by C. M. Owens
So stupid. I’m so stupid.
A tear drips from my eye before I can stop it, and I steel myself the best I can, even though I already feel dead inside. A cold washes over me.
The anticipation seems to leave them restless, because Sarah/AJ is taking her time lining up the shot that better go into Herrin’s forehead. If I have to die, at the very least, he should go with me.
“Shoot me, and this bullet goes into her fucking brains,” Herrin calls out, eyes darting from one place to another.
“There’s a reason no stray bullets hit her,” Rush calls out in a lazy drawl. “Herrin, not even you’re stupid enough to harm her with me in this room. Clearly you know my affections for her; otherwise, you’d have chosen Eve as your hostage. She’d clearly be worth more to everyone. Everyone but me, that is.”
My eyes lift, staring at the bar where Rush is still hidden from sight.
The song barely ends before it starts back over, the volume steadily growing louder.
I don’t see Eve or any of the others, so I’m assuming they’ve gotten out of the line of fire. I’m the only damsel in distress, and I’m supposed to be the most formidable survivalist. If I wasn’t so devastated, I’d have just enough energy to be ashamed of myself.
As if the seal is ruptured, five rapid fire bullets soar into the air from an undetermined location, taking out the five men surrounding Herrin in a circle.
Cheese and rice, my heart is in my throat right now. I take it back. I hate adrenaline rushes these days. I’m not even turned on right now I’d just like to piss somewhere other than on myself.
The bodies drop all around us, and there’s only the sound of their collapse inside the room for a brief second.
In the next, the spray of aimless bullets has me wincing.
Silence descends all at once, and I idly notice ten more men have fallen all around us...
Herrin looks nervous, and even though that only makes me a little more nervous about his trigger finger, it also...
For the first time ever, Herrin seems so...human. I’ve never seen him sweat until this very minute.
He shuffles to the side, and I’m forced to go with him.
It stays silent for too long...until that music starts playing again. Herrin’s never been toyed with, and I don’t like how unpredictable that makes him. Especially when his gun is still in my mouth.
Rush will kill me if I survive this just for putting him through this. I’ll never be allowed out of his sight again if his control issues escalate.
It’s going to be torture.
A single tear rolls down my cheek, unable to distract myself from the pain any longer, when Pop shoves the gun in deeper, an absent gesture he makes as the tension ratchets up.
After five more rounds pop off in quick succession, immediately dropping five fresh bodies.
Herrin’s eyes go as wild as an animal’s that’s been trapped in a corner.
His men start dropping to their stomachs in surrender.
“Get back on your fucking feet,” he snaps, even though he’s the only one with a bargaining chip.
Drex is missing, likely unconscious from his beating.
My heart slaps my throat and claps my toes at terrifying speeds when Rush stands abruptly, hands in the air, even as he holds his gun loosely on one index finger.
It’s not like he can shoot him unless he pulls that gun out of my mouth, and he’ll be dead the second he does.
I’ve yet to see how this works out well for me, and I really, really don’t want to die. My eyes water as I stare at Rush’s cold blue eyes that narrow just slightly on mine.
He looks annoyed with me. Annoyed? Annoyed is the emotion in his eyes right now?
“I suppose it’s easy for you to fuck up and get lazy when you underestimate the club your son runs,” Rush states with a cold smile, flicking his gaze so casually back to Herrin. “The big bad president of the once feared and admired Death Dealers stepped into his son’s warehouse without considering shit might not go his way without home court advantage,” he drawls, goading him more.
Herrin gives him a calculated grin. “I’m going to walk out of here, simply because there’s no way you can kill me without killing her as well. I’m a man who knows all, Rush. Don’t pretend she’s not your biggest weakness.”
Rush shrugs a shoulder, scratching his head with the barrel of his gun. “Why would I deny it? I’ve made it a point to ensure everyone knows she belongs to me. I’ve never really owned anything I don’t protect with a vengeance.”
Herrin snorts. “Pretty as that sounds, I’m about to walk out of here, and you’re going to let me.”
“We both know that can’t happen. You’ll kill her, so what’s the point in letting you walk out of here alive?” Rush asks in a bored tone, sounding eerily calm for this entire situation.
I feel more defeated than anything, and it’s all I can do not to sag to the floor. My energy is gone. My emotions are on the brink of suppressed hysteria. One more false move, and I’m going to crash into the world from a whole new angle.
“I worked very hard to set all this up, Herrin. Did you really think I wouldn’t prepare for at least one scenario like this? You, the man who built me into the man like only you truly know,” Rush says in a somewhat eerie tone.
To my right, I notice Dash’s brow furrowed, and I idly notice how Eve is pressed to his side, as though something is...wrong. Something’s changed that I’ve missed.
Dash is...in on this...
This was...this was a...
Holy shit...this was a trap.
My eyes widen, as Rush’s lips curve in a sinister grin, eyes narrowing on Herrin.
“In less than thirty minutes, I’ll have my girl, alive and well, and this all works out well for everyone in the end,” Rush tells Herrin in a cool, confident tone.
It’s subtle, but I feel Pop’s hand shake against my back.
Chapter 33
RUSH
Damn fucking woman. I’m going to wring her neck, chain her to the bed full time, and hide her from all society. She can’t be trusted not to get herself into a worse situation than I want.
She was supposed to be a spectator.
Not the fucking hostage.
Kara fucking Caine has gotten too damn soft.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I work around the modicum of control I barely have as that lunatic taunts me with that gun in her mouth. I’m going to punish her for this.
Just as soon as I get us both out of this alive. Damn her for fucking up my plan that has been mostly sort of flawless, aside from a few hiccups.
“You want me to believe you planned for my gun to end up in her mouth?” Herrin asks in a chilling tone I don’t particularly care for, given the circumstances.
“It’s one of seventy-two plans. It’s not like I can prepare for every possible outcome. Your daughter went out into the real world and got soft. Most kids get a little tougher when they leave the nest, you know,” I point out, eyeing Kara with heavy disapproval.
Where are those flighty survival instincts in her weak nature when I need them to be working? This worked perfectly when she took off like a scared fox with a big mouth, because she thinks she’s a badass.
She’s never been as badass as she thinks she was.
“I forgot how very un-badass she really was until I had to spend a lot of time with her and the built-up disillusions I had of my first love’s dramatic, scheming mind...falls really flat now that I’m all grown up. It’s quite childish in comparison to how real diabolical minds think,” I tell him, my eyes flicking back to his.
With any luck, I didn’t get someone killed.
His finger gets tighter on that trigger, and the playful smile vanishes from my lips as seriousness steals the last thread of my calm.
“At the end of the day, I don’t make friends. I have one thing that keeps me sane, and you don’t want to be the man who kills her off. Do you, Herrin?” I ask, as I cant my head to the side.<
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Chapter 34
KARA
Why did he bring me here?
Rush really laid a trap that Herrin stupidly walked into? No one makes Herrin look stupid. In the end, anyone who steps into a trap looks stupid. It simply never happens to Pop.
He looks so stupid. Even if he does kill me, he still dies. He’s still the idiot who walked into the clubhouse, expected to take it back over, and died while failing miserably like a village idiot.
Rush did this.
If he knew this would happen, then why is there a gun in my mouth?
Herrin’s less interested in killing me than he is in schooling Drex on who’s top dog. I spent all this time looking over my shoulder, only to realize it was wasted time.
Drex is the dog he wants to humble.
I’m the gnat that flies around dogs’ peckers.
How did I manage to overestimate my value and waste my life worrying Pop would come after me?
There’s a gun in my mouth because I’m expendable, and he’d rather volley insults with Rush. Rush let me walk in here, after making such a fuss about me.
A tear leaks out of my eye, as I see my life on a pathetic loop. Broken. Shattered. Tired. I was built this way—paranoid to the core. I—
“At the end of the day, I don’t make friends. I have one thing that keeps me sane...ish, and you don’t want to be the man who kills her off. Do you, Herrin?” It’s the chill to his eerily calm tone that doesn’t really sound calm at all that has my mind snapping back to the situation at hand.
“If she dies, I’ll have no reason to kill you quickly. Could take me several years to get over a loss like that, and you’d pay daily for her death,” he adds, his eyes unnervingly menacing, as a dark, twisted smirk plays on his lips.
It’s subtle, but I feel Pop stiffen behind me, his grip tightening on me.
It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt fear coming off him.
Rush’s eyes move to mine, and he winks. “Don’t worry. He’s a man who knows me well enough to know I mean what I say. Possibly the only man who truly knows just who I’ve become. I’ve got two people I care about. That’s why he never targeted Sledge,” he drawls, eyes lazily flicking back to Pop.
Pop eases the gun back just a little. Rush strikes up a cigar, haphazardly working around the gun in his hand to light it.
There’s a change in the atmosphere. The men lying on the ground are all looking this way, and I can tell they’re waiting to see if Herrin’s going to fold.
“She’s not leaving here with you, because I’m not letting you kill her, dump her body as a message to me, and hide like the coward you are. I respect your son for keeping this club, and reinforcing it instead of cowering in fear,” Rush adds as he flicks the dead match to the concrete.
A plume of cigar smoke engulfs us, and he pulls the cigar back, looking at it. “Your move, Herrin. You’re in a corner for the first time in your life,” Rush says coolly, smirking. “I’ve always felt a little underestimated. Do you plan to kill her and die for several long years with absolutely no chance of escape? Or do you want to let her go with the promise you’ll die today?”
He’s an idiot if he thinks Pop is going to choose to die today.
Rush just simply stares at him.
Why hasn’t Pop shot me already?
When Rush’s sinister grin starts to spread like he’s winning the staring contest, the gun comes out of my mouth. My entire jaw aches with relief and floods with a sharp bite of pain at the same time.
I’m almost terrified this is a sick plot to give me false hope, as Pop roughly shoves me at Rush.
Rush snags me at the waist with his gun hand, dragging me to him, and I glance back in disbelief at Pop. Gone is the man I used to be so terrified of. In his place, a man I’ve never seen before is clenching his jaw, eyes flat like he’s given up.
How...
It feels so...anticlimactic...
Rush smooths his gun down my back, kissing the top of my head, as Herrin drops his gun, tears wavering in his prideful, furious eyes as he puts his hands on top of his head.
“He never even bothered looking for you,” Rush tells me with a sigh, holding me to him as he kisses the top of my head.
My fingers are tightly wound in his shirt, my body simply frozen. I’ve been normal too long for all this shit to have gotten this fucking crazy. I remember the MC being so much simpler than this.
It was still scary as shit back then too. This is too damn much. All the time. How is Eve not a broken freaking mess if even I’m having problems holding my shit together?
“Maybe it’s because he knew what I’d become capable of and also deduced that I was devoutly in love with you. Surely it wasn’t that hard to see, when I look back on just how indiscreet we were, while convinced we were the most discreet,” Rush tells me, brushing his thumb over my lip.
His lips tug in a grin, and he cups my chin.
“You’re my redemption. You’re what I get for all the hard work I’ve done to get you back, because you now see that the man you fear the most is cowering to me, Kara,” he says with a...legit terrifying smile.
“You’re scaring me,” I say very seriously.
He rolls his eyes. “I’m saying I’m a bad man. I can take care of shit. You don’t get to run in fear anymore, and you have to let me chain you up—”
Herrin moves, gun in hand, but a shot rings out, and Rush never misses more than a beat as Herrin groans, dropping to the ground with a fresh wound in his shoulder.
“—because it’s going to take me a little while to trust that you won’t run. Agreed?” Rush asks, lifting me into his arms when my legs give out.
I stare over his shoulder as he carries me away, and I watch as Drex walks up. His face swollen, lips curved in a smirk, and brass knuckles are getting worked over his fingers as he leisurely limps toward Herrin.
Round two goes to the son.
I see a tear fall from Herrin’s eye, because...now they’re making him look silly. That prideful, cruel, powerful man is now powerless for the very first time, and he has no idea what to do.
When he starts to reach for a gun, his index finger is shot off from one of the phantom snipers, since there are at least two. He cries out, painfully struggling to hold onto his shouts of pain, because he’s too prideful for that.
This is surprisingly hard for me to watch. Especially now that I know he didn’t chase me down with a raging desire to kill me.
“He’d put a bullet in your head at the first opportunity,” Rush assures me when he clearly senses my hesitation. “Trust me when I say he’d have truly let them all have their way with you. He just didn’t care enough to spend his time chasing after his trashy daughter no one would ever believe,” Rush dutifully adds.
I suppose they don’t do sensitivity training here. I get it. I just wish I could sew his mouth shut for a minute.
Instead, I cover it with my hand, and he takes the hint, holding me closer instead of failing miserably at saying the ‘right’ things.
“You weren’t supposed to end up with a gun in your mouth. In hindsight, I gambled too easily, giving you far too much credit,” he says when I finally release his mouth.
I shove my hand against his mouth again, but he jerks it away and instead crushes his lips to mine as he backs me into a wall.
I’m not even sure how this is going to work out. He’s been really in love with me, and I want to run and hide before everyone tells me what a bad thing that is. I can chalk his shortcomings up to amendable quirks...I think. Even if some of them are crazy.
“Can we leave Halo—”
“Obviously we’re leaving Halo,” he says, walking out the door.
I lose sight of Herrin over his shoulder, and I pull back, glancing up at him.
“You don’t want to see that. You’re too soft. I don’t need anything out of that. I just wanted to show you I’m scarier than your father, so you’re safe with me,” the insanely crazy romantic tells m
e with so much sincerity.
He pushes closer to me, pressing me to the heated wall outside.
His forehead presses to mine, and I watch as his eyes close and he exhales harshly.
“You ever get another gun pointed at you, and I swear I will fucking lose my motherfucking mind and drop any-fucking-body around. That was your one and only get-out-of-jail-free card, got it? Next time, I don’t care who I shoot. The sole goal will be your survival, since you can’t take care of that much—”
I drag him down by his neck, and his lips hit mine hard again, kissing me hungrily, arms closing around me as my tears steadily leak out. Fucking hell, I had no idea just how much I wanted to be with this crazy asshole until...he...came for me.
“Despite appearances, I’m actually a fucking catch,” he murmurs against my lips.
I hiccup out a laugh, and then grimace because this is an extremely inappropriate time to be laughing.
He seems to catch that, and he kisses me softer, before grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the warehouse.
My father is going to die today. It’s a little hollow to realize...I don’t even care.
Chapter 35
RUSH
“Stay here. I forgot something inside,” I tell her, seeing that look in her eyes.
Yeah, she’s completely mine now. Still not worth the fucking gamble.
“You owe me one,” Sarah says from the shadows the second I step inside.
I move toward her in the dusty accountant’s office under the stairs, watching as she sits cross-legged on the desk.
“I figured as much. Don’t get me killed,” I tell her, handing her the card where I’ve written my new number. “You’re the only one who gets that.”
She flashes her grin at first, because she loves feeling special, but it flees quickly.
“Wait, no one else gets your number? She doesn’t have a phone, does she?”
“Don’t judge. I’ll get her a phone. She can decide what she wants to do,” I tell her, already knowing she don’t want no part of this shit.