This is what Reggie was planning all along.
“You didn’t think I’d actually allow my whore of a daughter to stay with the likes of you?” Reggie cackles.
“Fucker is a dead man,” Grant snarls low enough for only me to hear. The tone is icy and filled with rage—the very same coursing through my veins.
“They all are,” I tell him just as quietly.
In the darkened room, I count the number of bodies filling it.
It doesn’t matter how many came through the broken window, they’ll all die before I let them out of this room.
“Emerie’s only job was to cause a distraction, and it seems she couldn’t do something as simple as being a frivolous bimbo, spread her legs, and be the whore her mother taught her to be.”
At Reggie’s words, I want nothing more than to rip his goddamn tongue out.
It’ll have to wait as I take out the rest of his men first. I’ll leave him for last if I can manage it.
Pulling one of my knives out from behind my waist, where I keep it tucked in my suit jacket, I pull the other from the strap around my leg.
“You go left, I’ll go right. No one leaves this room,” Grant orders.
“No one leaves this room.” I agree with a sharp nod.
Reggie keeps making taunting remarks about how he intends to rule over the Devores and take everything they enjoy. That wasn’t going to happen. Not in this lifetime.
One by one, I move through the room, silently finding each of his men. A few put up a fight. Some don’t. I know I’m covered in blood and don’t give a shit. I’ll bathe in their blood if it means they all die.
Each man falls, and I kick past the few on the floor to get to Reggie.
“You little leprechaun fuck,” I snarl, finding his neck in the dark easily and gripping it, shoving him against the wall he was trying to hide against when he realized that his men failed him and were all dead. They were incapable of fulfilling an order. Not that they would have been able to. “Tell me, why I shouldn’t just gut you here and now?”
“Emerie will never forgive you if you kill her only living family,” Reggie croaks out, barely.
“My wife has plenty of family now and doesn’t need you in her life.” I sneer, running the knife still in my hand along his cheek and down to his big belly. “She’ll be perfectly happy without you around.”
“Calder,” Grant calls, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s take him to your office, tuck him away in a cell. We’ll deal with him after we handle making sure the rest of the house is secure.”
Grinding my teeth, I nod. I don’t like it, but I’ll feel slightly better once I set eyes on Emerie.
twelve
EMERIE
I tighten my arms around my knees and keep rocking on the floor where Granger and Gentry shoved me. I don’t know how long ago they shut me in.
Tears spill down my cheeks as fear of not knowing what’s going on overwhelms me. I don’t know why the two brothers locked me in this tiny cubby.
One minute, we were all laughing about how I love the Home Alone movies, but only the first two—the ones after don’t count.
The next moment, they’re shoving me in here and telling me not to make a sound so as not to be found.
It feels like an eternity since they put me in here. I could hear the sounds of shouting. Of fighting. Of the grunts and thuds. I tighten my arms further, wishing for Calder. I need him more now than ever. The worst part is I don’t even know if he’s okay. If he’s safe or hurt.
Was my dad behind this?
He had to be.
Whatever is going on right now, it has the stench of him on it.
