My shoulders relax. My tongue drops from the roof of my mouth. The air I pull in feels sweeter, fresher, and fills my lungs until I’m satisfied.
And I plunge the glass into Sawyer’s cheek.
He screams and wriggles and I stab him again.
And again.
And again.
Again, again, again.
Skin tears. Muscle rips. Blood seeps.
My movements are quick and brutal, a frantic shredding of Sawyer’s face, as his screeches become wails. And his wails become … silence.
I stop. I don’t need to exert anymore energy.
I don’t drop the shard of glass, I place it down and admire my work.
Sawyer’s face is ribbons. Mush.
A wet, rasping choke comes from the place where his lips used to be. He’s clinging to life, and I laugh, picking up the glass once more before slitting his throat.
Chapter 25
Guy
“Ineed to check on Gable,” Ella sobs, sitting on the twins’ bed and clinging to them. Asha is crying, and Gray is, too. “He was … Dad, he was really hurt?—”
Leaning down, I kiss her head, squeezing my eyes closed. I almost lost her tonight. If Gable hadn’t moved as quickly as he had, she’d be gone, torn from all of us.
He saved her. Just like he always has. I’ve been terrified of Ella not needing me, of her forgetting me. It was selfish, and pointless, because my job as a parent is to put myself out of a job. She has to move on, and she has. She’s found a man who would literally die for her.
Why couldn’t I have seen it that way earlier? Now Gable might be gone, and I won’t the chance to undo every harsh word I’ve said to him.
“Stay here,” I whisper. “Lock the door. Go into the closet. Don’t move until someone you know comes to get you.”
As I head for the door, Ella calls out for me and I turn.Her eyes shine with tears and desperation. “I can’t lose him, Dad.”
I’ll try my best to not let that happen.
The cabin was empty when we made our way up here, but there’s always the chance that Sawyer’s men have remembered where their pay cheque’s come from. And just as I think it, a man appears at the top of the stairs. His eyes widen and he turns, shouting for back up, but my strides have already closed the space between us.
Gripping his neck, I shove him into the wall. Picture frames fall and crack as they hit the ground, and he lets out a grunt as I slam his face into the brickwork over and over. Blood spurts out of his nose and as I shove him back down the stairs, two more men are racing up them.
I’m not a violent man. The closest I’ve come to this kind of fighting is when I was in my youth. During my years as an officer, I firmly believed my duty was to cool heated situations, not add to them. I’ve used my firearm on duty a total of twice over thirty years, because I’ll do everything in my power to end things amicably. It’s likely why the home invasion wasn’t looked into more—my colleagues know I’ll only use force as a last resort.
But I’ve never been in a position where the people I love are in danger. No uniforms would make it out here in time if we called them, so I’m the only one standing between my family and a bullet.
Silence’s scream tears through my thoughts. Glass shatters.
Am I out of time?
One of the men reaches the top of the stairs and I bring my forehead into his nose. Pain blasts across my skull, but it definitely hurts him more than it hurts me, as evidenced by the scream he lets out as he loses his footing and tumblesdown the stairs. The second man looks ready to run so I grip his wrist, keeping him in place as my knuckles meet his face. More blood. Bones breaking.
I don’t enjoy a single second, but I don’t have a choice.
I reach the living room just as the man who let Asha live enters, helping Gable inside. Silence is on Gable’s other side, and they sit him down.
