Chapter 29
My age is very inappropriate for my behavior.
— Milena to Cutter
MILENA
After kicking Hazel and her crew out of the cabin, I ordered Artur to sit on the couch—which I freakin’ had to clean first—then went on to clean the rest of the place up.
Not only had Hazel and her boyfriend trashed downstairs, but they’d trashed the upstairs, too.
Not only had they taken the master bedroom—one would think that they would’ve left the master bedroom for the person whose brother had paid for the whole house—they’d tested out all of the rooms. Each of the upstairs bedrooms looked like they’d been slept in.
Or other things that I wasn’t really willing to think about.
After seeing the master and all of the others dirty, I’d taken all the sheets downstairs to wash. Luckily , the rental was freakin’ awesome and had detergent for me to use to do that with.
While the sheets were washing, I tackled the kitchen while listening to an audiobook that I’d intended to listen to tomorrow during my run.
About halfway through that audiobook was when I’d finished cleaning the entire house.
Artur took two bags of trash out for me, and he looked angry.
As in, angry enough that I was worried he’d go searching for Hazel’s boyfriend and break his ankles for having to sit there and watch me clean for the last couple of hours.
The last task of the night was putting sheets on the beds and trying to get enough sleep.
When I went toward my room, I gave Cutter a call, and didn’t lead on that anything was wrong.
I didn’t want him to feel bad, and sadly, he couldn’t always bail me out of terrible situations. He was a man with a business, and it’d been my decision to fly twenty-nine hours away to Glacier National Park where it was way harder for him to get to me.
After hanging up with Cutter , I fell into a fitful sleep.
The entire night I’d woken up with a feeling of impending doom.
I didn’t know if that feeling was because I’d kicked who I’d once considered my best friend out of a house we were supposed to be sharing, or the fact that I was about to run twenty-six miles on a trail that I knew would be excruciatingly hard on me—and not just because of the mileage.
By the end of tomorrow, I fully expected my entire self—body and soul—to be exhausted.
“ You were made to do hard things,” I said to myself as I slipped into my trail shoes.
I sent a photo of myself to Cutter with the caption ‘fit check’ on it.
He probably wouldn’t care what I was wearing, but I wanted to calm myself down, and I knew Cutter would be able to do that for me.
His immediate response made me giggle.
Cutter :
That bra does wonderful things for your boobs.
Smiling , I put my contacts in, washed and brushed, then applied deodorant to every single inch of my body that had a crease to it.
I then checked out my boobs and realized that it did appear that I had some cleavage in the shirt that I was wearing with my Nike bra.
Turning around, I gave him a photo of the back, then hit send before heading downstairs.
I found Artur already up and eating a muffin.
“ Where’d those come from?” I asked.
“ Uber ,” he answered. “ Want one?”
I was already shaking my head.
“ Normally , I’m all about muffins. But I’m not taking the chance to mess up my stomach before I’m about to run a trail marathon,” I admitted.
He shrugged but didn’t argue.
That was the thing about Artur .
He was a great bodyguard. Professional .
When he was with my brother and not on duty, he was a hoot. But when he was working it was like he slipped into this personality that was impenetrable.
Though , today, he was a very unhappy bodyguard.
Before we’d left, we had a discussion with Shasha , Dima , and Cutter about Artur’s ability to guard me during the race. In the end, we decided that though he’d be there, he wouldn’t be participating in the race and wouldn’t always have active eyes on me.
It was a risk, according to them, but it was one I was willing to make.
I wanted to finish this race.
I wanted to run it without having to worry about Artur , who’d assured me that he would be able to keep up.
And maybe he might have.
But I didn’t care.
This was something that I wanted to do by myself, and he was still slightly salty about it.
The drive took ten minutes, which was the whole point in renting the cabin that we did.
Thankfully , all we had to do was drive out of the cabin’s road, then onto the main road, cutting off hundreds and hundreds of cars because we had right of way.
We parked, I drank some more water, and we waited patiently for the race to start.
Sadly , where they had us walk to was the side of the road. It was cold, there was nowhere to sit, and even worse, they only had eight porta-potties.
It was awful.
We stood there for a solid hour while the rest of the race participants slowly started to trickle in.
Artur stood next to me, offering his body as a shield to the cutting wind that felt like it was ripping through me.
“ Thanks ,” I muttered.
“ All racers, head to the starting line!”
My stomach, which was already in knots, went nuclear.
The nervous ‘ I have to pee’ feeling took root, and I made a mad dash toward a porta-potty that was luckily unoccupied.
Artur stayed back and gave me a head nod, allowing me to walk up to the starting line by myself.
When I got there, anger stole over me.
Hazel and her friend, Rayann , just so happened to be directly in front of me at the start line.
Both of them were dressed in pink matching outfits that made me want to gag.
The man beside me shifted from foot to foot, brushing my shoulder with his.
He looked down at me apologetically and said, “ I can’t believe I’m having to run this in the snow. It’s freakin’ March .”
“ It is,” I agreed. “ I’m from Dallas and we’ve had sunny, eighty-five-degree weather for the last month.”
“ Oh , I’m from Mansfield .” He smiled down at me, and though he tried to make the smile seem genuine, he didn’t quite accomplish it. Something was off about it, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. “ Small world.”
I just offered him a smile and took a half step away from him.
He didn’t comment and neither did I as we all bunched up tight.
“ Ready for some fun, racers?” the woman came over the bullhorn in front of us.
Since I couldn’t see her over the crowd, I didn’t bother to look.
Instead , I studied my gloves, picking at a string that was coming loose on my middle finger.
“ Racers , let’s run!” the announcer finished.
“ Fuckin ’ finally.”
A text came through on my watch and I glanced down at it.
Cutter :
You are so fucking cute.
Cutter :
Run safe, Mrs . Clayborne .
The nerves fled my belly as I covered my watch with the sleeve of my shirt and looked up just in time for the crowd to start moving.
The two pink assholes in front of me took off through the arches of the start line and then disappeared around a corner.
I finally got my chance to run through and started to run.
So far, so good.
I never caught up to the pink bitches.
Which was okay.
I mean, I had issues with my depth perception. I was allowed to be careful and cautious.
What I hadn’t expected was how slippery the snow was.
Not only slippery, but cold.
My feet were numb by the thirty-minute mark.
By the hour mark, when the first break in the trees came, I could finally see people again that weren’t the runners.
But , like all the other runners, I kept running and smiled when we hit a water station that was finally out in the open.
I headed for the end of the line like I always did, stopping to get a water from the person holding it out with two hands.
“ Thank …” My voice trailed off as I looked up at the man holding the water and gasped.
I threw myself at that man and wrapped my arms around his neck, a keen coming out of my throat when I did.
“ Hey , baby.” Cutter circled his arms around me. “ Get your water and keep running. I’m freezing my balls off here.”
I giggled and pulled away, then reached for the water that he’d managed to hold steady despite my throwing myself at him.
Taking two quick gulps of both, I winked at him and kept running, my heart so damn full that it felt like it would burst.
Sure , logically, I knew that he needed to be at home taking care of business.
But my mind wasn’t logical.
It was quite illogical, really.
And the fact that he was here…
I kept a smile on my face until the next time I saw him.
And not only him, but my brothers as well.
“ Y’all are all here?” I squealed as I waved like a maniac.
This time I couldn’t get close to Cutter or my brothers, but it didn’t matter.
I was freakin’ happy.
It didn’t even dim my spirit when I saw Mark , Gibson and Jacinda standing a little farther down from my family.
My audiobook saved the day, though, when I hit mile twenty.
By that point my head was spinning and pounding with each step of my feet.
Not even seeing Cutter , Dima , Nastya , Shasha , Maven and the rest of their crew could penetrate it.
I was done.
When I saw the six-mile mark ahead of me, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Almost done.
Only six more miles…
I walked. A lot.
But , throughout it all, I was passing more people than I was getting passed by, which I counted as a win.
By the time I saw the finish line, the euphoria that overtook me was unreal.
I didn’t speed up when I saw it, though.
Couldn’t .
The shuffling jog that I used to cross the finish line was my utmost best.
And when I started to go down onto my knees, my head a pounding mess, two strong arms came around me and hauled me up.
I had just enough energy to loop my arms around Cutter’s strong neck and hold on as I started to cry.
“ You did so good, Go ,” Cutter said. “ Way to fuckin’ go.”
I smiled against his neck and said, “ I can’t feel my feet.”
He chuckled and hauled me to my family.
All of them were there, and Cutter set me on my feet to get a round of hugs from all the adults.
“ Where are all the kids?” I asked.
“ Desi’s watching ’em at the cabin.” Nastya smiled. “ She’s makin’ bank, though, so don’t feel bad for her.”
I smiled and my eyes landed on pink behind me.
Hazel and her crew were glaring at us.
I raised a brow, surprised to see hostility there.
I mean, I wasn’t the one who did anything wrong!
But , the next second, everything was explained when a woman looking race official-like came up to me with a smile.
“ Bib numbers 354 and 355 are disqualified because they didn’t cross the halfway marker on the trail,” the woman holding the ribbon out to me said. “ You’re our age group winner. Congratulations !”
She held out a medal to me and it spun, front to back multiple times before Cutter took it from her and held it out to me.
I took it, stunned.
I stared in shock at the huge medal for a long few seconds, and then slipped it on over my head.
When I turned around, it was to see 354 and 355 bibs on Rayann’s and Hazel’s shirts.
Turning my head back toward Cutter , I couldn’t stop the excitement despite the throbbing pain in my head.
With the last of my energy, I threw myself at him.
“ I can’t believe you’re here.” I sniffled.
He hugged me so tight that it was hard to breathe.
But it was a good hard to breathe.
“ Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he confided. “ You ready to go?”
I nodded, not letting him go.
He chuckled and placed me on my feet, which protested mightily.
The pain on my face must’ve made itself known, because he picked me up and all but threw me onto his back.
I squeaked in surprise but looped both my arms and my legs around his torso and held on tight.
The walk to the car was much easier than it would’ve been had he made me walk on my own.
I smiled in commiseration at everyone as we passed them.
They were walking very carefully, the snow and the uneven ground making it near impossible even if we hadn’t just run twenty-six miles.
We’d just made it to the rental, a huge black van that looked like it was on steroids, when a commotion caused me to turn and look behind me the moment Cutter set me on my feet.
A woman was rushing up to us, another medal around her neck and the woman with the clipboard behind her.
“ Could we get a picture?” she called out. “ I was seriously staring at your back the entire way, and the race director said that it would be a great cover piece for next year’s race.”
I smiled and hobbled toward her.
She smiled at me in commiseration and turned so that the mountains were in the backdrop of the photo and not rental car.
“ Oh , perfect,” the race director said, taking multiple photos.
I pulled away from the woman just as the man from the beginning of the race came out of the space between two vehicles behind my family.
The same feeling came back at me just as two pink flashes came toward us from the opposite side, drawing my family’s attention away from the man.
“ Have a good one,” the woman said as she slipped away.
I waved but kept the man in my line of sight.
“ You have to let us stay with you!” Hazel pleaded. “ Every single hotel and rental is sold out because of the race!”
She was directing it at me, but my gaze was still on the man that was watching me watch him.
A smile came over his face, and he lifted up his shirt.
A black gun sat nestled against his flat belly, and seconds later, it was in his hands.
My heart rate skyrocketed, and before I could say anything, he raised the gun and aimed it at me.
The next few seconds were a blur, but the gun went off…and there was blood everywhere.