Page 110 of The Ice Sisters

Indecision streaked Huller’s face and Cord saw a war in his eyes.

“Get out,” he snarled.

“If you kill her and me, you’ll never escape. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a cell.”

Ellie gave him a silent look, a warning she was going to fight. Huller growled a sound that mimicked a lion’s roar, his hand shaking as the gun wavered over Ellie’s face.

Cord saw red.

Ellie suddenly threw the man off her, her hand struggling to retrieve the gun. Cord raced to them just as Ellie knocked it from his hand. Cord threw Huller down and onto his side.

Déjà vu of the abuse he’d endured himself struck Cord. Images of the dead girls fired his rage. Balling his hand into a fist, he pounded the man’s face and punched his gut.

“Cord?” Ellie pushed up and stood behind him now. “Cord!”

“Go outside with the girls,” he said in a guttural growl.

Ellie hesitated.

“Don’t argue, El, for once just do what I say.”

She gave him an understanding look as if to tell him to do what he needed to do, then finally turned and ran outside.

Cord stared at Huller. He’d lost consciousness now. Images of the twins’ bloody bodies and the blood on Ellie’s face taunted him.

He wanted to kill the bastard with his own weapon. Watch the blood leak from his sorry body.

Watch him take his last breath so he would never hurt anyone else again.

ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE

Cord’s hand shook as he snatched the gun and waved it above Huller’s head. The bastard had hurt Ellie.

He deserved to die.

Huller groaned and opened his eyes. Instead of fear, a menacing laugh erupted from him as deep and evil as his core. Cord bared his gritted teeth, wanting to see the man dead.

But if he killed him, he would go to jail instead of Huller.

Still his anger kept him frozen. Huller was nothing but a rabid animal that needed to be put down.

Footsteps sounded behind him. Bryce.

He exhaled an angry breath and slowly turned the gun over, then handed it to Bryce. “Don’t you dare let him escape,” Cord said between clenched teeth.

“Don’t worry, I want him to pay as much as you do.” Bryce shoved Huller to his stomach, dragged his arms behind him and snapped the cuffs around the man’s wrist.

Cord followed as Bryce escorted Huller outside. Bryce must have called an ambulance because it raced up, medics jumping out. They hurried to Ellie who waved them toward the squad car and the girls.

Cord jogged over to Ellie, his temper boiling over as he looked at the dried blood on her face. “Go in the ambulance with them.”

“What about Derrick?” she said, her voice worried.

“At the hospital. I don’t know his condition yet.”

Ellie gave a nod and climbed in the back of the ambulance with the children and Barbara.

ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX

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