Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Then I swung my bat, hitting Balthazar straight across the side of his head.
He slumped down into the chair like he’d had his strings cut, and I turned to go back to Kennedy.
Only, the moment I stepped a foot in the direction of her, my front door was kicked in and Detective Mueller was there.
“Drop the weapon!” he screamed.
I dropped the bat and gestured to the hallway, wary of the gun that the detective had pointed at me.
“Get on the ground,” he ordered, gesturing to the ground.
I’d been avoiding the ground.
Looking at the ground was admitting to myself that Gertie was gone, and I refused to do that right then.
In a while, once I was sure that Kennedy was okay, then I’d confront one of my worst fears.
Then, I’d look.
Right now? No, I was not getting on the ground.
“There’s someone else in the house with my fiancé,” I told Mueller. “He’s in my bedroom. She’s in there, likely naked and vulnerable, and I’m not leaving her to whomever has her.”
Mueller stared at me, gauging my sincerity, and nodded once.
He moved past me down my hallway, shuffling his feet and making so much goddamn noise that I wanted to pull my hair out.
The man was inexperienced, and I had no doubt in my mind that he was about to kill not just himself, but me and Kennedy right along with him.
I was right behind him, ready to intervene if I was needed with my bat, and wasn’t prepared.
Not for what I saw the moment that the door was thrown open by Mueller.
First rule in combat, always be prepared.
Mueller hadn’t even anticipated the shot that came at him before he threw the door open.
Hell, he’d just stood there like a goddamn idiot.
The lucky thing for him—and for me—was that he was about half a foot shorter than me, something that, unfortunately for the man who was holding my woman, he hadn’t expected.
And Walter had wasted his shot.
He’d thought that it was me, and he’d aimed high.
Mueller returned fire in the next instant, making my heart leap straight out of my chest.
I wasn’t confident in his detective skills, and I sure as fuck wasn’t confident in his hostage negotiation skills.
But the man was nothing if not lucky.
He took one shot, and that one shot missed Kennedy’s face by less than an inch.
Nobody would’ve ever taken that shot on the fly like Mueller had without first taking the time to aim.
No, not Mueller.
He just shot at hip level and let it fly, nearly losing his head when I barely corralled the urge to aim my bat at the stupid fucker’s head.
My brother hit the floor with a meaty thud, and Kennedy went right along with him, the weight of his body still holding onto hers and taking her down whether she wanted to go or not.
But she didn’t stay there for long. Moments after hitting the floor, she was scrambling away, heading straight for me.
Mueller walked over to the dead man, nearly stepping on Kennedy’s fingers, and pressed his hand to Walter’s neck.
“Shit, he’s gone.”
He picked up the gun that Walter had in his hand before he fell, and then shoved it into the waistband of his jeans.
“You okay?” he asked Kennedy, who’d finally arrived at my feet and crawled her way into my arms.
I was shaking.
I couldn’t breathe.
And I was seconds away from beating the living shit out of Mueller.
Literally, if there wasn’t so much wrong with this situation, I would’ve beat the man to death until there was absolutely nothing left of him that was recognizable.
That’s when I became aware that we weren’t alone in the house any longer.
Which was a good thing, because I was an instant away from losing my shit.
That, and Kennedy was losing it in my arms.
“Oh, God,” she whispered over and over. “Oh, God. Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Evander. Oh, God.”
I squeezed her tighter.
“Get down on the ground!”
That was the chief of police.
Just fucking lovely.
“I said get down on the ground!”
That’s when I realized that he was talking to me.
***
“Sir, my client was in his own home. In his bed. Practically naked.” My new lawyer, some hot shot from a few towns over named Todd something or other, growled at the chief of police. “He’s, in fact, still in his underwear. You haven’t given him food or water in over seven hours, and you’re violating so many of his rights here that I don’t even know where to start.”
I agreed.
Yet I kept my mouth shut.
“I’ve got a few men that want to have a chat with you.”
That was news to me.
I glanced at the door when it was opened, surprised to see three large men standing there.
Rafe was one of them. With him was an older man with a fan-fucking-tastic beard and another male who looked ready to rip everyone’s head off.