Page 75 of Inked Daddies

My heart bangs against my rib cage.

She’s probably demanding he release her father, or me, or all of us. Or maybe she’s trying to bargain.

Fuck, it’s the worst scenario. They want her. She’s handing herself over.I have to stop her.

Mustering every bit of willpower, I press my palms to the ground and try to haul myself up. My shot leg buckles under me the instant I put weight on it. I collapse with another hiss of pain. I cling to a chunk of uprooted porch railing, using it to drag my torso forward.

Almost there, I lie to myself.

I’m probably ten yards away from her at best. My vision blackens at the edges. I shake my head, refusing to succumb.

Then Crow steps in close to Marie, snaking his hand around her throat. A guttural roar rips from my chest. She gasps, arms flailing for a second. Crow shoves her backward, keeping her on her feet by her throat, and pins her against the side of the truckwith brutal efficiency. Her eyes widen with panic, lips parted in a silent cry.

“No!” I bark, voice raw. My progress stalls. My body gives out again, leg screaming as I slump back onto my side, cold rising around me. “Marie!”

She claws at Crow’s arm, but he’s stronger and in a better position. Her head tilts back, like she’s trying to escape his hold. Even from a distance, I see fear flicker in her gaze—and it kills me.

I’m supposed to protect her, supposed to stand at her side. Instead, I’m sprawled in the yard, shot, worthless, bleeding out, forced to watch as this bastard manhandles her.

A wave of dizziness hits, the yard spinning. Scratch that—the whole world spins.

I clamp my hand on my thigh again, a vain attempt to slow the bleeding. My head throbs. My heart stops.

We can’t lose her.

But I can’t reach her either, no matter how hard I grit my teeth or how desperately I dig my fingers into the dirt. My body simply won’t obey. My vision tunnels on Crow’s face, twisted in sadistic glee as he keeps her pinned to the truck, overshadowing her smaller form. She’s pinned. Helpless. And I can’t do a damn thing.

31

MARIE

If I shut my eyes,I can almost pretend this is a nightmare. But my ribs ache from being slammed around a second ago. My head pulses from compression on my carotids. When researching one of my novels, I learned that’s a bad way to hold someone if you’re choking them for kink.

Funny the things you think about when you’re dying.

Crow’s hand is wrapped around my throat. I can’t back away—the truck is behind me. I’ve tried kicking him, but he’s too nimble. It’s like he hasn’t fought at all tonight. He’s stronger than I expected and very quick.

He leans against me, pressing me to the truck with his body. He closes in, dragging his nose against the side of my neck to sniff me. When I feel his interest harden against my thigh through our clothes, I’m grateful he’s choking me. It means I can’t throw up.

But then his grip loosens. He doesn’t let go, not completely. His hold is rough enough to bruise, but not enough to cut off my air anymore. I gasp hard to fill my lungs. Now, he isn’t stranglingme so much as claiming me. “That’s right, little one. You belong to me now.”

I cough, and his hand goes from claiming to merely resting on my throat. When there’s enough air in my lungs, and I’m not about to black out, I growl, “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

He backhands me across my face. Not hard enough to bruise, but enough to make tears spring from my eyes. He snatches my throat again. His face is close enough to mine that I can see the absolute lack of humanity in his eyes. It was that look that froze me the night at the library parking lot. “You’re a smart girl. If I am out of my mind, shouldn’t you play nice?”

I hate that he has a point.

And then he’s dragging me away from the battered truck that’s become my last point of refuge. Every footstep he forces me to take feels heavier than the last, as though he’s parading his dominance in front of the few men left standing.

I can’t see Trick from this angle, but I hear his strangled shouts behind us. My heart clenches, remembering the glimpse I caught of him on the ground, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his leg. I can still see the crimson stain spreading over his jeans. I can’t picture him subdued like that—Trick is always in motion, always cracking jokes even in the direst moments. For him to be pinned to the dirt, howling my name, sends a chill down my spine.

Hugo is out of sight too, but I know he’s still fighting somewhere on the far side of the yard. I hear the clash of bodies and the ragged grunts that come with grappling. Over it all, gunfire occasionally rips the air, sharp cracks echoing from inside our home. The men who forced their way in are scattered, some unconscious, some backing away, some still in combat.

I tell myself we’re close to victory, but I have no real proof.

The person who truly terrifies me is Sam, or the lack of him. He’s inside the house—my house—searching for Dad. The father who spent years preaching about hope and redemption, now possibly in desperate need of a miracle.

I imagine him in one of the back bedrooms, blindsided by men with guns. A wave of nausea rises in my stomach. I try to push it down, reminding myself that Sam is skilled, that he knows how to move silently. Still, the dread won’t subside. Not when the gunshots still ring out. I can’t bear the idea that Dad and Sam might die in the very living room where I used to do my homework.

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