Piles of clothes above my head start disappearing, allowing light inside before two strong hands grab onto my shoulders and pull me out of the bin.
“No!” I scream. “Please don’t do this!” I beg the unknown person holding me as he carries me out of the room. I kick his knees and slam my elbows into his stomach, but the fucker doesn’t even flinch! “Let me go!” I yell before he slaps his palm over my mouth.
“Shut up and maybe you’ll live,” the deep voice threatens in my ear.
Devlin
* * *
My hands are shaking as I keep my gun up and at the ready. The realization that in a few minutes I could end another person’s life is weighing heavier than a ton of bricks on me. I don’t want to be a murderer, living with that shit on my conscience for the rest of my life. Before tonight, I didn’t even think I was capable of pulling the trigger to blow someone away.
But for Jetta? Fuck it. I could take on an army right now, leaving behind a massacre if it meant finding her and getting her the hell out of this place.
And her brother? Well, he better hope I find his sister unharmed or I’ll be coming for him next.
Malcolm sent Nash and I around to the front of the huge, gaudy mansion. I’m glad I’ve got my close-faced helmet on, because the visor is preventing me from being blinded by the spotlights that someone turned on throughout the yard when the first shots were fired out back. Those gunshots are my cue; and as I duck around the corner of the house, I can see the two guards at the front door holding their hands up to shield their own eyes. I spring over the low bannister and then grip my pistol in both hands just as the nearest guard spots me and raises his own weapon.
For the rest of my days on earth, I’ll struggle to articulate what those next few seconds felt like. Something happens inside of a person when they’re staring death directly in the eye. I don’t know if it’s chemical, spiritual, or some strange alchemy of the two, but in those few fleeting moments you either ascend, becoming stronger, faster, better, than you’ve ever been in your life…or you die.
I’m not an avid gun collector, so I couldn’t tell you exactly what the small sub-machine gun the guard pointed at me is called. I was damned lucky that he was apparently also unfamiliar with the weapon, as he raised it towards me with only one hand. Every nerve in my body seemed to be electrified at once, and time slowed to an almost imperceptible crawl as I pulled the trigger before he could completely turn to face me. I didn’t notice how badly my hand was shaking from the adrenaline coursing through me until my first shot, which I had intended to hit the guard center mass, flew high and struck him in his right shoulder.
My jittery hand contributed to saving my life, as the force of the slug jerked the guard to the side as he returned fire. The fully automatic weapon, held in only one of his hands, spewed forth a thunderous line of lead and fire…that raked the front of the house and missed me entirely as my second and third shots sent the man spinning to the ground. The ringing in my ears combined with the hammering of my pulse inside my head was so deafening I could barely hear Nash as he stepped over the body of the other guard across the porch.
“If he had braced that gun the right way, he might have had you,” Nash comments as he kicks the weapon off the porch. “Can’t hold an automatic with one hand; they’ll run away on you,” he adds calmly.
I clap him on the shoulder and shake my head to clear the shock that’s trying to settle over me. I don’t have time for regrets right now, especially not for hired thugs who earn a living by protecting a sex-trafficking piece of shit like Harry Cox.
When the front door swings open, both Nash and I are immediately back on guard, our weapons raised and ready. “Come on,” I hear Silas hiss from the doorway. “Get inside and help me sweep the area.”
“Malcolm and the others are already in the back,” Silas adds as we rush past him and he pulls the front door shut. “I came in through the dining room window there,” he nods towards a side hallway. “Kitchen is over there. Let’s clear out anyone in there first.”
“Did you hear that?” Silas whispers as we move quietly from the empty dining room to the kitchen.
“Hear what?” I ask because my ears are still ringing from the shots I fired and landed.
When Nash and I both glance over, he lifts his helmet’s face shield, then points at a door and mouths, “I think someone’s in the pantry.”
Could it be Jetta?
Maybe when the shooting started outside, she heard it and decided to hunker down in the closet. “Check it, carefully,” I tell Silas. “Cover the entrance,” I say to Nash. Both men nod. Nash turns his back to us to keep an eye on the cracked door to the kitchen. Silas lowers his face shield and moves quietly over closer to the pantry. Slowly, he turns the doorknob with his left hand while aiming his gun straight ahead in his right. A second later he jerks the door open wide and a woman shrieks loudly.
“Jetta?” My heart is beating a thousand thumps a minute when I rush over to get a glimpse around Silas’s shoulder. At first, I don’t see anything but shelves full of food. Then I look down. Cowering on the floor in the corner is a woman with bright, red hair that forms a mane around her young face. For an instant, I think it’s really her, but her crying eyes aren’t brown.
“Is this her? Is this Jetta?” Silas asks.
“No. Fuck,” I whisper through gritted teeth. “And this one probably brought everyone left in the house our way!”
“Should I kill her?” Silas asks coolly.
“No, you shouldn’t kill her!” I tell him, placing my hand on the top of his gun to lower the muzzle to the floor. “Who are you? Do you work for Harry?” I ask the terrified woman who just nearly had her head blown off by my twisted-ass brother. “Well? Answer me!” I demand when she doesn’t say a word and I have to keep checking over my shoulder toward Nash to see if there are more guards coming.
“I’m-I’m just a-a chef,” the woman finally stammers. “He-he forced me to c-come here and cook for him! I swear! Please don’t hurt me!”
“Shh, calm down,” I tell her. “We’re not going to hurt you,” I promise her while also warning Silas, who is a little too trigger happy. “I’m looking for a girl with red hair who was with Harry. Did you see her?”
The woman shakes her head no. “He was with a woman earlier at dinner, but her hair wasn’t red.”
“What color was it?” I ask, holding my breath.
“I can’t remember.”
“Try!” I demand.
“I only saw her for a second! I think…I think her hair was a lot of colors, okay? Maybe blue, green and purple all mixed together, but I’m not sure!”
“That’s Jetta. It has to be,” I say since she’s always changing her hair. I just didn’t know she would do it after I left tonight. Was she trying to impress her “date”? No. That’s impossible. There’s no way she would even think about being with anyone but me, especially not some sick fatso like Harry, right?
I tell myself that I know Jetta and she didn’t want any part of this “date” tonight but only agreed to it because her idiot brother pressured her into it. She loves me too, whether she wants to admit it or not. The crazy woman thinks that I’m the one who isn’t ready to settle down when I’m blowing holes in people to try and find her. If that doesn’t say committed, then I don’t know what the hell does.