Chapter Twenty-Four
MASON
IT’S BEEN a while since Sloane went upstairs, she should be back by now. The hairs on my neck stand up as I glance at the clock on the wall, I didn’t pay attention to the time when she went up, but she’s usually in the kitchen getting dinner ready by now.
Unease skitters up my spine and I look out the window to see if anything is unusual, but it’s already dark out. The feeling that something is wrong is swirling in my gut, so I step out to the hallway to look around and notice the front porch light is off.
We never turn that light off.
The next odd thing is Wilson standing next to the door. He only does that when he’s waiting for Lainey Rai. He turns and looks at me, his tongue hanging out and then he closes his mouth and whines as he cocks his head.
Dad and Gray’s voices are muffled behind his office door down the hall, which is normal, so I walk around just to look in the other rooms.
Callum steps out of the kitchen and looks down the hall at me. “Everything alright?”
I stop in the hall and turn to him, “Does something feel ‘off’ to you?”
Wilson barks and we both look in his direction.
Callum takes a breath to answer me just as the first bullet flies through the front window next to the door and we both fall to the floor. I yell, “Everybody down!”
My first thought is of Sloane and if she’s in her room.
The door to Dad’s office flies open behind me and he and Gray are crawling through the door, Gray is leading the way and heading right for the stairs to get to Lainey Rai. Screaming starts to pierce the air upstairs, and I start crawling toward the entryway next to him.
More bullets fly through the front windows, it sounds like there may only be two or three guns and I look for Callum, he has crawled into the foyer and is sitting behind the large coat cabinet next to the front door. He’s pulled his Ruger from his leg holster and is checking the magazine.
As Spits crawls next to me to go to the entryway with Callum, he signals that they’ll watch the front, and he points for me to go upstairs. I don’t see Jax anywhere.
“Daddy!” Lainey Rai is standing at the top of the stairs with a mask of terror on her face. Wilson bolts up the stairs and pushes against her legs to try and herd her to her room.
“Get down!” Gray and I bellow at the same time.
She screams and starts to cry as she squats down and puts her hands over her ears, her long hair falling around her legs like a curtain. Even squatted down with her little body tightly folded into a ball, she is still an easy target at the top of the stairs and my heart starts to race.
Wilson stands in front of her, but he’s no guarantee against bullets.
Gray starts to scramble up the stairs to get to her with no regard for his own safety, but before he gets halfway up the stairs, Jax runs up behind her and grabs her small body to hold to him as he turns around and runs back down the hall.
He must have run up the back stairs when the shooting started.
Knowing that Jax is upstairs with the girls I turn and do a squat run to the family room where one of my sniper guns is leaning against the wall. Callum and Spits are breaking out the shards of glass from the windows on each side of the front door and I hear return fire.
The window in the family room is already broken and I look around the edge to find the source of the shooting. The black SUV is back and is sitting where the driveway meets the front door yard of the house, there looks to be three figures.
With no comms, I can’t communicate with the guys, and I watch through my scope as one of the dark figures steps around the back of the SUV with what looks like a Maltov and lights the cloth sticking out of the top.
Taking a calming breath, I watch the cloth light his face up, it’s the same guy that threatened the girls earlier. With my rifle balanced on the window I smile, “That’s right mother fucker, lift it up.”
As he lifts it to throw, I shoot the bottle, the liquid ignites in a loud whoosh and falls on the asshole who was about to throw it. He starts screaming and running away from the house, the other two guys pause and watch him before they look at each other.
Putting the guy who is standing next to the driver’s door in my crosshairs, I pull the trigger, and he falls to the ground.
The guy that was next to him ducks behind the car and I yell out to Callum and Spits, “Two down, the last one is hiding behind the car, I’ll cover you.”
Spits yells back, “Roger that.”
Light from the front door spills out over the yard and the guy that was ducked down lifts his head just enough to peek through the windows and I shoot out the window over his head.
I want this guy alive; he’s going to tell us who we’re gonna visit in return for this little attack. At my fucking home where my family is.
He ducks again but holds his gun over the edge and fires toward the house, I hear a grunt through the window on the front porch, so I shoot his trigger finger. The gun falls into the driver’s seat and the guy starts to howl in pain.
I wait for Callum and Spits to move around the SUV and get to him before I set my gun down and run for the stairs, I pass Jax as he comes down to go out and help them. Dad, Gray, and Tucker are with all the girls in Dad’s room at the back of the hall, but I don’t see Sloane.
“Where’s Sloane?” I don’t ask anyone in particular but everyone looks around and shakes their heads. I turn and run to her room, my insides twisting with each step.
She’s not in the room so I stride into the bathroom and look around, pushing back the shower curtain. She’s not here.
“Sloane!” I yell and jog down the back stairs into the kitchen.
No answer.
Each room I look in is empty and I end up back in the kitchen where everyone has moved to and taking stock of any damage.
Callum is speaking to everyone in the room when I step in, “Don’t go out front until we’ve had a chance to clean up.”
Jax and Tucker are not in the room, I assume they are dealing with the guy who is now short a trigger finger and the bodies.
Breanna is looking at the bullet graze on Spits’ arm with the first aid kit open on the counter.
The unease in my gut is turning to panic, and pressure is building behind my forehead. “I can’t find Sloane; did anyone see her before the shooting started?”
All the heads in the room are shaking as they look around at each other until my eyes land on Kinley, she looks nervous about something. My eyes narrow and I focus on her, “Kinley?”
She’s shaking her head, and now every eye in the room is on her. “Did Sloane talk to you this afternoon?” She is holding her thumbs together in front of her, popping her nails together, it’s a nervous habit she’s had since she was a kid.
Trying desperately to maintain my cool and squash the panic squeezing my chest, I take a deep breath and remind myself that she is not the bad guy, “Not much, why?”
She takes a step back and her eyes move over the faces that are turned to her, “Uhm, she asked me not to tell you. I thought she might have talked to you already.”
Curling my fingers into my palms and then straightening them once, I take a deep breath and say, “Kinley.” Even though she is thirty years old, I feel like I still have to use the same tone I used when we were kids way too often when talking to her.
“Uhm, I noticed that she was getting sick a lot, so I gave her a pregnancy test. At first, she said she didn’t need it but then she remembered something, and she freaked out, she begged me not to tell you because you might think she’s trying to trap you.”
My stomach twists into tight knots as she talks and, in my peripheral, I see Marley bring her hand to her mouth.
Breanna has stopped looking at Spits’ arm and both of them swivel their heads in my direction.
Dad leans against the doorway and hooks his thumbs in his pockets, his poker face front and center.
Pregnant? That can’t be, we always use a condom.
Kinley sees the shock on my face and says, “I don’t know for sure; I left the box with her, so I don’t know if she took the test.”
My heart is beating against my chest so hard that it feels like it might break out, I turn away from all the eyes that are now on me and take the stairs two at a time. Every time we had sex is playing through my head as I walk into her room and then I remember the shower at the hotel.
Fuck.
It was my fault; I forgot the condom. She felt so good that I didn’t want to leave her silky heat and I took my time pulling out.
I didn’t come in her, but if I remember correctly from high school sex ed.
, that doesn’t matter. I scan the bathroom and see the box on the counter, it hasn’t been opened, does that mean she knows already?
Is that why she asked me about when I was going back to work earlier? She seemed troubled by something, but we got distracted when I saw the guy outside.
Fuck.
“Oh God, Mason!” I hear Marley’s voice in the bedroom.
Spinning on my heel, I walk out of the bathroom and see a piece of paper in Marley’s hand.
Meet me at the end of the driveway in thirty minutes or we will burn the house and take the little girl in your place.
“Where did you find this?” My eyes snap up to Marley.
She points to the bed and shakes her head, “It was on the bed. Mason, do you think they have her? Mason, this could mean…” Panic is laced in her words as her voice gets more strained with each word.
“I know Marley, don’t say it.” I’m snapping at her, and I immediately feel guilty.
If there is anyone in the world who might understand how Sloane feels, it’s Marley.
After that stupid fuck raped her, she was never the same, the cocksure attitude we shared was gone, replaced by the quiet, reserved woman that doesn’t like to leave the house.
Her teeth clack together when she snaps her jaw shut and she shrinks back, taking a step away as her gaze falls to the bed.