Chapter 39 - HARPER-RAYN
HARPER-RAYN
Overwhelming rage and fear pound through my veins as I race toward my mom’s place, right on the edge of losing my sanity.
How the fuck could she have done this? I get her wanting to hurt me.
It’s what she’s always done. It’s the only way she knows how to behave, but to bring the twins into this?
I won’t stand for it, and she sure as fuck won’t get away with it.
I’m ending this shit once and for all. She doesn’t get to hurt those girls and walk away, and she sure doesn’t get to use me to do it.
Izzy’s phone rings from the center console of my car, and I speed through the streets, desperate to get to Mom’s house, and hoping like hell that’s where she has taken the girls.
Knight’s name flashes on the screen. It’s not the first time he’s tried calling, and it’s gutting me not to answer, but I know exactly what he’s going to say.
He’s going to tell me to stop. To pull over.
To wait for him. But I can’t do it. Every second I waste is another second Haylee and Taliah could end up in Elias’s hands, and I know he understands that.
It kills me that I’m breaking my promise.
I stood on the side of the road after being released from jail, promising him that I would never recklessly throw myself into a dangerous situation, that I would be levelheaded and allow Knight to share my burden, but sometimes promises have to be broken.
Sometimes putting your own life at risk far outweighs the alternative, and damn it, I would willingly hand myself over to Elias if it meant setting those girls free.
Tears well in my eyes as my gaze drops to Izzy’s phone, my heart breaking, knowing the fear Knight must be feeling. “Fuck,” I say a moment later, grabbing the phone and taking the call.
I hit the speaker button as I fly through the streets. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, struggling to hold myself together. “I have to.”
“Doll, please. I can’t have you go in there alone.”
“They’re my nieces, Knight,” I tell him, willing him to understand, to know why I had to leave. “I can’t just leave them. I have to do this. Every second counts, and if I have to put myself at risk to save them, then I will.”
He lets out a breath, and in the one tiny sound, I hear his whole world crumbling. “Baby, please. I’m only ten minutes behind you. Just wait for my team to get there. We’ll get them out. I promise.”
“Ten minutes?” I tell him as the tears roll down my cheeks, my voice breaking with heartbreak.
“I’ve seen little girls on my autopsy table who’ve died in less than thirty seconds at the hands of men like Elias.
I love you, Knight. You’re everything to me, but I need you to understand that I can’t hold back on this one.
I have to get them out of there. I know you understand that. ”
Knight sighs, pure agony in his tone, fearing the worst just as I am, but knowing that nothing, not even his breaking heart, is going to keep me from storming into that mansion and getting those girls.
“I love you, Harper,” he says, a hardness creeping into his tone. I can imagine the way he’s probably gripping the steering wheel, the terror rising in his chest as helplessness consumes him. It’s exactly how I feel now. “I swear, if you die . . . If you leave me . . .”
“I won’t,” I vow, knowing that’s not something I could possibly guarantee. “Would you . . . Would you be able to call Jonah and let him know what’s going on? We tried, but there was no answer.”
“I’ve tried too,” he tells me. “All we can do is our best and be what the twins need until they’re safe in their parents’ arms again. But baby, you need to understand the likelihood that this is a trap designed to lure you out.”
I let out a breath, my thoughts running so wild. “I know,” I tell him, my heart tearing right down the center. “But it doesn’t change a thing. Those girls come above everything else.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just hold on,” Knight says, that brokenness in his tone crippling me. “If he overpowers you, fight. Use everything you’ve got. Nails. Teeth. Elbows. Knees. Whatever you can do, just stay alive. Please. Just stay alive.”
I take a shaky breath, the tears uncontrollable now. “You have to know I never intended to break my promise,” I murmur as I reach the gated community that Mom lives in. When I find the main gate left open, I sigh in relief. “But this . . . It’s different.”
“I know,” he says, utterly broken. But the cold, hard truth is, if the roles were reversed and the girls were his flesh and blood, he’d do the exact same thing. No obstacle on earth could stop him from saving those girls, and that’s exactly what I have to do now.
I wind through the streets, taking them way too fast for a residential area, but nothing will slow me down at this point. Izzy clutches the door handle, terrified of losing her life before we’ve even had a chance to try and save the girls.
As I turn the last corner before Mom’s home, the house of horrors finally comes into view. “I’m here,” I tell Knight, my heart racing faster than it ever has. “I have to go.”
“Don’t hang up,” he says. “Keep the phone on and the line clear in case you need me.”
“Okay.”
Nerves pound through my body, and as I reach Mom’s driveway, I come to a screeching halt behind the big, metal gates before putting my window down. I enter the code, pressing the buttons so hard that some of them get jammed, and within moments, the gates are peeling back.
The impatience is crippling as we wait for the gate to open, and when it reaches the halfway point, I hit the gas, darting my Honda to the left to sneak through the opening before flying up the long driveway, my gaze darting to the camera at the top of the grand entryway.
Izzy and I push out of the car, and as we hurry closer to the main entrance, Izzy starts looking around. “How the hell are we going to get in there undetected?”
“We’re not,” I tell her, pointing toward the array of cameras. “They knew we were here the second I stopped in front of the gate.”
“Fuck. So what do we do?”
I hand Izzy the phone that’s still connected with Knight as I crouch down and pick up one of the large potted plants that line the front of the home. “We make a fucking statement,” I tell her before launching the heavy pot straight through the same window I’d broken earlier in the week.
My mother’s scream is heard from deeper inside the home, and if I had to guess, I’d say she was in the living room. Izzy and I file in through the hole, crouching down, trying not to get cut by any stray pieces of glass.
“WHERE ARE THEY, MOTHER?” I call through the house, being obnoxiously loud, and letting her know that I’m not here to fuck around. I am getting those girls back, one way or another, even if it means getting bloody.
We weave through the massive house, heading directly to the living room. Knowing Elias could be here makes my blood run colder with every step.
Finally reaching the living room, we step through the grand entrance, and I’m not surprised to find my battered and bruised mother standing in the center of the room, a knowing smirk on her lips as the twins sit huddled together on the couch behind her.
They look uncomfortable, and while they physically appear unharmed, I don’t know what could have already happened that’s making them shake profusely.
They obviously know that this is their grandmother.
Their daddy introduced her as a safe person, but their expressions border on pure terror.
Even at only four years old, their intuition is stronger than my mother’s.
I go to step toward them, only my mother shifts, halting my movements as she simply stares at me, a challenge thick in her eyes, and as she holds my stare, I realize this woman needs to be hospitalized.
She’s sick in the fucking head. The only way to get to the twins is to go directly through my mother, but if she doesn’t move and hand them over peacefully, then I’ll have no problem making the injuries she sustained from her husband look like child’s play.
I shake my head, unable to figure out how the hell we came to this. “What do you think you’re doing?” I ask her. “Surely you have to know there’s only one way this ends.”
Mom just grins. “I told you, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Elias.”
My brows furrow, and as my gaze flicks to the girls on the couch and then around this ridiculously furnished living room, I realize Knight was right. I’ve walked straight into a trap, bringing Izzy right along for the ride.
I don’t know how Mom knew that the girls were going to be with me tonight, but she knew that the moment she took them, I would throw caution to the wind and come for them. She brought me here, but why?
“Whatever you have planned, it’s not going to work,” I tell her, glancing toward the girls before waving them over. “Come on. I’m taking you back to my house for our movie night.”
The twins smile and begin clambering off the couch, cheering about the Barbie movie they should have already been halfway through.
Mom laughs, and her stance shifts as she reaches behind her back.
My gaze lifts from the girls, and as if in slow motion, I watch Mom pull a gun from behind her, lift it, and aim directly between the twins.
“Oh fuck no,” I yell, lunging forward at the same time Izzy does, each of us grabbing a twin and yanking them behind us, my heart booming out of my chest as I gape at my mother in horror.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?
You could hurt them,” I seethe, clenching my jaw.
“Jonah will never forgive you for this.”