Crow’s Revenge (Devil’s Murder MC #5)

Sneak Peek

My breath shuddered through my chest, my lungs dragging in gasps of air as if they couldn’t entirely fill right. Blood pounded in my ears and roared through the canals as my hands shook, still gripping the baseball bat in my hands. Slick crimson fluid coated the wood, staining it bright red.

“Rowen.”

Everything felt surreal, as if I watched from afar, outside of my body, so disconnected from reality that I wasn’t sure if oxygen made its way into my lungs or not. My mind felt fractured, disassociating from the carnage and the man sprawled on the carpet only a few feet from where I stood. I could see the bruise forming on his forehead and the bump swelling from where the bat made contact. I’d hit him. Twice.

“Rowen,”Kate emphasized with a wince as she wrapped an arm around her waist. “Babe. Give me the bat.”

I blinked, slowly moving my head to turn in her direction.

“That’s right. Hand over the bat.”

I released a shaky breath but didn’t move.

“Honey, he can’t hurt me right now.” She groaned as she tried to reach out, and I fell to my knees, releasing the bat as I dropped it next to her side. Her hand fell to her lap, lying limp from a dislocated shoulder. The left side drooped at an awkward angle. It had to hurt like a motherfucker.

A sob escaped, but I felt more building within the cavern of my chest, ready to burst free and tear me apart from the inside out.

“Rowen. Look at me.”

I lifted my head, trembling as I made eye contact with my best friend. “Kate.”

“There you are,” she whispered with a nod. “Good. Listen, I need to call 9-1-1. You can’t be here when the police arrive.”

Shit.

“You’ve got little Jacob to think of. He can’t lose his mama.”

“I know,” I croaked, clutching my bloody, shaking fingers in my lap. “I almost killed him.”

“But you didn’t,” she reminded me, “and if you had, it would have been self-defense.”

Yeah, maybe. Would the police see it that way?

“You’re hurt,” I blubbered, fighting back tears. My eyes stung with the effort.

“But I’m alive. You saved me, Rowen.” She unwrapped her torso, and I grasped the hand that extended toward me, holding it as tightly as I could without causing further pain.

“I’d do it again.”

“I know, babe. That’s why I love you.”

Kate’s boyfriend, Jack, nearly killed her. If I hadn’t arrived when I did and found his hands around her throat, she might not be breathing right now.

I saw the bat leaning against the wall and picked it up, swinging before I could think through what the hell I was doing. I just had to get him off her.

I should have been there sooner, but Jacob wanted to show me one of his drawings, and I couldn’t leave before he finished explaining about it. When I let myself inside Kate’s house, I found her locked in a struggle with Jack. He’d already beat on her long before I arrived.

Even now, I could see her lip swelling and the crusted, dried blood on the corner of her mouth. The bruise on her jawline. One eye was swelling shut and discolored. Both were bloodshot. Dark handprints stood out on the tan skin of her neck, already changing color and darkening the longer she sat and leaned against the wall.

Jesus. Why did abusers always find and prey on the weak?

“You need a doctor,” I sniffled, close to losing my shit.

“I’ll get one, Rowen. Jack is going to go away a long time for this. They have to arrest him this time.” She squeezed my hand and released it. “Go wash up in my bathroom and rinse the blood off, then get to Jacob.”

We heard motorcycles outside, and I froze.

“Someone else is here.”

Jack the Dagger, known by his associates as Dag, didn’t belong to a motorcycle club, but he ran within that circle and knew other hitmen, guns for hire like him, with even less morality. If they saw me, I would be taken and questioned, beaten, and possibly killed for my involvement.

“Call 9-1-1. Now,” I ordered, rising to my feet. “I won’t abandon you. I can’t.”

She hissed as she tried to get up, and her ribs protested. A soft cry left her busted lips. “This isn’t your fight. It’s mine. You’ve done enough, Rowen. Get the hell out of here. Go out the basement door and through the back gate. They’ll never know anyone else was here.”

“Kate,” I pleaded.

She knew we had no time to argue. And she knew the one and only reason I would abandon my best friend. “Imagine Jacob’s face when you don’t come home.”

I stopped breathing with such an image in my head. Failing my son wasn’t an option.

Guilt, already riddling through me, my eyes locked on the door where other men would soon enter the house. What would happen when they saw Jack on the ground and injured?

“Look at me.” Kate swiped across the screen as we heard voices outside. “I’m getting help.” She dialed 9-1-1. “Go.”

In slow motion, I watched her lips move, speak into the phone.

In slow motion, I felt my legs lift me from her side.

“I love you,” I told her before the pure love for my son had me running down the hall, through the kitchen, and opening the basement door. I slipped through the opening and shut it behind me with a soft click, descending the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible. All the while, my mind begging emergency services to arrive in seconds, hoping there wouldn’t be a delay.

Since I had been in this house numerous times, I knew where to walk without bumping into anything, and I found the stairs in the dark that led to the exterior door. My heart hammered inside my chest as I rushed, desperate to get home to my son. Right before I opened it, I heard two gunshots.

My hand slapped over my mouth in horror as I stumbled, feeling every bone in my body shudder with shock. Humid exhales pelted my trembling palm as I stared to where I’d just come, praying to hear her voice as a sign she was still alive.

But her voice was gone. The only ones I heard now were angry as the door opened at the top of the stairs. One of them belonged to Kevin Keeler, Jack’s best friend. His reputation with knives terrified me. Kate had told me some frightening stories. He was heading this way!

“She wasn’t alone, you stupid fucker. Didn’t you see the shoe print? Someone else was here.”

The hand not covering my mouth reached behind me, blindly searching for a doorknob. My only chance of escape. Again, I froze when hearing sirens. The wail grew louder as they sped toward us. The 9-1-1 operator must have heard the shots fired.

An order was barked. “Whoever is down there, I want them dead. And their fucking family.”

It was eerie to know help was arriving, yet they couldn’t save me. These kind of men didn’t play by rules not their own.

My body flooded with adrenaline and the protective instinct a mother carried for her child. I quickly chose flight mode for survival. I snuck outside, stayed close to the fence, and ran toward home. I didn’t stop until I reached the house I rented, grateful I didn’t drive the short distance since I had wanted the exercise.

Without a car at Kate’s house, maybe they’d never figure out it was me who had been there. Swallowing sobs for my friend, I rushed to the hose in the backyard and rinsed the blood off my hands. When I finished, I hurried around the front, careful to ensure no one followed. I sprinted inside and shut the door, panting as I leaned against the wood and struggled to calm down enough to focus.

“You okay, Rowen?”

I jumped.

My babysitter sat with her textbooks on her lap, studying when I barged in.

Already trying to cover any trail of where I’d been, I replied, “Sure,” far too clipped. “Just decided to, uh, run tonight, but, ummm, I got a cramp.” I cringed with the lie, but Tina didn’t know where I went. I hadn’t told her.

She closed the textbook and yawned. “I need a break. Good timing.”

Hoping my nervousness wasn’t noticed, I watched her pack up her stuff and I handed Tina forty dollars for the few hours she was here. I pretended to be casual. “Thanks. I hope Jacob behaved.”

“He always does. He’s the sweetest boy.”

“He is,” I agreed, and needing to sound normal even thought my heart felt like it would crash through my chest, I asked, “Umm, did he go to bed okay?”

“We read four stories first.” She laughed. “He loves superheroes.”

Jacob didn’t just love them. He was obsessed. . . and now I needed one.

I walked the babysitter to the door and watched her climb into her dark blue clunker and drive away. Before shutting the door, I scanned both sides of the street—no other cars. No people. Nothing suspicious.

I took a slight sigh of relief until an image pelted my mind. It was of Jack waking up, pissed, telling his biker friends it was me who hit him!

The brief calm was now drowning in more panic. Jacob and I couldn’t stay here. It wasn’t safe. Jack’s companions would want to silence me about Kate.

I had to run and get as far from Palmdale, California, as I could. I didn’t have much money, but I would drive until the funds gave out. At some point, I would stop at an ATM and withdraw every bit of cash my limit allowed.

To pack in lightning speed, I pulled every curtain and twisted the rod on all the blinds closed in every window. The place was sealed tight. I left a light on in the living room, one above the stove in the kitchen, and my bedroom.

My thoughts scattered as I refused to dwell on Kate.

I couldn’t do a damn thing to help her now. My focus had to remain on Jacob and sneaking away before Jack and his friends showed up on my doorstep.

It didn’t take long to pack a couple of suitcases, even though it felt like eternity, every sound making me a nervous wreck.

I brought all the essentials and the few sentimental items I owned that I could never leave behind, like Jacob’s scrapbook of his first year and the framed photo of my parents. I packed two big bags for Jacob and an old diaper bag full of treats and toys.

Everything I owned that meant anything to me went into my car inside the garage. I loaded it with a cooler and drinks, some bags of groceries, and the big carry-on bag I picked up last month with all of our stuff from the bathroom.

I managed to fit everything inside and surveyed the house, giving it a final check to be sure I left nothing behind. Furniture and plants could be replaced. Those things weren’t necessary right now.

I crept into my son’s room, wanting to watch him sleep as I always did, but his life was on the line. He turned six last week, and I couldn’t believe how fast he’d grown. He was sharp, too. He was way more intelligent than the average child, or maybe I just thought of him that way. He spoke with a maturity rare in kids his age.

Trying not to wake him with fright, I sat on the edge of his bed as the light spilled into his room from the hall and brushed the dark hair back from his forehead. “Jacob.”

He mumbled in his sleep but didn’t rouse.

“Jakey, baby. I need you to wake up for a minute.”

“Tonopah,” he mumbled, blinking.

“What?”

“Tonopah. That’s where we’re going.” He opened his eyes and pointed to the drawing on his nightstand.

I followed his gaze to the sheet of paper with a fresh drawing he’d made tonight. Me, Jacob, our car full of boxes and bags, and a sign that read TONOPAH.

I didn’t even know where that city was located.

California? Nevada? I never heard of it.

“Don’t worry, Mama. I know where we’re goin’.”

He climbed into my lap and reached for his drawing, holding it to his chest.

“We have to go now.”

I didn’t ask how he knew. I never did.

My son drew things on paper that most would never believe. But they were always correct. If Jacob saw Tonopah, I was supposed to go there. I’d use GPS once we left town.

I buckled Jacob into his highbacked booster seat and covered him with his Superman blanket. He hugged his stuffed Batman to his chest and gave me a sleepy smile. “I’ll put this drawing with the rest.”

He nodded as he yawned. His eyes fluttered.

I didn’t check the other drawings in his backpack, but I knew they held more secrets, more hints about our future. I didn’t have the time to look at them now.

Urgency pushed me to sweep the house one last time, taking any other artwork of Jacob’s, his Hot Wheels cars, and the last few things I missed. When I had it all in the car, I closed up the house, locked it, and took my place behind the wheel.

I glanced in the rearview mirror, swallowing as I watched him sleep. No one ever explained how parenthood would change my life.

Once you had a child, your life took a backseat to the precious one entrusted to you. I would sacrifice anything for my son.

The love I felt for him surpassed any love I’d ever experienced. More than my parents or my brother. Deeper than my ex-boyfriend. A parent’s love for a child was more profound, selfless, and life-changing than any other on this earth.

I would fight for Jacob until I no longer had life in my body. I wondered, even then, if I would defend him from beyond the grave.

“I love you, my beautiful boy,” I whispered, merging onto the street as I left my driveway.

I caught the garage door as it closed in my rearview mirror and hoped that I would leave danger behind in California without dragging it behind us, kicking and screaming, into our new life.