Kallie started to cry, finally catching up to the torment rolling from her mother.
Pleading eyes moved to the woman. “Where are you taking her? Tell me she’ll be safe.”
“She’ll be placed with her closest blood relative until the courts decide on the appropriate placement for her.”
If Shea was a fit mother.
That’s what Claribel Sanchez was saying, and I knew she was just doing what she was paid to do, but fuck, anyone could see this was the safest place for Kallie. That this was where she belonged. That Shea would die before she allowed anything to happen to her daughter.
I would, too.
“Charlie?” Shea begged with a small surge of hope as she began to frantically stumble along behind the woman who headed outside, the two officers leading the way.
The woman just gave a short shake of her head, and swiftly darted out into the dense, hungry night. Clouds billowed thick in the air, suffocating as they sank low to the ground.
Drowning out breath.
Drowning out hope.
Kallie stared back at Shea from over the woman’s shoulder, bewildered brown eyes swimming in fear. A little hand stretched for her mother as the woman sped down the steps.
Another stake to my heart.
How could I stand here and allow this to happen? But what was I supposed to do? I hadn’t ever felt so tied up in chains in all my life.
Helpless.
Because I’d always fought my way out of every situation.
Fists. Fury. Rage.
They had always been my solution.
But I knew throwing punches would only do more harm.
Shea clamored down behind them, and I followed right behind her. I was doing my best to keep calm, to keep cool, to ignore my temper that was demanding I step in.
Fight.
But that was only going to make it a thousand times worse, and I wasn’t about to be responsible for putting Kallie and Shea in a worse predicament than they were already in.
Two cruisers were parked at the curb, a cheap blue import sandwiched between them and my Suburban.
But it was the black Mercedes sitting in front of my SUV that captured my attention. Sleek, low, and foreboding.
Claribel Sanchez jogged toward it, her hand on the back of Kallie’s head as if she were protecting her rather than ushering more trauma into this little girl’s life.
Scarring purity.
Ruining all that innocence.
Bringing darkness into the light.
My gut twisted into knots with the intense need to intervene, to keep this little girl, my Little Bug, from experiencing even a second of this ordeal.
Knew it was my fault. I should have been more aware. Should have known those scavengers would be out there lying in wait.
I hit the walkway at the bottom of Shea’s front porch steps when an ominous figure climbed out from the backseat of the Mercedes on the opposite side of the car from us.
Arrogant and contentious.
Most of his body was obscured by the car, his blond hair slicked back. He ducked a fraction as if sheltering himself from the storm rumbling above.
Fierce squalls of wind whipped through the air, diving in low to touch the ground, the world whipped into a frenzy of forewarning.
Awareness slammed me and I skidded to a stop.
Martin Jennings.
What the fuck?
It was the same second Shea saw him there. For the briefest second she stalled, too, like her mind pitched and lurched through shocked confusion as she attempted to catch up to what was happening.
I was lost with her, my senses blurred and cluttered, the hatred I had for this asshole at the forefront as I tried to add it all up, searching for the sum.
Shea seemed to solve it before me.
She cried out—a vicious scream that came from the depths of her in the same second she leapt forward, claws bared, no doubt going in for the attack. She broke into a run behind Claribel just as the woman was reaching the end of the walk.