I open the door. My father pauses when he takes in my blood-splattered body.
“Mariah, darling, Daddy dearest would like you to give me the gun.” He gestures toward the gun held loosely at my side.
“No.”
“Marnie, sugar.” Rylan’s deep, gruff voice comes from the side, and I turn to see him.
He cringes when he sees all the blood on me.
“I’m here to help you.” He holds up a hand, and I finally relax.
He got here faster than I thought he would. I knew he’d come for me. I knew he’d save me.
“Finally, someone to get control of her. She was going to kill me. She’s crazy.” My father’s voice takes on a whiny edge.
When Rylan swings his head toward him, I see anger flash across his features before they soften, and he turns back to me.
“Not my blood,” I tell him. “Although.” I flex my arm as pain hits me, and I look at my bicep that is slowly bleeding.
“Where’s Silas?” Rylan asks as he steps further into the room.
I point behind me, and Wing rushes past.
“He’s dead. I cut his throat with a knife.”
“I told you she’s crazy. She was going to kill me. She wants all the money.”
My father’s words set off Rylan, and I finally see the reason for his nickname.
He walks over to my father and backhands him hard, sending him to the floor.
“I should let her kill you too for her revenge, but I don’t want that on her conscience.” Rylan reaches down and lifts him up. “Besides, she already gets all your money, asshole.”
“No, my granddaughter does. Where is she? I’m here to save her. Her new adoptive family wants her.”
Kodiak
Ipunch him in the chest hard and hit him in the face as I hold him up. The bones in his old body crumble under my fist. I want to finish him off, but I know that just the internal damage from the hit to his body will be a slow, agonizing death for him. I drop him and turn to my woman.
She’s an avenging angel, taking back her life, covered in the blood from her conquest. I’m proud of her. I stride over to her and carefully touch her face, where she has a bruise on her cheek.
“Come on, sugar. Let’s get out of here. Our baby is home waiting for us.”
Marnie’s body sags, and she hands the gun to me as I pull her into my arms. I lift her up and carry her out of the house. I don’t look back. I know Loki will take care of the bodies and cover up the crimes we committed.
“By the way, your friend Pen helped us out. She pinpointed us here.”
“Pen is a woman?” Marnie sits up in my arms, and I can’t help the chuckle at her shocked expression.
“Yeah, baby.”
I toss my keys to Miner and climb into the back of my truck, holding on to my girl.
When we hiked up to the property, we hid out along the tree line. I expected to come through the door and kill both her father and Silas, but she’d taken care of Silas for me. I’ll worry about any trauma from that later and get her into counseling. For now, I want to get her home and make sure she’s okay. After that, I want to bury myself deep in her body for the next several days.
“My bakery is destroyed.” Tears well in her eyes.
“We’ll build you another one closer to home.”
