He throws his head back and laughs, lowering his guard one more time, giving me a chance to strike him without him seeing. I move my foot back and come up, kicking him in his balls. This time, I don’t miss him. His hand opens, and he bends down to put his hand over his balls. I turn to sprint to the back door. My hands fumble with the lock, slipping from the blood dripping from the middle of my hand. "Come on, come on, come on," I cry out when I finally hear the click of the lock, then I slide the door open and yell, "Mayson!" I don’t know why I yell. I know he can’t possibly hear me. I’m about to take one step out the door when I hear a loud pop. "What the…?" I say, looking over my shoulder and seeing him standing there with a black gun in his hand aimed right at me.
I feel the heat run through me, and then the burning sets in. My legs give out on me, and I fall on them.
My head falls forward as I look down at the same place where we sit in the morning when we watch the sunrise. For the past three weeks, he’s smiled more. He’s looked up and seen the beauty in it. I gave him that, I think to myself as I feel water pouring down over my hand. I look down, seeing the drops of blood now running down my arm. "Mayson," I say his name again, this time in a whisper right before the darkness comes and takes me.
Chapter 31
Mayson
My feet stick to the floor like glue when I hear the words over again. "Alarm was triggered." I look around the room, seeing all the men on their phone as the room starts to spin around me. I open my mouth once, but it feels so fucking heavy. I blink now once, twice, three times.
"This can’t be happening," I mumble. "This isn’t happening." My chest fills with a pain that I’ve never had before. My hand comes up to put pressure on it, hoping the pain goes away, but it doesn’t. Instead, it just gets stronger and stronger.
"Mayson." I hear someone call my name, and I look over to see Ethan. "Let’s go." I close my eyes and open them again. His hand goes to my shoulder. "I need you to hear my words." I look at him. "He might have Chelsea." I feel my soul detaching from my body.
"I’ll kill him,” I say three words. "If he touches a hair on her head, I’m going to kill him," I say, hearing commotion behind me.
"We have to get to her." I take a step, and rage fills my body as I run down the front steps and get into the truck with Ethan. I don’t have a chance to close the door before he spins the truck and takes off. "Glove box," he says, and I open it to find a set of keys. "Under the seat."
I lean down and reach under the seat, grabbing the metal box. "There are two in there," he says, and my hand shakes while I slide the key into the lock and turn right. I pull open the lid and take out the two black Glocks. "They are both loaded," Ethan says as we race toward Chelsea's house.
We pull up in the driveway, and my hand is already on the handle, and I look over at him. "Take care of her,” I say, knowing that only one of us will be walking out of that house, and it’s going to be me, but I’ll be in handcuffs for killing my father.
I get out and run toward the front door when I hear Ethan right behind me. I stop at the front door and see that it is slightly open. The door is moving with the wind now. "Ready?" He nods his head. He kicks open the door, and both of us stay back against the wall in case shots are fired at us.
Ethan holds up his hands with three fingers as he silently counts down, and when he gets to zero, I’m the first one in the house. Crunching sounds under my boots, and I look down to see shattered glass all over the place. I’m about to take one more step when my eyes fall onto the sight of smeared blood. I bend now as Ethan walks past me into the house. My hand reaches out and touches it, but the blood is already dry. "He isn’t here," I hear and look up now, seeing Ethan huffing and puffing. He must have secured the house while I was on my knees. I walk into the kitchen, my eyes going all over the place.
I hear truck doors open and then close, and when I look back, all the men are here. Jacob rushes in with a gun in his hand, followed by Casey and Beau. "It’s clear," Ethan says, and I look when I see movement outside, and I hold up my gun.
"It’s Quinn and Asher," Casey says as I see them secure the outside.
I look to the side, and I see her shoe in the middle of the kitchen. I walk over and pick it up. "He took her."
Casey now has his phone out. "I want all the feeds from Chelsea’s house on the screen in two minutes." He looks at me. "We need to go."
My heart is lodged in my throat, and an overwhelming sense of guilt rips through me as I put my head back. "Oh my god," I hear from the side and look over at Quinn, who walks into the house. "There is a pool of blood."
I’m moving even before my brain registers what he just said. He steps back out, and I look down at the spot where we sit every single day.
The pool of blood is now shining in the sun, I hear voices all around me, but I can’t hear anything. The only thing I can see is the redness of her blood. "We need to go."
"I’ll stay here," Asher says. "In case."
"He’s not coming back here." I turn, looking at the men. Beau’s face is filled with the same fear I have on mine.
Casey’s phone rings in his hand, and he answers it now. "Casey," the man on the phone says.
"What do you have for me?" he says, putting his phone in the middle of the island.
"Nothing," he says. "I’m looking at the feed right now, and no one is home," he says, and I look up at his shocked face. "There has been no movement in the house since they both left three hours ago."
"I’m standing in the middle of the fucking kitchen right fucking now. Don’t tell me that there is no movement in the fucking house!” he roars out.
"Casey," he says his name calmly. "I’m telling you that there is nothing on my screens."
"Then I’m telling you to fucking find out where the stream went," he says between his clenched teeth. "I got an alarm notice on my phone."
I hear the clicking of the keys in the background and wait. "Casey, there is nothing at my end. The last movement I have was at eleven fifty-six, and that is them shutting the front door."
Casey grabs his phone and opens up the alerts. "I’m sending you what I got exactly five minutes ago." My hands open and close. Has it been only five minutes?
"Someone fucked with the feed," I say, looking at him. "He had someone help him from inside."
"I would watch what you say right about now,” Jacob warns me, and I shake my head.
"Watch what I say?" I roar out. "She was supposed to be protected."
"Mayson," Ethan says my name low. "We are all on the same side."
"What time did you get the notice?" I look over at Casey.
"Seven minutes ago," he says to me, and I walk to the front of the hall and lean down to touch the blood.
"Things don’t make sense,” I say. "The blood on the floor is dry. It takes longer than seven minutes for this to dry." I walk back to the outside and look down at the blood. "In seven minutes, it would be dry but not seeped in this much." I look over at Jacob, who comes over and checks it out.