CHAPTER17
Today is the day. I’m going to go and take my River back and kill every motherfucker that thought it was okay to touch what is mine. If I’m being honest, she’s been mine since I first saw her. I knew she was different when she didn’t immediately fight me about us marrying each other. She just came up with an elaborate plan to kill me instead, and that’s truly something special.
“Are you ready?” I call to my men. We’re getting ready to get into the SUVs and head to her house.
“Don’t forget where you’re supposed to go once we get there. Let’s go, men.”
We all load up and start the thirty-minute drive to her house. Some of us have handguns, while others have larger semi-automatic rifles slung across their chest. Everyone is armed with something though. We’re not going to have a chat. I’m going to exterminate. We had someone staking out the property and they have been relaying information back for the last twenty-four hours. Her father left about fifteen minutes ago and shouldn’t be back for another couple of hours. We just have to take care of the people at the house, and then find my River. I have something special planned for her once she’s back in my arms.
We finally make it to about a block away from her house. They’re on several acres of property so we are going to be able to torch the fence and make our way through the side. That way, they’re less likely to be notified we’re here. They have someone riding an ATV around the perimeter with the acreage, but once they do a lap, they will wait another hour before they do another. We cut the hole into the fencing with a torch and have it placed behind some shrubbery. We take a moment to collect ourselves before moving forward. We stick to the dark shadows as long as possible before going into our assigned positions. The guys are all around the house to prepare to go in from every angle except from the second story. Our goal is to kill every last person and keep River out of harm’s way.
I give the signal and we all ambush. People are going in through every window and door possible and all hell breaks loose. There’s a combination of bullets, dust, and smoke in the air from all the gunshots. People are dropping and screaming. I get my bearings about me and look toward the staircase. I know she has to be upstairs somewhere because of the men running in that direction. I take aim at the one climbing the stairs and hit him in the leg. He clutches the wound and goes tumbling back down the stairs as I creep closer.
I keep my gun raised as I take out another guard running toward the banister, but no one is going to make it past me.
I watch another two running toward my location drop as I turn to run up the stairs. My guys downstairs know to watch this area. They’ll make sure no one else makes it up here. I keep my head on a swivel as I start looking for where Briar could possibly be when I see a foot peek out from a doorway. In the same breath, I hear a hiss from that room, and I take off. She is on the floor, pulling at something around her neck. She looks up at me and tears well in her eyes.
“You came for me,” she says.
“Of course I did,” I say as I lower myself to her level. I grab her and pull her into me. I breathe her in as she wraps her arms around me and clings to me. She still feels like my River although there is something about her that seems a little more frail. She still smells like my River, although my scent has been washed from her.
I pull back to look at her and notice the collar and angry-looking marks all around her neck.
“What the fuck is this,” I say, turning her head one way and then another.
“Ezra,” she says as she pulls away from me. She immediately wraps herself back around me and burrows her head in my shoulder. “I missed you,” she says.
I take a moment to really savor this moment. My dick is liking the contact too, but I’m currently trying to ignore that head.
“Okay, let me look at you, River.”
She lets me move her head and observe the wounds.
She chuckles. “You know my name isn’t River, right?”
I stare straight into her eyes and let myself have a moment. She needs me to be soft right now.
“Yes, Briar, I realize your name isn’t River. When I first saw your eyes, I thought of a river I saw when visiting Northern California. You see, the Shasta River is mainly spring-fed from Mount Shasta itself, but it is the most beautiful blue color. When I saw your eyes, those two things correlated themselves and it stuck.” I give her a smirk.
“Now please explain to me what the fuck this thing is?”
She starts spinning it and shows me the box with the prongs.
“They were fucking electrocuting you?” I say with a roar.
She nods her head.
“Yeah, there’s some sort of invisible fence around the room. If I try to cross the doorway, it shocks me. Obviously, I don’t listen very well because I kept trying.”
“Let’s get this off.”
A gunshot hasn’t rung out in a minute, but I still proceed with caution walking to the staircase. I yell down to Vincent to bring me some lock cutters. He has a bag of tools that we brought with us since we didn’t know what we were walking into with her. Once he brings them up, I snip the lock that was holding the back of the collar together.
It falls off her neck and onto the ground, and she immediately puts her hands on the area to soothe it. I pick her up and carry her into the adjacent bathroom to clean up some of the wounds.
“Vincent, downstairs needs to be picked up before her father gets back. I want bodies packed up and ready to be disposed of. Anything noticeable outside needs to be taken care of to not alarm him before entering the house. We don’t have long though, I’m going to clean her up and then we’re going to wait for him to return.”
He walks away, and I turn my attention back to Briar. I start to rummage through drawers until I find a face towel. I run it under hot water and bring it up to her neck. I dab at the wounds, and she hisses and pulls away.
“I know it hurts, baby. This will make it better though.”
She lets me continue my mission until the crusted blood and whatever else that has oozed is cleaned up.
The next step, kill her son-of-a-bitch father.