37. Theo #2
I jumped over him and pushed myself as hard as I could as I followed the trail back through the woods. A trail that had taken a sharp right back in the direction of the motel.
I fumbled to get my phone out of my pocket, and I blindly dialed River who lived the closest.
“Miss me already?” he razzed.
“Offender on the grounds. Jonah is down. Get everyone here now.”
“Fuck,” he spat.
He didn’t say anything else before he ended the call, and I stuffed my phone back into my jeans pocket before I fumbled into an inner pocket of my jacket and grabbed my knife.
As I hurtled through the forest, I flipped open the blade, sucking down the trail of that evil stench.
It sent a rush of barbarity coursing through my veins.
Hate and brutality amplifying.
A vicious pounding that beat through my being.
I broke through the boundary of the woods and jumped down a high embankment of snow that followed along the back side of the main parking lot.
Streetlamps glowed against the wet, blackened pavement.
I stopped for a beat to search for which way he’d gone, head whipping in every direction.
My battering heart climbed into my throat when a feeling took me over. A sense that was coming from the direction of the two cabins hidden at the back.
A crawling dread that made me sure who was there.
Pierce Renfry.
Loathing rolled through my spirit, and fury blistered beneath the surface of my skin.
My hand twitched around the hilt of my knife.
Kane was right. We should have just taken this piece of shit out. Put him in the ground before he had the chance to hurt Alicia and Lucy again.
But those chances were about to end tonight. I shot in that direction, sprinting across the lot and dodging parked cars before I bolted back into the snow and raced through the thicket of trees that separated the main parking lot from the cabins.
Harsh breaths sheared from my lungs as I forced myself as fast as I could go.
My boots sank into the snow, making my path more difficult as I dipped and labored through the trees.
Glass suddenly crashed and a scream ripped through the air.
“Shit.” It rasped out of me, then I ground to a stop when I noticed someone in the distance. I peered through the camouflage of limbs and leaves.
Pierce Renfry stood off to the side of Alicia’s porch.
He watched as another man dragged her out the door.
All his pompous depravity rolled off him as Alicia tried to break free of the other man’s hold.
No question, this assault had been planned.
The motherfucker had somehow found out where we were keeping Alicia and Lucy. The first time it had ever happened since Sovereign Sanctum had been born.
This wasn’t happening.
I refused to let it.
I diverted course, keeping myself concealed as I wound around the rear of the cabin and to the far side. I went for the bastard who had hold of Alicia.
I needed to ensure that Alicia and Lucy were safe first, then I’d handle the rest.
When I made it around the other side, a fucking brute dressed in a black track suit had Alicia’s back pinned to his chest as he wrangled her out the door.
She tried to fight him off with everything she had, kicking and tearing at his hold as she shouted, “No. No. You can’t do this. You can’t hurt us anymore.”
I could feel the deranged, twisted satisfaction that burned from where her disgusting husband stood off to the side of the porch. Depravity rushed from him like a sieve. A thirst to quench his wickedness.
Like this monster thought he’d earned the right to destroy the beauty of Alicia and Lucy.
Something he’d been trying to do for years.
I would end that reign here.
I stole forward, keeping myself secreted. I slipped over the side railing of the porch and edged up behind what had to be one of Pierce’s guards.
I drove my knife into the fucker’s side, right between two ribs. Delivering a wound I knew would end him before he even had the chance to realize I was there.
He dropped like a rock to the ground, and Alicia screamed as she was released. She whirled around with pure horror on her face.
“Shh,” I urged.
Her hands flew to her mouth, and her eyes were wild. Pants gushing out of her lungs as she gaped at the man slumped on the porch with blood pooling around his body.
I wanted to grab her. Hold her up and tell her she was safe. Promise her I wasn’t going to allow anything to happen to her.
But I had to take care of the monster whose expression twisted in hate.
Fucker looked at me like I was slime when he was the most disgusting, perverted fiend of all. Standing there in a three-piece suit and a tweed overcoat like this was just another scheduled meeting in his day.
“Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?” He scoffed at me like it meant nothing that his guard was dead at my feet.
I cocked my head. “Do you?”
I could see the war go down in him. The way he looked behind him like he was too proud to run but knew it was his only way out.
I saw the second he made the decision.
The itch of his body before he went for his phone like he was going to call for backup. At the same second, he turned on his heel to flee.
There was no chance this piece of shit was getting away. No chance he would let our secret out. No chance he would torture Alicia and Lucy again.
In the distance, I heard the roar of River’s motorcycle fast approaching.
I sprinted across the porch, taking the railing like a hurdle. My feet hit the snow, and I bolted for him.
I caught up to him in two steps.
I didn’t fucking hesitate.
I grabbed him by the head and jerked him back.
The bastard flailed.
“That bitch is mine. I won’t let her get away with this.”
Hatred curled through my being as I hissed in his ear, “You’ll never touch her again.”
And I barely caught the disturbance in my periphery as I dragged my blade across the scum’s throat. A garbled cry erupted from him as blood gushed from the wound.
I held him there as he bled out, and that was when my attention lifted to the energy that suddenly hit me like a slingshot.
Arctic eyes stared at me from across the road.
Both hands covering her mouth to trap the scream as Pierce’s body crumpled to the ground.
For two beats, she stood there staring at me in horror.
Unable to move.
Frozen to the spot.
Right before the sound of River’s bike came tearing up the road, knocking Piper from the shock.
And my soul crumbled out of me when she turned and ran.