Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
MARNIE
As Silas carries me into a house, I start to wake up, but I don’t let him know. He lays me onto a bed and leans over me. His hand brushes my hair from my face.
“Oh, little Mimi, I’m going to punish you and kill that backwoods fucker for touching you.” He leans over me, and I force back the cringe as he kisses my forehead. He grips my property vest and releases a scoff in disgust.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but I’m going to stop this now.
My hand flexes on the knife in my pocket.
While he’s distracted staring at me, I move fast. I bring the knife up and thrust it into his neck.
He rears back and tries to yank it free, but I keep my hold on it, and it shifts.
Blood bathes my body as I jerk the knife out of his flesh.
Crimson arches through the air, and he slaps a hand against the wound, trying to stop it.
I rise from the bed, dripping in his blood. I kick him and lean over his body as he falls to the floor, silently bleeding out from his carotid artery. I open his jacket and pull out his gun.
“That’s for everything you did to me throughout my life. I’m not Mimi. I told you I’m Marnie.”
Taking in my surroundings, I see I’m in a bedroom, and I hear my father out in the living room.
“Silas, that’s enough,” he calls out. “I know I promised her to you, but after you killed Claire, I can’t let you have Mariah too. Come out here so we can discuss this.”
I open the door. My father pauses when he takes in my blood-splattered body.
“Mariah, darling, Daddy dearest would like you to give me the gun.” He gestures toward the gun held loosely at my side.
“No.”
“Marnie, sugar.” Rylan’s deep, gruff voice comes from the side, and I turn to see him.
He cringes when he sees all the blood on me.
“I’m here to help you.” He holds up a hand, and I finally relax.
He got here faster than I thought he would. I knew he’d come for me. I knew he’d save me.
“Finally, someone to get control of her. She was going to kill me. She’s crazy.” My father’s voice takes on a whiny edge.
When Rylan swings his head toward him, I see anger flash across his features before they soften, and he turns back to me.
“Not my blood,” I tell him. “Although.” I flex my arm as pain hits me, and I look at my bicep that is slowly bleeding.
“Where’s Silas?” Rylan asks as he steps further into the room.
I point behind me, and Wing rushes past.
“He’s dead. I cut his throat with a knife.”
“I told you she’s crazy. She was going to kill me. She wants all the money.”
My father’s words set off Rylan, and I finally see the reason for his nickname.
He walks over to my father and backhands him hard, sending him to the floor.
“I should let her kill you too for her revenge, but I don’t want that on her conscience.” Rylan reaches down and lifts him up. “Besides, she already gets all your money, asshole.”
“No, my granddaughter does. Where is she? I’m here to save her. Her new adoptive family wants her.”
Kodiak
Ipunch him in the chest hard and hit him in the face as I hold him up. The bones in his old body crumble under my fist. I want to finish him off, but I know that just the internal damage from the hit to his body will be a slow, agonizing death for him. I drop him and turn to my woman.
She’s an avenging angel, taking back her life, covered in the blood from her conquest. I’m proud of her. I stride over to her and carefully touch her face, where she has a bruise on her cheek.
“Come on, sugar. Let’s get out of here. Our baby is home waiting for us.”
Marnie’s body sags, and she hands the gun to me as I pull her into my arms. I lift her up and carry her out of the house. I don’t look back. I know Loki will take care of the bodies and cover up the crimes we committed.
“By the way, your friend Pen helped us out. She pinpointed us here.”
“Pen is a woman?” Marnie sits up in my arms, and I can’t help the chuckle at her shocked expression.
“Yeah, baby.”
I toss my keys to Miner and climb into the back of my truck, holding on to my girl.
When we hiked up to the property, we hid out along the tree line.
I expected to come through the door and kill both her father and Silas, but she’d taken care of Silas for me.
I’ll worry about any trauma from that later and get her into counseling.
For now, I want to get her home and make sure she’s okay.
After that, I want to bury myself deep in her body for the next several days.
“My bakery is destroyed.” Tears well in her eyes.
“We’ll build you another one closer to home.”
“Okay.” She pauses, looking out the window at the house where she was held. “Is it over? Will he get away with saying I went crazy?”
“Nope. He’s dead. Well, he will be shortly.”
As soon as Loki climbs into the seat beside Marnie, she looks at him, and he tells Miner to drive. We’re a good distance away when he presses a button on a remote, and an explosion erupts behind us.
“That’s for my bakery, asshole.” Marnie laughs, and I chuckle too.
When we arrive home, I have Cy distract Oly so she doesn’t see her mom covered in dried blood.
We sneak in through the garage and head for the bathroom.
After a shower, a doctor I know shows up and looks at Marnie’s arm.
He has to dig out the bullet that is logged next to her bone.
She’ll have to have a brace on her arm for a bit while the bone heals.
None of us know how she was able to keep the pain from bothering her too much during the attack. It was as if she wasn’t injured. She never complained until the doctor had to numb the area to get the bullet out. My girl is tough, and I’m so proud of her.
After we get Oly in bed, I lie down, holding my girl in my arms. She hasn’t cried at all for the deaths she witnessed today. I’m waiting for it all to hit her.
“I’m sorry about Juneau. I tried to warn him that Silas was coming up behind us.”
“It’s not your fault, baby.”
“I know. It just hurts. I liked him. He was a sweet kid.”
“He was. He should have contacted backup before you got to the bakery, though.”
“It was my fault. I wanted to get there before any damage could happen.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not your fault.”
I reach down into my pocket and pull out the ring I put there after our shower.
“How did you find me so fast?” she asks the million-dollar question.
“Well, baby, I had a tracker put into your property vest.”
She turns her head to look at the leather cut tucked in a bag, waiting to be taken to the cleaner to get the blood out. I’ll get her a new one.
“That was a brilliant idea.” She turns back to me and rolls me to my back, then straddles my hips.
I grab her left hand and slide the ring onto it. “I’m not asking again. You’re mine. You and Oly are my family now.”
“Yes.” She leans down and kisses me.
I make slow, sweet love to her before she begs me for deep and dirty.