At least, not until tonight, that was.
But she calmly took the phone, and dialed, all the while keeping her hate-filled eyes on the man that was currently getting the shit beat out of him. Again.
I vaguely heard Audrey talking to someone in low, even tones, but I never took my eyes away from what my husband was doing to Josh.
Which was what cost me.
I wasn’t paying attention until my head was wrenched back, and I cried out in pain.
My gaze lit on a woman, Tunnel’s mom, and my mouth opened to scream.
Before a single sound could even leave my lips, she had shoved her gun in my mouth.
“Stop.”
I froze, my eyes closing, as I realized that I should’ve paid more attention.
I’d known, of course, that this wasn’t over.
I’d also known that I’d seen her come out of that hidden doorway once today when she followed Josh in not even fifteen minutes ago.
What I hadn’t realized was that seeing my husband beat the ever-loving shit out of someone would’ve held my attention so completely that I would miss a freakin’ door opening behind me.
A cry of rage had me turning—as far as the gun in my mouth would allow—to see Audrey racing forward, a long pipe that Josh had been taunting me with earlier, in her hand.
Tunnel looked up, moved out of the way just barely in time, and watched as his sister brought down that same pipe straight down on Josh’s goods.
His cock, which was still hanging out of his pants, took the brunt of the hit, and I had to close my eyes at the severity of the wound.
But it didn’t matter. The image was seared onto my brain, and I started to lose the fight with my stomach.
All this fear, uncertainty and anger started to swirl together in my already churning stomach, and I lost my battle.
I threw up.
Puke went everywhere, but it landed mostly on the woman still holding me.
Her instinctive reaction was to pull away, which was her fatal mistake.
She should’ve just taken the puke shower like the badass she claimed to be.
Instead, she backed away, still pointing the gun in my general vicinity, and glared at me.
There was puke all over her. On her hands and on her shirt, all over the gun and her arm. It was even in her hair.
I had a ripple of sick satisfaction at seeing her covered in my vomit before I saw a missile made of flesh and bone shoot past me and tackle the woman to the floor.
The gun went off, but Tunnel was up and maneuvering his body so that the majority of his weight pinned his step-mother to the floor.
With one well-placed punch, he knocked her right the hell out and then picked up the gun.
He did exactly what she should’ve done, which was to hold it like he wasn’t scared of a little puke. Because if she had, she wouldn’t be passed out cold on the floor, lying in the vomit.
“You okay?”
I nodded.
“She…fuck!”
I knew. He hadn’t been aware that I was in danger, and I’d just come so close to the end that it was scary for both of us.
I turned at the sound of another thwack, and quickly turned away.
“Might want to take that away from her,” I suggested. “And tie your step-mother up.”
He nodded.
“The phone call get placed?”
I nodded. At least I thought it got placed.
“Good,” he grunted. “Take her shirt off and tie her up with it. Hands behind her back, legs too. Then tie those two together.”
I did as I was asked, but ran out of room using her shirt, so I had to improvise with her belt.
Once I had her trussed up well enough, I shoved her over to lay in front of the door.
She hit with a small thump, and I turned just as I found Tunnel’s hand in mine.
I had vomit and other stuff on me, and I wanted nothing more than to go take a shower in the peace of my own home. To see my child and hug her. To make sure that Fender was all right, even though I wasn’t sure that he would ever be okay again, especially since he’d taken a bullet to his freakin’ neck.
It was highly likely that the man hadn’t survived that, and I wanted to just cry out my sorrow over the loss.
A groan sounded from the woman in the corner, and I looked over my shoulder to see her eyes open.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I wanted that more than anything in this world, but Candace was awake. Which I told him moments later.
“I know,” he grunted. “Fuckin’ bitch.”
I held my urge to bellow in laughter.
“You’ll never get out of here alive. I have men all over.”
Tunnel didn’t bother to turn to Candace, who’d obviously woken up.
“You’re lying,” Tunnel said as he tugged me toward the small bathroom area that was set up in the corner of the stone cell we were in. “The house is already at half-capacity to make it look like you were truly ‘moving.’”
I loved it when my man called her bluff. He was a fucking superstar.
I loved it even more when she had nothing to say to that.
“Here.”
With the utmost care, he pushed me toward the sink, and started to wash my hair. He urged me to bend over the porcelain bowl, without words, guided my mass of hair under the faucet, and turned it onto high.
He didn’t wait for it to heat up to a more bearable temperature.
I was sure he could sense my unease, because he wasted no time washing it with the pump Dial soap that was on the ledge next to the sink.
“Here,” Audrey said, holding out a towel.
I wasn’t sure where she’d gotten it from, but I didn’t care.
I was just glad she’d have something for me to dry my mass of hair off with, otherwise it’d be dripping down into my face and down my back when Tunnel was done.
“That’s good, Tun,” I whispered when he started to work the soap through my hair for a third time.
He didn’t stop.
In fact, he did it a full seven times, and I let him.
“We should go,” Audrey said once Tunnel finally let my hair go. “I can hear voices.”
Tunnel grunted.
It was only when the door opened that I realized why he was so lax.
It wasn’t anybody bad that was on the other side of the door. It was The Dixie Wardens. Both the Mooresville chapter and the Benton chapter.
I could’ve fucking cried the moment that Silas’ familiar face popped into view.
I sagged, and Tunnel scooped me up around the waist and pulled me in tight to his body.
Which I immediately started to protest.
“No,” I pushed away. “You’re hurt. I’m not allowing you to hold me until you get this seen to.”
I’d allowed him to do my hair, but only because I knew that he needed to do it. Now that he’d done that, I wasn’t going to let him do another thing until he was seen by a doctor, or at the very least, a paramedic.
“You!” I pointed at Cleo. “And you!” I pointed at Sean since he was closest. “Y’all come look at him and make sure he’s not about to die on me.”
Sebastian, who was standing in the hallway, but had his eyes pointed down the opposite direction of where we were standing, started to laugh.
“Sebastian, you need to come and look at Audrey.”
“What about you?”
That came from Torren.