“No, Austin!” I turn and grab the door handle to try and open the door, I’ll jump from this damn car if I have to. The child locks are on and the handle just moves without engaging.
He tips his head back and starts to laugh, “Did you think you could stop what has already been set in motion? They’re all as good as dead.”
No, no, no, no!
I lunge at Austin and start to slam my fists as hard as I can at his head, he drops the gun when he tries to grab my wrists, and I keep hitting him as hard as I can. He starts to yellat the driver, and I feel the car pull over, but I don’t stop, his hand is tight around one wrist but my other hand keeps hitting his face.
The door on the other side of Austin opens and I see the man who was there that day when they took me, the one that was driving. He lunges at me and pain slices across my face when his fist connects to my cheek.
Seeing stars, I slump back. I can’t focus and my ear is ringing. I feel a sting in my neck, and within seconds I lose control of my body, and everything goes black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MASON
IT’S BEENa while since Sloane went upstairs, she should be back by now. The hairs on my neck stand up as I glance at the clock on the wall, I didn’t pay attention to the time when she went up, but she’s usually in the kitchen getting dinner ready by now.
Unease skitters up my spine and I look out the window to see if anything is unusual, but it’s already dark out. The feeling that something is wrong is swirling in my gut, so I step out to the hallway to look around and notice the front porch light is off.
We never turn that light off.
The next odd thing is Wilson standing next to the door. He only does that when he’s waiting for Lainey Rai. He turns and looks at me, his tongue hanging out and then he closes his mouth and whines as he cocks his head.
Dad and Gray’s voices are muffled behind his office door down the hall, which is normal, so I walk around just to look in the other rooms.
Callum steps out of the kitchen and looks down the hall at me. “Everything alright?”
I stop in the hall and turn to him, “Does something feel ‘off’ to you?”
Wilson barks and we both look in his direction.
Callum takes a breath to answer me just as the first bullet flies through the front window next to the door and we both fall to the floor. I yell, “Everybody down!”
My first thought is of Sloane and if she’s in her room.
The door to Dad’s office flies open behind me and he and Gray are crawling through the door, Gray is leading the way and heading right for the stairs to get to Lainey Rai. Screaming starts to pierce the air upstairs, and I start crawling toward the entryway next to him.
More bullets fly through the front windows, it sounds like there may only be two or three guns and I look for Callum, he has crawled into the foyer and is sitting behind the large coat cabinet next to the front door. He’s pulled his Ruger from his leg holster and is checking the magazine.
As Spits crawls next to me to go to the entryway with Callum, he signals that they’ll watch the front, and he points for me to go upstairs. I don’t see Jax anywhere.
“Daddy!” Lainey Rai is standing at the top of the stairs with a mask of terror on her face. Wilson bolts up the stairs and pushes against her legs to try and herd her to her room.
“Get down!” Gray and I bellow at the same time.
She screams and starts to cry as she squats down and puts her hands over her ears, her long hair falling around her legs like a curtain. Even squatted down with her little body tightly folded into a ball, she is still an easy target at the top of the stairs and my heart starts to race.
Wilson stands in front of her, but he’s no guarantee against bullets.
Gray starts to scramble up the stairs to get to her with no regard for his own safety, but before he gets halfway up the stairs, Jax runs up behind her and grabs her small body to hold to him as he turns around and runs back down the hall. He must have run up the back stairs when the shooting started.
Knowing that Jax is upstairs with the girls I turn and do a squat run to the family room where one of my sniper guns is leaning against the wall. Callum and Spits are breaking out the shards of glass from the windows on each side of the front door and I hear return fire.
The window in the family room is already broken and I look around the edge to find the source of the shooting. The black SUV is back and is sitting where the driveway meets the front door yard of the house, there looks to be three figures.
With no comms, I can’t communicate with the guys, and I watch through my scope as one of the dark figures steps around the back of the SUV with what looks like a Maltov and lights the cloth sticking out of the top.
Taking a calming breath, I watch the cloth light his face up, it’s the same guy that threatened the girls earlier. With my rifle balanced on the window I smile, “That’s right mother fucker, lift it up.”
