Page 91 of I'm Yours

“Sadie!” I shout and holster my gun. When her eyes land on me she crumbles to the floor, arms still around the pole. Sobs break free from her chest and I rush to her side, wrapping my arms around her. Her body shakes as I hold her tight. “Shh. I’ve got you. Shh. It’s over. You’re alive. You’re alive,” I keep repeating it, needing the reassurance.

I don’t know what I would have done if she wasn’t okay. “I’m never letting you go, Sadie, you hear me? What would I have done?” I choke on my own tears, letting them fall freely.

She whimpers an understanding. “Thank you for coming for me,” she whispers.

“Fuck, Sadie. I was scared out of my mind.”

“So…”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare apologize.”

I look around the small room and see Goodman has his gun pointed at Lee who’s snarling up at him from his place on the ground, arms behind his back with his hands in handcuffs. His arm is bleeding like he was shot and on the floor across the room is who I assume Bryce McCabe. A pool of blood around his lifeless body.

A flurry of activity happens all around us but I hold tight to Sadie, not wanting to let her go. Never again.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Reed

“She still sleeping?” Justin asks, coming to sit next to me on the top step of the porch steps. He hands me a steaming cup of coffee.

I nod. There’s a coating of frost on the grass and there’s a bite to the air that’s heavy with moisture.

“Snow is coming,” he says, taking a sip.

“I’m ready.”

He sighs. “Yeah, me, too.”

I point to a spot in the distance and say, “I’m thinking there.”

“For what?”

“Build a home.”

“This close to your parents?”

“You’re not looking at the right area,” I tell him when I notice his eyes trained on an open pasture close to the barn. “Over the ridge. By the pond. I’ll show you some time. After I show Sadie, obviously.”

We sit in peace. Yesterday’s events weighing on me, I didn’t sleep a wink last night. Stayed up and watched Sadie the entire night. When I wasn’t watching her, I was checking in on Emmy. The fear of seeing someone I love… I can’t think about it anymore.

I rode with her in the ambulance to get checked out. I was terrified when the doctors had to ask if she was sexually assaulted and if they needed to perform an evidence kit. I understood why they asked, though. When we got to her, she was wearing a tiny thong and a sequined bra.

Bryce and Lee watched her with a gun pointed to her head as she stripped naked and put on the minuscule outfit then made her dance for them. All while they jerked off in front of her. Traces of semen were found on her skin. According to Sadie, it came from both of them. They took turns as she danced. One always kept a gun pointed at her. Sick fucks.

When she told them they hadn’t gotten that far and she wasn’t raped, I felt such relief I had to empty my stomach right there in the ER.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around what happened. I can’t imagine how it’s going to be for Sadie.

She couldn’t return to her home because it was a crime scene, which didn’t bother either of us. I wasn’t planning on letting her out of my sight anytime soon and had hoped she’d be okay staying with me at my parents’ house until we got something more permanent figured out.

“I met Sadie once.”

That gets my attention. When I look at Justin, a smile ghosts across his face. “What? When?”

“Your wedding.”

“She wasn’t at my wedding.”

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