Chapter Twenty-Three
Anything that happened next would be on Blaize. He shouldn’t have brought Carys out here into the thicket. He shouldn’t have gone after Silus half-cocked with no weapon or plan. And he shouldn’t have let Carys get past him just now.
She’d chosen his injured side, so he couldn’t stop her from running toward Rue. He couldn’t blame Carys. He wanted to do the exact same thing.
It wasn’t the best move.
He winced as he expected to hear another round being fired. Either way, he wouldn’t wait. He took off after Carys and toward the abandoned vehicle.
The engine idled.
Silus had taken off in a hurry. What did that mean?
The answer came in the form of a downed tree lying across the road, blocking it. There was no way the vehicle could drive over it. He could have in his Jeep. But Silus would never get the sedan over the massive trunk.
Maybe his luck was turning. He’d had enough bad luck to last a lifetime. Were the powers that be finally giving him a break?
Carys got to the vehicle first. The loss of blood made him dizzy and move slower. He was halfway there when the crack of a bullet split the air. The world stilled, and everything moved in slow motion.
Carys dropped to the ground. Hit?
He instinctively dove for cover, then army-crawled toward her despite the biting pain in his arm.
“Did it…”
He couldn’t manage to finish the question. Then he didn’t need to. She rolled onto her side, and he saw a red dot flowering on her upper thigh.
Blaize cursed the heavens and earth.
He immediately stripped off his shirt.
“No. You need that,” she said, eyes wide in a state of mild shock.
“You need it more.” If they didn’t stem the bleeding, she might bleed out. Now that he’d found her, he couldn’t lose her. Not her, too.
He wrapped the shirt around her thigh slightly above the wound and tightened the knot enough to slow the bleeding, if not stop it altogether. “Let’s get you in the back seat.”
Could he hop into the front and turn this vehicle around? Head back to the house?
There wasn’t much of a choice, was there? Neither of them were in any condition to run back to the house. Add the weight of carrying the baby and it would be next to impossible.
The nagging question of why Silus abandoned the car and baby niggled at the back of his mind. All he could focus on right now was getting the three of them to safety.
He helped Carys into the back. “Stay down. Okay?”
“Okay,” she parroted.
Another nagging question surfaced. Why only one shot?
They were out in the open. Did Silus know he’d hit both his targets and figured it was a matter of time before they bled out?
Problem solved without even having to get his hands dirty?
Or was he saving bullets until he could get in closer range in case he’d missed?
Would he panic and take off? The shots meant to stop anyone from following? Silus wasn’t normally the one to get his hands dirty, was he?
Blaize took the driver’s seat and closed the door. He sank as low as possible into the seat, not bothering to put on his seat belt. The smaller the target he made, the better.
Rather than turn the vehicle around, he put the gearshift in reverse and sped backward until it seemed safe. Only then did he turn the vehicle around for the rest of the drive to the house. The only other road meant driving by the house again. So be it.
“How are you doing back there?” he asked Carys.
Rue had stopped crying, and it was far too quiet in the back seat as far as he was concerned. He glanced at the rearview. Carys’s head was lying against the headrest, bobbling back and forth on the gravelly road.
“I’m okay,” she said, her voice weak.
Could he get back to the house and call for emergency medical treatment? Or should he risk getting on the road? There were probably some supplies back at the house. Had the makeshift torniquet’s knot come loose? Had the bullet hit an artery?
“Stay with me,” he said to her, more plea than request. “I can’t lose you, Carys. I love you.” He risked a glance. “You should know that I’ve fallen in love with you and I can’t imagine spending another minute without you.”
He couldn’t lose Carys.
Did she hear him?
Was she conscious?
The fact she hadn’t responded made the decision to stop at the house clear. She might not make it to the hospital. At the house, she had a fighting chance.
He couldn’t lose Carys.
Blaize sped to Sister’s Love. He pulled up in front, not bothering to park. He couldn’t get out of the driver’s seat fast enough. He immediately pulled Carys from the car. Her head fell to one side. No. Not a good sign.
He couldn’t lose Carys.
The front door opened, and Rosie stumbled onto the porch. Eyes wide, mouth open, her look of shock and sudden jerk forward said she was pushed from behind. Sharon came out next in similar fashion.
And then Silus came partially into view. He stood behind the ladies.
“Turn your head,” he said to Sharon.
She winced as he forced her to comply, revealing that he had the barrel of a gun pressed to the back of her head. The redhead was crying as she mouthed the words I’m sorry.
She couldn’t have known any of this was going to happen. Blaize couldn’t blame her for trying to survive and make a better life for her child.
A desperate person took desperation actions.
“Give us the baby and walk away,” Silus said.
“The woman with me needs medical care, or she’s going to die,” Blaize said. “If she dies, that makes you a murderer.”
“Hand over the baby,” Silus said, his voice reaching an almost hysterical pitch. The man was agitated.
Sharon subtly shook her head and mouthed the word no.
“Do as I say, or I’ll shoot you both,” Silus demanded.
“How should we do this?” Blaize asked.
“Get her out of my car and step away,” he said. “I’ll take it from there.”
“How do you plan to get out of this, Silus? What comes next?” Blaize realized the man wouldn’t want to leave witnesses.
There were four, with himself and Carys being the wild cards in the equation.
“This hasn’t gone so far that you can’t walk away.
Let me get her inside and stop the bleeding before it’s too late. ”
“Once you step away from the vehicle, you can do anything you want. Now, do what I said or I’ll start shooting beginning with Sharon.”
“You don’t want to shoot the mother of your child,” Blaize warned.
If he did as Silus asked, the man could disappear with Sharon and the baby into his criminal network.
The two might not surface for years, if they did at all.
He would likely shoot Rosie if he took her along for the ride.
Dump the body somewhere it might never be found.
Silus was known for pressuring business owners into paying protection money. He had enough ties to thugs to hide behind them for ages. He could skip across the border, run his business from there. Force Sharon to live in horror with the threat of taking her daughter away.
No wonder she disappeared, changed her name, and then tried to fake her death.
At some point, CPS would have linked Stephanie to Sharon, Rue would be in safe hands—his!
—and then Sharon could have come back to retrieve her daughter once the dust settled.
She could have started a new life in another place.
“I said now!” Silus was growing more desperate.
This wasn’t good.
“Okay, just give me a minute to get her out of the car safely,” he said, stalling for time.
Once Silus got everyone into the car, it would be much easier to slip away and disappear.
The law didn’t have a great track record of shutting the man’s business down.
No, Silus had figured out how to get around the legal system.
He knew how to fly under the radar, using others to do the heavy lifting for him.
At this point, Sharon would likely testify under oath that she wanted to go with Silus of her own free will. The shooting could be chalked up to accidents. Who the hell knew what this man was capable of pulling off.
Slowly, carefully, he wrapped arms around Carys and gently pulled her from the vehicle.
Her eyes opened for a few seconds, locking onto his. Was she conscious?
He could have sworn she winked at him, but he was probably just seeing what he wanted to instead of the reality that he was losing her with every second that ticked by.
Silus knocked Sharon forward another step. Rosie gasped.
“Shut the hell up, woman, or I’ll shoot every last one of you.” The threat rang hollow to Blaize. Silus couldn’t afford to shoot everyone, but Rosie panicked. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth and tried to step away.
He pistol-whipped her across the cheek. The older woman let out a pitiful yelp.
“Don’t hurt her,” Sharon said, panicked. “I’ll do whatever you want, but leave Rosie out of this.”
“That woman kept you from me while you were carrying my child,” Silus bit out through clenched teeth. “She doesn’t deserve to—”
“Please, Silus,” Sharon begged. “She didn’t know that I was your girl.”
Those last two words were fingernails on a chalkboard to Blaize. First of all, Sharon was not a girl, she was a grown woman. And secondly, she didn’t belong to anyone except herself.
The trio moved toward them. Silus kept the gun firmly pointed to the back of Sharon’s head. Based on the panic in her eyes, he would shoot if pushed too far.
Blaize held Carys in his arms, taking another step back.
“Move,” Silus insisted.
Blaize took another step. He was too far away to make a move without risking Silus accidently squeezing the trigger mechanism. He bit back a few choice words.
“Get in first,” Silus said to Rosie, kicking her as she turned toward the back driver’s-side door.
It was still open, and there was blood on the seat and floorboard.
At least they were leaving a DNA trail that would be next to impossible to cover.
If the police could catch up to Silus before he torched the vehicle.
It dawned on Blaize why Sharon would have “died” in a fiery crash. The fire would erase all DNA evidence. It also made the driver impossible to positively ID. If Sharon wasn’t in the vehicle, who was? Did she murder someone? Drug them and then set the car ablaze?
Sharon might end up in jail for murder the rest of her life when Blaize turned Silus in. Where would that leave Rue?
As Silus passed by, Carys’s body seized. For a split second, Blaize feared she might be dying, but then she opened her eyes and was surprisingly lucid.
Her foot, however, landed on Silus’s ribs. She kicked so hard, he flew into the driver’s-side door. Caught by surprise, the gun flew out of his hand.
Sharon screamed, processed what had just happened, and before Silus could regain his balance, she went wild on him, kicking and punching and screaming.
Carys bucked out of Blaize’s arms. As much as he tried to balance her, she still landed on the ground half on her side. Something cracked. Her wrist, maybe, as she planted her hand down to break her fall.
The time to act was now or never.