“Kyle lives in Tennessee, Sam, I told you that. He’s too far away to do anything.”
“What you tell me of your brother, Kia, Kyle lives in Tennessee or fuckin’ St. Petersburg, Kyle will wanna know his sister is in danger then he’ll wanna see to it that his sister is protected and safe. The men in your life should have been briefed. Barney Oswald screwed the pooch. That is not gonna happen again.”
He held my eyes and I thought it prudent to nod seeing as he was a commando, I was not so he probably knew what he was talking about.
Not to mention, he was totally right about Kyle. Dad and Ozzie were buddies; Dad would probably be talked into not being pissed. Kyle was going to freak.
So I nodded.
There was a knock on the door at the same time there was a chime on my phone in my hand.
“Lunch,” Sam muttered.
I looked at the display and muttered back, “Teri.”
Sam looked at my phone, looked at me and grinned.
Then he turned and disappeared on his way to the door.
I flipped my phone open and, learning, I didn’t put it to my ear when I started, “Hel –”
“Oh my fucking God!” Teri shrieked.
I grinned.
“Room service,” I heard in a Greek accented voice.
I wondered briefly what Sam ordered for me.
Then I put the phone to my ear.
Chapter Thirteen
You’re Happy
Three days later…
Sam took the key from my hand, inserted it in the lock in the front door of the soon-to-be-not-my home in Indiana, turned it then opened the door for me.
I shoved in.
I had my overnight bag and purse over my shoulder and both my hands were laden with duty-free shopping bags.
Sam had his bag over his shoulder and was rolling both my huge, stuffed near to bursting pieces of luggage.
I was always grateful that Sam was a gentleman. It was one of the plethora of things I liked most about him.
But at that moment, I loved it.
With a droop of my shoulders that I wanted to do five seconds after hooking the straps on them, I dumped all my stuff on the floor five feet in.
Yes, even my purse.
“Leave them there, baby,” I muttered to Sam as I meandered through the living room to the hall to my bedroom.
I got to the bedroom, flipped off my flip-flops and was crawling on all fours up the bed when I heard Sam call, “Kia, honey.”
“Nap, fifteen minutes then I’ll call Mom and go get Memphis,” I mumbled.
Then I collapsed.
Then I passed out.
*
Indeterminate hours or minutes later…
I woke up but didn’t open my eyes.
I hated my house but I had to admit, it was cute and this was mostly due to Cooter’s Mom having good taste since, even back then (red flag?) I had no say.
But it was not built of high-quality materials which meant the walls were very thin.
Therefore I clearly heard Sam’s conversation in my living room with an unknown man.
“…set up?” I heard the end of whatever Sam was saying.
“Full coverage, four guys, three shifts. Couldn’t do the alarm but got trips set on doors and windows. You bunk down for the night, last shift’ll set ‘em, anyone trips ‘em, the whole neighborhood’ll wake up.”
“Good,” Sam replied.
Then I heard indistinct noises that sounded an awful lot like the noises people made on TV and in movies when they were expertly fiddling with a gun.
“Know you favor a nine millimeter, we’re on that. Right now, that’s gonna have to do,” the unknown man told Sam, proving me right, Sam was expertly fiddling with a gun.
“How long before you can get your hands on the nine?” Sam asked.
“Tomorrow,” the man answered.
“Good,” Sam repeated.
“You gonna keep both?” the man asked.
“Yeah,” Sam answered.
“Would too,” the man said then asked, “How you want us to play this?”
“Don’t care you get made. He sees she’s protected, that’s fine with me,” Sam replied.
“Copy that. You got hunters?”
“Yeah but they’re workin’ mostly blind. Sheriff has shut down. Need a brief with him then I’ll have more intel for you and the boys out workin’ this.”
“Right.”
I heard the front door open and Sam’s, “‘Preciate this.”
A moment of silence which I suspected included a cocky, masculine head nod or jerk of chin then, “Town talk, he knocked her around.”
I sighed.
“Town talk is not wrong,” Sam said in what was weirdly a seriously annoyed growl and when he went on, I would know why, “but, even knowin’ it, not one fuckin’ person did fuck all about it. Seven years.”
“Jesus.”
“She’s done with livin’ scared,” Sam stated.
“Yeah,” the man agreed.
“So, like I said, appreciate this,” Sam kind of repeated.
“Yeah,” the man replied.
Then the door closed.
I laid there, eyes closed, feeling the bizarre but far from unwelcome sensation of being in my house, a place that was unsafe for me for years, and feeling safe and doing it at a time when I was arguably more unsafe then I’d ever been.