Cocky Secrets (Cocker Brothers #29)

37. Jett

THIRTY-SEVEN

Jett

D ucking just in time, a bullet zips past my head. Honey Badger rushes the guy hiding behind the door. As I stride over to Sunshine another gunshot explodes through the room. I look over my shoulder to see if my friend is okay. He nods at me, his rotund body rising up as he grunts. The thug took the bullet. He’s down.

“Search for more!” I growl as I reach her, setting down the machine gun by her feet. “You okay?”

She nods.

“They hurt you?”

She shakes her head.

“This is gonna hurt,” I warn as I rip the duct tape off.

She gasps for air and handles the pain like a soldier.

“All clear,” Honey Badger assures me, returning and staying by the door, just in case. “This is the last room upstairs.” The old man watches us with rasping breaths echoing pathetically off the walls. The machine is making a pathetic sound, but I don’t like the look in this guy’s eyes. This guy is the big honcho. There’s no doubt in my mind. On his nightstand are bottles of pills and…her 9mm.

“What are you doing here,” she demands, voice hoarse from fear and bondage.

Untying the ropes on her wrists and ankles, I joke, “It was either this or rob a bank.”

I assumed the old man couldn’t talk.

I was wrong.

“Is this your boyfriend?” he rasps with the shittiest smirk. “Come to save you ?”

She kicks off the rest of the bindings and stands to face him. “Fuck you.” She grabs my machine gun and backs away, aiming at him.

My hands go up and I step toward her. “Whoa. Sunshine.”

She aims the gun at me. “Get back to where you were!”

I’m no idiot. I do as I’m told. Honey Badger and I exchange a look as she points the gun at the old man again. It’s a bizarre picture. A guy in his eighties – hell, maybe nineties – whose body has given out on him, shrouded in a four poster bed with black curtains, and a beautiful woman aiming a gun at his head.

“You didn’t get what you want after all,” she snarls.

“I did,” he rasps with that evil smile. “You’re in my bedroom.”

Furious, she centers her aim. “You piece of shit, I hope you rot in hell.” Her finger starts to press the trigger and I picture her in prison for the rest of her life.

“Don’t do this.”

“You don’t know what he’s done,” she growls to me, determined, but scared. She’s probably never killed anyone before. If that’s true, it gives me enough of a chance to maybe talk her out of this. I’m gonna give it my best try.

“Sunshine…listen…I’m aware of the women downstairs. I know this guy is the boss and leader. But look at him. You won’t be able to call this self-defense. You’ll go to jail for murder. Or be on the run your whole fuckin’ life.”

She doesn’t even look my way. He is the only thing she can see. “I’ve been on the run anyway! At least now he’ll be gone. He’ll be where he belongs. Do you know what he did?”

“I saw.”

Staring at him with memories playing across her eyes, Sunshine whispers, as though she didn’t hear me, “He preys on people. He spent his life making money off lonely women. Women who didn’t have families, who didn’t have anyone to help them. He sold them like cattle. For sex. And it didn’t matter who wanted it. The evilest men in the world walked in, and he took their money and told them to do whatever they wanted. Like their lives meant nothing. All they wanted was a home and he twisted their dreams into nightmares.” Tears start to fall down her cheeks as her steady hand begins to shake. “My mother was murdered by one of those animals. And he’s lying there smiling at me!”

I look over. She’s right.

The sick fuck is grinning.

I want to go punch the old bastard myself, now.

Honey Badger walks up and stops two feet behind me, silently wanting the same. But this is her fight.

I try one last time. “You willing to go to jail for life? We’re calling the police. They’ll take him away. You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do,” she whispers, bringing the gun up and closing one eye for aim.

The demon in the bed throws ice into my veins as he rasps something I never saw coming.

“So…you’re gonna kill your own father?”

She doesn’t even blink.

“Matias…I can’t wait. Tell Lucifer you’re home.” Sunshine steadies the machine gun and fires. The old man’s chest explodes. Then his face as she fires again.

I watch her trembling lips part as the gun falls from her hands. Relief laced with finality is all over her. She turns her head and gazes at me with a silent question. I can hear her asking as though she said aloud.

Is it over?

I nod and start to go to her. But a shot rings out. Her eyes lose their sad light and she crumples to the ground. I rush forward, darting a look behind to understand what just happened. The thug, the one we thought was dead, wasn’t.

As Honey Badger runs to take him down, time slows. Everything is fuzzy as I scoop up the woman I held in my arms last night, and watch blood stream from the side of her head.

I am rocking her.

Shouting for an ambulance.

Whispering to her to hang on.

She’s limp and heavy.

The blood won’t stop.

“Stay with me.”