Kody clapped his hands sharply. "You heard her! Half an hour and I want to see you push it." His voice was like the crack of a whip, but he shot me a cheeky wink as he turned the music back on.
Laughing to myself, I went back to the kitchen to take another painkiller. Just as I washed it down, a heavy knock sounded on the front door. Apparently Dallas's five minutes was really three.
Padding back to the foyer, I opened the heavy front door with a smile to greet my friend. Then froze.
"Maddie," Scott said, his bruised face tight with anger. "I heard your keepers have been looking for me. Well, here I am."
I stepped back, trying to slam the door shut in his face, but he jammed his foot in the gap. One heavy shove sent me staggering back a couple of steps, and Scott entered the foyer, closing the door behind him.
"Guys!" I shouted, "Guys! Scott's here!"
But the only response I got was the thumping sound of their music as Kody pushed them through a thirty-minute power session. Fuck.
I darted to the side, intending to run for help, but Scott moved faster than I'd realized he could, snatching a handful of my hair and wrenching me back to him.
"Maddie, stop it!" he snapped, giving me a rough shake like that would somehow make me more amenable to what he wanted. "Stop this! You're acting like I'm some crazy person. I'm not! All I've ever done is try to protect you, and this is the thanks I get? You put out a notice to detain me for your psychotic boyfriends to kill? What the fuck, Maddie?"
Fury rushed through me in waves, and my teeth clenched together hard. "Let me go, Scott," I ordered him, my voice a low growl. "Let me the fuck go. You don't wanna be labeled a crazy person? Don't fucking force your way into my house and hurt me!"
His grip loosened a fraction, and I thought I'd succeeded. But then it tightened again, and he gave a low, bitter laugh. "Oh yeah, I'm really going to let you go so you can run off to those criminals before I can explain things to you."
Frustration made my eyes burn, and I reached down to my pants to find my knife. Fuck this. Seriously.
"Scott, no offense, but I don't wanna hear your bullshit explanations," I told him. In a smooth, practiced motion, I pulled my knife out of my pocket, flicked it open, then sliced it across his wrist holding my hair.
He let out a shout, releasing my hair and giving me an opportunity to jerk free. But now I had my back to the wall and Scott was blocking the hallway to the gym. If I wanted to get help, I needed to get past him first.
My blade out in front of me, I eyed him carefully. His hand was clasped to his wrist where I'd cut him, bright blood staining his skin, but I knew it hadn't been a deep cut. He knew it too because a second later he started laughing.
"Seriously?" he challenged me, looking at my knife with a mocking smile. "You're going to threaten me with that pathetic little blade? It's so pretty; did it come as a bonus accessory in your Barbie Dreamhouse?" He was snickering at his own joke, but adrenaline, fear, and determination flooded my blood.
Two side steps took me to the hall table with a huge arrangement of flowers, and a second later, I had Steele's backup gun in my hand and pointed at Scott's head.
"How about now, Scott? Does this work for you?" My voice was cold and calm. I barely even recognized it as mine, but my hand remained steady too.
Scott's eyes narrowed, flashing with raw hatred and anger, and his mouth twisted in an ugly sneer. "You're not going to shoot me, Maddie. I bet you don't even know how to fire that thing. Girls like you, Maddie, are only good for one thing. Apparently your three keepers already worked that out for themselves, huh?"
My stomach clenched, but that cold calm was spreading over my whole body now. "Slut-shaming. Real original."
Scott just scoffed, his posture far too relaxed. "It's not slut-shaming, Maddie, it’s just the fucking truth. You're so dumb, you know that? People out there are trying to kill you, and all it takes is a text from a trusted number to make you open the door. How stupid can you be? That's why, Maddie. That's why you'll only ever be good for fucking. God knows your brain isn't worth shit." With each insult he spat, he was inching closer. He thought I hadn't noticed, but really...
"I'm fucking done with this, Scott," I told him in a flat, emotionless voice. "I'm done with you terrorizing me. I'm done with the packages and the phone calls and the photos. I'm done. Kiss my ass, motherfucker."
Bang.
The gun kicked in my hand, but my aim was true. Scott inching closer had made sure of that for me. The bullet hit him clean between the eyes and sent his body sprawling across the black and white tiles of the foyer.
For a moment, I stayed exactly where I was, my gun aimed at Scott's body. But when the puddle of blood began to spread, I decided he wasn't getting back up to grab me like in a horror movie. I gingerly stepped over his legs and hurried down the hallway to the gym, where the music had just shut off.
The door burst open as I arrived, and all three guys rushed into the corridor, probably having heard the gunshot.
"Um," I said, licking my lips and looking down at the gun still clenched in my hand. "Something happened."
47
The guys cleaned up my crime scene with professional efficiency. There was no suggestion to call the police. Not only were almost all of them under the payroll of one of Shadow Grove's gangs, Scott's brother was a cop. Even with all the guys’ connections and payoffs, it was unlikely Shane could be kept quiet.
Kody found Dallas’s phone in Scott’s pocket, and a quick call to the hospital confirmed he was still there by Bree’s side, totally unaware anyone had stolen his phone. He hadn’t planned to leave the hospital until visiting hours were over in another hour.
Archer called his security guys—the ones watching Scott's house—and told them what'd happened in a rather abridged version of events. He also told them to search the property fully and subdue anyone who interfered.
"Why bother?" I asked when he hung up the call. I sat on the bottom step of the stairs, watching with cold detachment as Kody and Steele wrapped Scott's body in plastic sheeting and scrubbed the blood and brain matter off the walls and marble floor. The Persian rug in the entryway was a lost cause, though, so they just rolled it up and stacked it beside the body.
Scott's body. My stalker's body.
Archer crouched down in front of me, his body blocking the sight of the plastic-wrapped dead man that I'd been staring at.
"He could have been a copycat stalker," he told me quietly, repeating his theory we'd discussed previously, "or he could have been working with someone. I want any scrap of evidence from inside his home to be sure."
Dread washed through me, and I felt my face drain of blood. Another stalker?
Archer was quick to reassure me, though. "I doubt that's the case. The tone of all his messages was possessive, obsessed. People like that don't share, and the terminology was all wrong. It was mine not ours." He stroked my hair back behind my ear. "Searching his place is just a precaution, okay?"
I nodded, still trapped in a weird halfway point between terrified and numb as fuck. He leaned in to kiss my forehead, and I let my eyelids close briefly. I was so damn tired, but this... this was the beginning of the end. Wasn't it? My stalker was gone. Dead. Now I just needed to get the hit on me canceled, and it was smooth sailing forever.