slamming my feet against the door and the window as I continued screaming for the police.
A moment later, my arresting officer came over to give me a warning, but I started shouting that my baby was inside.
“My baby’s inside! He’s in the house!”
“What?” the officer stopped for a moment.
“My baby! He’s only a year and a half old! He was inside taking a nap!”
“Hold on,” he reached up to his shoulder and began speaking into the small radio.
“Can I get an available officer to go inside the house and check for a toddler, please?”
A few seconds later, an officer answered. “Ten-four, Brady is going to the residence.”
Looking over my shoulder, I watched the male officer walk inside the house and return moments later with a scared, crying Bentley before he strode over to the car with him on his hip.
“I’ll be damned,” the cop said to me. “I’ll have him put the baby in the backseat with you.”
The officer holding Bentley walked him to the car, and he started crying, “Momma! Mommy!” as he reached out for me.
“We’ll put them together,” he told his colleague. “I think she’s okay, but we still need to interview her before we can cut her loose.”
I looked at his name tag, “Excuse me, Officer Jennings,” I smiled politely. “Thank you.”
“Does he have a car seat ma’am?”
I nodded, “Yes, in the back of the jeep. It’s black and red.”
Turning to Bentley, I smiled and started talking to him as he climbed into my lap. I wanted to wrap my arms around him so badly, but the handcuffs prevented me from doing so.
“Hey baby, everything’s okay. Did you wake up scared?”
His bottom lip quivered as he looked into m
y eyes.
“Aww, it’s okay, baby. Lay your head on Mommy,” I said to him as he did it and I snuggled him as best I could.
The ambulance whooshed past us as they took Henry to the hospital. I looked up on the hill where Mask had been shot and saw his lifeless body covered with a white sheet.
One of the officers was busy roping off the area with yellow police tape. A few moments later, the officer returned with his car seat and hooked it up in the back of his car before we drove down to the police station.
Once we were downtown, they took all of us into separate rooms and began questioning us. I was scared that they were going to take Bentley away from me for leaving him in the house alone, but they didn’t bat an eye.
After my interrogation was through, they reunited us together in the lobby. A middle-aged brunette was playing blocks with him when he spotted me and ran toward me, arms opened wide.
“Baby!” I picked him up and swung him around. “Did you have fun while mommy was busy?”
His grinned, making his chubby cheek appear like two round apples and pointed at the woman with the blocks. I looked around and noticed Gage still wasn’t out of his interview yet.
“Here, we can play blocks together while we wait for daddy,” I took him over to the floor where the toys were and looked up at the woman.
“Do you know how much longer he’ll be?” I asked her.
“Who?”
“My boyfriend, Gage Miller. We came in at the same time?” she looked puzzled. “For questioning?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not following you.”
“There was a shooting—at my house—and they detained everyone, brought us all back here for questioning, and I was wondering how much longer he might be?”
“Babe,” I heard his voice as he walked down the hallway towards us.
When he got close enough, he grabbed me and wrapped both of his enormous arms around me, lifting me off the ground. It felt like a python was squeezing me to death and became hard to breathe.
I patted him on his back like I was tapping out in a cage fight to get him to let go of me. He put me down after one final squeeze and kissed me like our lives depended on it as his hands wrapped around the back of my head and his tongue probed my mouth, hot and wanting, not giving a care in the free world who was there to see.