“I’ve tried too,” he tells me. “All we can do is our best and be what the twins need until they’re safe in their parents’ arms again. But baby, you need to understand the likelihood that this is a trap designed to lure you out.”
I let out a breath, my thoughts running so wild. “I know,” I tell him, my heart tearing right down the center. “But it doesn’t change a thing. Those girls come above everything else.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just hold on,” Knight says, that brokenness in his tone crippling me. “If he overpowers you, fight. Use everything you’ve got. Nails. Teeth. Elbows. Knees. Whatever you can do, just stay alive. Please. Just stay alive.”
I take a shaky breath, the tears uncontrollable now. “You have to know I never intended to break my promise,” I murmur as I reach the gated community that Mom lives in. When I find the main gate left open, I sigh in relief. “But this . . . It’s different.”
“I know,” he says, utterly broken. But the cold, hard truth is, if the roles were reversed and the girls were his flesh and blood, he’d do the exact same thing. No obstacle on earth could stop him from saving those girls, and that’s exactly what I have to do now.
I wind through the streets, taking them way too fast for a residential area, but nothing will slow me down at this point.Izzy clutches the door handle, terrified of losing her life before we’ve even had a chance to try and save the girls.
As I turn the last corner before Mom’s home, the house of horrors finally comes into view. “I’m here,” I tell Knight, my heart racing faster than it ever has. “I have to go.”
“Don’t hang up,” he says. “Keep the phone on and the line clear in case you need me.”
“Okay.”
Nerves pound through my body, and as I reach Mom’s driveway, I come to a screeching halt behind the big, metal gates before putting my window down. I enter the code, pressing the buttons so hard that some of them get jammed, and within moments, the gates are peeling back.
The impatience is crippling as we wait for the gate to open, and when it reaches the halfway point, I hit the gas, darting my Honda to the left to sneak through the opening before flying up the long driveway, my gaze darting to the camera at the top of the grand entryway.
Izzy and I push out of the car, and as we hurry closer to the main entrance, Izzy starts looking around. “How the hell are we going to get in there undetected?”
“We’re not,” I tell her, pointing toward the array of cameras. “They knew we were here the second I stopped in front of the gate.”
“Fuck. So what do we do?”
I hand Izzy the phone that’s still connected with Knight as I crouch down and pick up one of the large potted plants that line the front of the home. “We make a fucking statement,” I tell her before launching the heavy pot straight through the same window I’d broken earlier in the week.
My mother’s scream is heard from deeper inside the home, and if I had to guess, I’d say she was in the living room. Izzy and Ifile in through the hole, crouching down, trying not to get cut by any stray pieces of glass.
“WHERE ARE THEY, MOTHER?” I call through the house, being obnoxiously loud, and letting her know that I’m not here to fuck around. I am getting those girls back, one way or another, even if it means getting bloody.
We weave through the massive house, heading directly to the living room. Knowing Elias could be here makes my blood run colder with every step.
Finally reaching the living room, we step through the grand entrance, and I’m not surprised to find my battered and bruised mother standing in the center of the room, a knowing smirk on her lips as the twins sit huddled together on the couch behind her.
They look uncomfortable, and while they physically appear unharmed, I don’t know what could have already happened that’s making them shake profusely. They obviously know that this is their grandmother. Their daddy introduced her as a safe person, but their expressions border on pure terror. Even at only four years old, their intuition is stronger than my mother’s.
I go to step toward them, only my mother shifts, halting my movements as she simply stares at me, a challenge thick in her eyes, and as she holds my stare, I realize this woman needs to be hospitalized. She’s sick in the fucking head. The only way to get to the twins is to go directly through my mother, but if she doesn’t move and hand them over peacefully, then I’ll have no problem making the injuries she sustained from her husband look like child’s play.
I shake my head, unable to figure out how the hell we came to this. “What do you think you’re doing?” I ask her. “Surely you have to know there’s only one way this ends.”
Mom just grins. “I told you, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Elias.”
My brows furrow, and as my gaze flicks to the girls on the couch and then around this ridiculously furnished living room, I realize Knight was right. I’ve walked straight into a trap, bringing Izzy right along for the ride.
I don’t know how Mom knew that the girls were going to be with me tonight, but she knew that the moment she took them, I would throw caution to the wind and come for them. She brought me here, but why?
“Whatever you have planned, it’s not going to work,” I tell her, glancing toward the girls before waving them over. “Come on. I’m taking you back to my house for our movie night.”
The twins smile and begin clambering off the couch, cheering about the Barbie movie they should have already been halfway through. Mom laughs, and her stance shifts as she reaches behind her back. My gaze lifts from the girls, and as if in slow motion, I watch Mom pull a gun from behind her, lift it, and aim directly between the twins.
“Oh fuck no,” I yell, lunging forward at the same time Izzy does, each of us grabbing a twin and yanking them behind us, my heart booming out of my chest as I gape at my mother in horror. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You could hurt them,” I seethe, clenching my jaw. “Jonah will never forgive you for this.”
Mom just stares, her gaze void of emotion, before she starts laughing. “Everything is always about you, isn’t it, Harper? All I wanted was a man who could take care of me and offer me the life I deserve, and it turns out, he doesn’t even care that I’ve been screwing around behind his back. All he actually wanted was you. My whore of a daughter.”
My mom scoffs, shaking her head as unease settles heavily in the pit of my stomach. “No, he beat you because you were cheating. That doesn’t make sense,” I say, demanding answers.
