Chapter 29 #2
“I’ll just tell her his crew have turned on her and to not let them inside,” Caden shrugged, and Rory sighed slightly as she curled into me more.
It was hurting her to know Skeeter was now her enemy, but I wasn’t sure she was really soaking it in either.
She hadn’t visited Slash’s grave, choosing to go with the denial route and not face the fact Slash was actually gone, and between that, her time in prison, and now losing Skeeter, it was like she was aware what was going down, but she refused to acknowledge it.
She needed to face it before she gave herself a mental breakdown.
Rory
An alarm blared in the middle of the night, jerking me out of my sleep as the bedroom door was shoved open and Caden appeared.
“You good?” he demanded, panic on his face.
“I’m fine. What’s—”
“Someone’s in the house. Lock the door and get your gun. I need to check on Mom,” he said, cutting me off. “Move, Aurora!”
It took a second for my brain to catch up, but I scrambled from the bed and grabbed my gun and phone, moving towards him.
“You stay with Josie, I’ll stay with the guys,” I promised, and I could tell he didn’t want to leave me, but he finally took off up the hallway.
Josie had changed the codes after dinner, not wanting Skeeter to have access, but it would only be screaming if someone said fuck it and broke in, not if they got the code wrong.
Skeeter was pissed, but I doubted he was angry enough to barge his way inside and murder me in front of everyone.
Who the fuck was in the house?
Tyler appeared in the hallway, he’d crashed with Caden when I’d said I wanted to be alone, so I grabbed him and let myself into Jensen’s room, where he was climbing out of bed with Lukas.
“What’s going on?” Lukas asked, not hiding the fear in his voice. “Someone’s inside?”
“Apparently. Caden’s gone to Josie and he has a gun. We’ll stay holed up in here until the cops arrive,” I replied, jumping when something slammed in the hallway. It happened again a moment later, and Jensen’s eyes widened as I quickly locked the door.
“They’re kicking the doors in.”
“Get in the bathroom,” I ordered, giving Tyler a small shove when he didn’t move. “Go on. If anyone comes in, I’ll shoot. Simple.”
“Not simple,” Lukas hissed, but I gave him a dirty look.
“Do any of you know how to shoot? No? Then get the fuck out of the way.”
“I’m not leaving you in a room with a potential murderer,” he bit out, staying next to me.
Murmurs filled the hallway, alerting us to the fact there were multiple people, and I raised my gun as a door closer to our room banged open.
“Rory—” Tyler started, but I cut him off fast.
“Shut up. I need to try and listen over the alarm.”
I could vaguely hear shuffling as the people moved through the bedrooms to check them all, and I was ready when the door to Jensen’s bedroom flew open, my brain registering the unfamiliar face and the gun in his hand for barely a second before I pulled the trigger.
Shouts came next, and I didn’t give his buddy a chance to shoot me first when he appeared in the doorway with his gun raised, mine going off instantly.
I could get charged for having an unmarked firearm, but it was self-defense, they broke in and had guns.
It was quiet in the hallway, other than the alarm, so I crept closer to the door to take a peek, jerking back when a bullet shot past my face.
“Fucking asshole,” I growled, listening as best as I could to hear him coming closer, then I dropped lower and aimed around the doorway, firing and praying I hit him.
He screamed and went down, giving me a chance to take a look, and I quickly darted out to tackle him, pinning his arms behind his back as I straddled his thighs.
“You guys good?” Caden asked as he ran towards us, keeping his gun raised and eyes up.
“Yeah, we’re all good. No idea who these fuckers are. I don’t recognize them,” I answered. “Hey, asshole. Who sent you?” He was groaning in pain, ignoring my request for information, so I pistol whipped him and sighed as he went slack under me. “What a pain in the ass.”
“Oh my God,” Josie exclaimed, jogging towards us in her silk nightgown. “Are you all okay?”
“Go back to your room. There could be more,” Caden snapped, but she gave him a stern look.
“And leave you out here?”
“I think we have it handled,” I said dryly, tapping the gun against the guy’s head.
“Do you know who they are or what they want?” she asked, keeping her distance. She was going to have to replace the carpet, they were bleeding all over it.
“Their names are dead, gone, and injured, and two would like a casket, the other some handcuffs,” I smiled, not meaning to make a joke out of it, but my nerves needed something new to focus on.
“That’s not funny. Get off him,” she scolded.
“Only if someone has handcuffs. He’s still kicking,” I grumbled, not at all surprised when Caden vanished into his room and reappeared with cuffs in hand, much to his mother’s horror. He helped me slap the cuffs on him, then I stood and eyed my handiwork. “Not bad.”
“Aurora, get away from him,” Josie scowled, telling me she was really frazzled because she never called me that. “Where are the police?!”
“This is why you don’t rely on cops,” Hunter drawled as he materialized at the top of the stairs in a hoodie and sweats like he’d been in bed too, taking in the scene. “Recognize them?”
I didn’t bother asking why he was here, he probably had alerts set up for our damn system. If he’d been in bed, he’d gotten here super fucking fast.
“Nope. They didn’t make demands or anything, just tried shooting,” I shrugged, motioning to the gun. “Am I in trouble for using this?”
“No, just don’t tell them where you got it. It’s untraceable,” he answered, moving closer to brush my hair from my face. I probably looked like a hot mess from bailing out of bed and shooting people. “You’re okay?”
I nodded, the adrenaline crash starting to hit me. “We’re not hurt. Should you be here? Won’t they think that’s suspicious?”
“We’re not hiding anything. You had to defend yourself. It’s going to be a long night though because they’ll definitely drag you in for questioning. You just got released from prison, even if the case didn’t stick. They’ll have their eyes on you.”
“This is ridiculous. I’m calling the department and the security company to turn the alarm off,” Josie bit out, stalking back to her room to grab her phone, and Hunter started talking, wanting to get as much out as possible before Josie came back.
“This can’t have been the Soldiers, they don’t want Rory dead. Psychos would do their own dirty work too.”
“The Soldiers tried to take her out in prison though, didn’t they? Could it be the Reapers? She was fucking their leader’s wife,” Caden offered, but I shook my head.
“Doubtful. Archer’s already approached me and thanked me for having her back in there.”
“That might have been before he found out you were also putting her on her back,” Tyler joked, clearing his throat when no one laughed. “Sorry.”
Hunter looked thoughtful, but not convinced. “Potentially, he could be pissed about it, but pissed enough to break into this place and start shooting? Doubtful. I’ll ask him if he knows anything about it. I also don’t think it was the Soldiers in prison. Something doesn’t add up with that.”
“Um, I’ll ask Archer myself, thank you very much. If he’s got beef with me, then he can say it to my face,” I hissed, making him shrug.
“Fine, but if I have to drag a third crew into a war over you, I will. If he did it, I’m killing him.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not?” he asked seriously, and I honestly didn’t have an answer for him.
The alarm stopped not long before Josie scurried back out while on the phone, describing the scene, and Hunter sighed.
“We should wait in the kitchen. Put the guns away, but keep that one where the cops can see it when they get here. Keep it away from you too so they don’t think you’ll use it against them. Cops are jumpy.”
Caden stashed his gun away, and Hunter hauled the injured guy behind us as we headed downstairs to wait, leaving him on the floor where we could see him.
Josie frantically spoke to the cops when they arrived, and as expected, they were more than happy to haul me to the station for questioning.
“I’ll bring her,” Josie scowled, but the cop snorted.
“Sorry, Josie. She needs to ride with us.”
“Let her get dressed first.”
“No one is leaving this room until we’re done.”
“It’s the middle of fucking winter. You can’t expect her to step outside in a tank and sleep shorts,” Hunter growled as he toed his shoes off and took his keys from the pocket of his sweats, turning them inside out to show they were empty.
He didn’t hesitate to kick them off and kneel down in front of me, letting me hold onto his shoulders as he helped me step into them before he tied the string to stop them from falling down.
Then, he peeled his hoodie off and shook it to show it wasn’t hiding anything before moving towards me and shoving it over my head. It engulfed my entire body, looking more like a dress on me, and when he stood back and started taking his socks off, I scoffed. “You can keep your—”
“Put them on, and they can let you put shoes on. Josie can follow you, and I’ll stay with the guys here until the cops are done.”
I blinked at him, a little surprised by his outburst as he put his warm socks onto my bare feet, and Josie gave him a look of appreciation as the cops let me grab some shoes off the rack by the door. Pretty sure they were a pair of Caden’s, they were a little big.
“I’ll be right behind you, honey. Don’t say anything until Kirk gets there. He’s in town, so he won’t be long,” she called out as she grabbed her keys, following in the outfit she’d thrown on before we’d come downstairs earlier, slippers still on her feet.
The cops were a little rough as they shoved me into the back of the car, the yard now swarming with cops to make sense of the crime scene upstairs.