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The foaming started at his mouth as his body jerked.
“You’ll never hurt another child. That ends tonight. You might have helped give me life, but you’re going to hell, knowing I was the one who took yours away.”
Just before his eyes rolled back in his head and the thrashing began, I saw the realization. He recognized me.
“You will never destroy another little girl again.”
I sat there for a few moments more, and then the tap on my window drew my attention to Cax. I opened the door and stepped out. The gulf breeze smelled cleaner now. It blew my hair back as my gaze went from the car Roger was dying in to the water where his body would be dropped.
“You still going out on the boat? You don’t have to,” Cax told me.
Cax had been a regular at a bar I used to work at two years ago. He was a nice guy. Married with a kid. Rough around the edges, and I was sure he was involved in some criminal stuff, but he loved that kid. Bragged about him all the time.
I had been walking out of the bar late one night, and Cax was being pressed up against the building face-first. Another man had a gun to his head. All I thought about was that little boy losing his dad. A good dad. Not the kind of monster I’d had. So, I acted on instinct and took the gun I kept on me at all times from my bag. Quietly, I moved up behind them, and when my barrel met the other man’s head, he froze.
“Drop the gun,” I’d barked like I knew what the hell I was doing.
The man lowered his gun. When he turned around to face me, I knew I was going to have to make a decision to kill him or not. If I didn’t, he would kill me or both of us. If I did … then I’d have killed a man.
The shot that rang out wasn’t mine. Cax had taken the distraction and reached for his own gun, then put a bullet through the man’s head.
I was in shock when it was over and had blood splattered on me.
Cax had sworn to me then that he owed me. Anything. All I had to do was ask.
“I need to see him sink,” I told him.
He nodded. “You good?” he asked, placing a hand on my shoulder and squeezing.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“We’ll get him out of the car and onto the boat. The car will be in parts, scattered to different junkyards, before the sun comes up. I promise you.”
I nodded.
“Let’s get you to the boat,” he said, taking my arm and turning me away from the car.
“Cax.”
“Yeah, doll?”
“I’m gonna need to put a bullet in his head before he goes over. I need the reassurance he is dead.”
I had asked for something that would make him suffer, and Cax had supplied the poison. But I needed more. I had to shoot my monster.
“Then, you’ll put a bullet in the fucker’s head.”
• Twenty-Eight •
“Maybe I should have just gone with the kidnapping angle.”
Briar
To say it was overwhelming might be an understatement. The long dining room table at Maeme’s was filled with people. At least four different conversations were going on at one time. Talking from the kitchen filtered in, where there were even more members of the family having breakfast.
This was my first Sunday morning experience at Maeme’s.
Storm sat to my right with his hand resting on my thigh while he was involved in a conversation with his father, King, Monte, and Stellan. From what I could gather, it was about an upcoming race and having Zephyr ready to enter. Stellan was against it so soon, but King and Storm disagreed.
“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” Rumor said, smiling at me across the table.
I’d finally gotten to meet her when we arrived today. King had done the introductions while Storm’s hand was clasping mine firmly, as if he thought I needed support. I’d learned from Storm that her abuse hadn’t ended with Roger; she’d married a man who beat her. She had been able to escape when her husband had wronged the family, and they’d gone into his home and shot him.
I nodded my head. “That it is,” I agreed.
“It’s much tamer now than it once was,” Annette said, leaning toward us. She was seated on the other side of Rumor. “When Barrett and the others were younger men, we had more than one brawl during breakfast. You wouldn’t know it now, but Ronan and Roland used to be hotheads. Stellan was forever breaking fights up.” She cut her eyes at Barrett, then grinned back at us. “And Barrett was no help at all. He just egged them on.”
“When Stellan couldn’t stop the fights, Maeme always did,” Luella said with a chuckle.
