Page 104 of Fighting For Light
Kai throws him a look.
Emerson disappears down the hall, then quickly comes back. “Do you think anyone heard?”
“I’m honestly not sure,” Kai grunts.
“Then we need to move quickly.”
Liam and Kai nod, and I don’t know what to do. I’m thankfully numb. I don’t feel a single thing I should be feeling at the moment, but my body is in survival mode. Emerson and Liam get to work, and Kai slowly approaches me. I don’t know why he’s looking at me like that or taking such slow steps towards me. He reaches for my wrist, and I realize my hand is still wrapped around the large knife.
“Can I have this, baby?” I nod and relax my hand. He takes it and sets it on the counter. “Okay, I want you to go upstairs and pack a bag and get whatever you need. Don’t forget that grandma dress you know I love,” he says with a wink. My mouthwon’t move, but I’m smiling in my head. Is that a thing? “Can you do that, or do you need to sit down? I can go pack you a bag.”
“No, I can do it.”
He grabs my face. “Look at me, Cordelia,” he commands. I slowly lift my eyes to his, and they are full of nothing but fury. “I love you, and everything will be okay.”
I nod in his hands. He kisses me hard and fast before pushing me towards the hall.
I try not to pay attention to the body I’m stepping over and go back up the stairs to get our things together.
47
Kai
I watch Cordelia goup the stairs and take a deep breath. She killed someone, and it probably hasn’t set in yet. I’m more afraid of what will happen when it does. I’m worried about her because she doesn’t need this kind of stress, yet it came to our front door.
“Don’t move,” I hear Liam yell from the dining room. One of them is still alive, but Liam has him tied up. The man stops struggling under Liam’s weight and glares at me.
“I knocked him out on purpose. I have questions.”
The man’s eyes narrow even more so. It’s taking everything in me not to shoot him in the face for coming into my house and threatening my wife and child.
“Dude, can you get a shirt? This is not Hooters. Put those away,” he says, nodding to my chest. I roll my eyes, ignoring my little brother.
“Two, you need to see this,” Emerson says, walking into the dining room. He holds up a phone with a message thread on a burner.
I want proof when you’re done, and it better be clean.
I can only assume my father and the Costas are responsible for this. My only question is whether they were here for Cordi or me and to what end?
“Gag him and tie him up. He’s coming with us,” Emerson says to Liam. He nods and gets the man on his feet, resting the barrel of his gun on the man’s temple.
“Move, and I will shoot you through your jaw. You’ll survive, and I’ll make you wish you didn’t.”
The man glares at Liam but cooperates.
We get the other two bodies in Emerson’s truck, then Liam and I clean the place up the best we can. In other words, if the police come around, we don’t give them any reason to look further.
Emerson stalks back into the house and holds up his phone. “Get Cordelia. We need to leave now. They went after Mom. She was at the beach house in Malibu. She’s fine. The security team took them down, save one.”
“This was coordinated,” I mumble. Nervousness, fear, and anger feel like they are ripping me apart from the inside. They went after my mother. They came for mywife and child. What the hell does he think we’re going to do? Sit down and take it?
Emerson squats down and picks up a few pieces of my crushed coffee table that we missed. “Come on,” he grunts. I nod, studying the hallway and making sure it looks good. Once it feels okay, I run up the stairs to find Cordelia sitting on the bed with two bags stuffed full of clothes, staring at her hands. I slip into our closet and grab a shirt, pulling it over my head before approaching her.
“Gem?” I say gently, knowing we need to hurry. She looks up at me with tears in her eyes.
“Kai? What have I done?” she cries.
I sit next to her, knowing we need to go, but the reality has set in. I’m surprised it took this long. I grab her hands and kiss eachof her fingers. I know all she sees is blood on them, even though they are spotless. Unfortunately, I have plenty of experience in this realm. Each of my brothers does. For Emerson, it was me or him. For Liam, it was stain Emerson’s soul even more or stain his own. He chose to ease the burden for Em. For me, it was my little brother or him. It wasn’t a debate in my mind, and I’d do it again, just like the others under a tarp in Emerson’s truck. I’d do it again, and I stopped asking what kind of man that makes me.
