Page 65 of The Heiress

“I know.” He pulled me against him again. “Trust me I know. It sucks living every single day knowing there’s a target on your back.”

My hand brushed his gun accidentally. “How do you do it?”

His shoulders lifted a fraction of an inch. “It’s just the way it is. I don’t know any other way.”

Damn.

We sat like that, just holding each other for a long time. The fights grew louder as one victor led to another. The quick and rapid pops coming from the shooting range eventually stopped once it got too dark to continue.

Just when I thought Jace was going to let me go and relax again, he went even tenser. Every muscle in his body became rigid and his jaw clenched tight as his fingers dug into my skin. “Sam.” His voice was deadly even. “Go to the house. Find the attic if you can. If not, lay low in the bathtub. Run. Now.”

He lifted me up and set me on my feet, smacking my ass lightly to drive home to the point. I ran for the house without looking back. When I was halfway across the field Jace yelled, “Pythons!” so loud it made my heart stop.

And that’s when the fighting started.

23

Islammed into the little ground floor room and ran up the stairs only tripping once. Behind me there were shouts and screams, followed by gunshots. Upstairs I closed and bolted the door, then dragged the loveseat over. Maybe it would slow someone down, maybe it wouldn’t, but it only took a minute to shove it over, so it was worth it.

The house was pretty basic. One large living space with a kitchen and then two bedrooms in the back. I found the attic access in the hallway, but it was the kind where you needed a ladder to reach and push the board up and inside. I didn’t have a ladder. But I found a tall two-step folding stool in the kitchen. Hopefully it would be enough to get my short ass up another level. I positioned the stool underneath and then rushed to the window to peek out.

It was chaos. The boxing ring was now a brawl. Blood was everywhere. Some men were more hurt than others. Some might even be dead. I didn’t see any of the other women and hoped they were able to run off into the woods.

More shots rang out and I ducked down out of instinct. It was dark but not being able to locate Jace made me nauseous. Was he hurt or just hidden in the shadows?

My gaze caught on a long extension cord. I grabbed it and ran back to the stool, looping it through the handle. Then I climbed up, easily reaching the board and just barely tall enough to haul myself up through the opening with the extension cord in one hand. Then I pulled up the stool and pushed the board back into place, hopefully erasing my escape route.

Unfortunately the attic was dark and dank and probably housed cockroaches and a small army of rodents. Raccoons were a good possibility, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find just about anything making a home up here. The attic had no window so all I could do was listen to the sounds of fists against flesh, the grunts and groans of fighting, the moans of injury. I clutched my pocket knife in one hand and pepper spray in the other.

The gunshots were fewer than I would have expected, and maybe that was because they didn’t want the cops showing up. Or maybe they were here to make a statement more than they wanted to murder members of Devil’s Wrath.

I found myself hiding from people with guns in the dark of night once again. Hopefully things didn’t come in threes, like my mother believed. She swore by it, and often it was true. A broken washing machine, followed by the air conditioning going out, and finally the microwave dying. Three bad things and done.

But other times it just seemed like a way of making sense of bad luck.

This wasn’t bad luck. This was my life.

* * *

I stayedup there with the scratching and creaking for over an hour before Jace called into the house.

“Sam?” he sounded frantic. “Sam? Are you okay? Jesus the attic is closed.”

“Bathroom’s clear!” That sounded like Storm.

“Oh fuck,” Jace moaned. “Sam?”

Before I could get to the attic opening I heard several pairs of feet running around and the crashing of a few chairs. But then I lifted the wood away and yelled. “I’m here.”

Jace practically fell over his own feet as he came racing out of the bathroom. Storm scowled at me. “How the hell did you get up there?”

I pushed the stool back through the opening with the extension cord still wrapped around it. He took it. “Damn. Smart. I like it.”

“Come here.” Jace made motioning gestures with his hands. I went out feet first, almost sighing with relief when his hands caught my hips and hauled me to him. “Oh thank fuck.” Then his lips crashed down on mine and all I could do was hold on for the ride.

Storm cleared his throat. “Uh boss, now that we know she’s good, we got business to attend to.”

“Yeah. Give me a minute.”

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