Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

37. Milo

THIRTY-SEVEN

MILO

I jolted upright in bed, my eyes narrowed into slits as I tried to process what had yanked me from sleep.

An edge cut into my consciousness.

Razor sharp and making my heart gallop in jagged clips.

Night eclipsed the light, the entire room shrouded in it, everything quieted and held. The minutes slowed, bound by something sinister that eddied through the room.

Tessa was twisted into a pretzel beside me, her limbs at odd angles, which I’d come to realize was just the way she slept, her hair strewn all around and her soft breaths filling the air in tiny puffs of peace.

But there was a disorder within it.

A darkness deeper than the night.

Ugly and oppressive.

I steadied my breaths and inclined my ear, listening for anything out of sorts.

It took me a second to realize the noise might have come from one of the kids. To realize they were really here. It’d seemed such an impossibility just yesterday that I doubted my mind had fully accepted the shift.

Only silence echoed back.

An eerie stillness that slithered through the atmosphere in a menacing mist.

Gulping around the spiked rock that filled my throat, I slipped out of bed, keeping my feet light on the hardwood floors as I eased to the bedroom door that we’d left open specifically so we could hear the kids if they needed us.

I peered out.

More of that stagnant tranquility echoed back.

I moved quickly across the space to the hall and down to the children’s room, my breaths quiet and shallow as I checked to make sure they were fine.

Both of them were fast asleep, Remy curled up in a ball and Scout tossed out on his back like a starfish.

Relief heaved from my lungs, and I dropped my head between my shoulders so I could get it together.

You’re just freaking the fuck out, Milo. Conjuring things because your kids are here.

Blowing out a sigh, I shuffled back out into the main room, on my way back to my girl.

Only I stalled out when I saw the flicker of light through the windows out back.

An icy dread slipped down my spine.

I crept forward and squinted into the darkness. Bare moonlight floated down from the heavens, scarcely enough to cast the earth in shadows, the trees mere silhouettes and the lake a blackened pond.

“Fuck.”

I was losing it.

Making shit up.

I started to move when I saw it.

A flash, flash, flash that strobed through the trees.

I was out the door and barreling that way, my feet taking the path down the middle of the lawn in the direction of the lake.

I sprinted across the cool, damp grass.

The only thing I had on was a pair of shorts and a tee.

Barefoot.

Wasn’t exactly prepared, but there was no time to hesitate. I wasn’t about to give this fucker a chance to get away.

Knew it the second the bastard sensed me. The way he suddenly changed course and darted back into the forest.

Violence erupted from where I held it chained. A straight shot injected into my veins.

He was here.

Here at my home.

Where my children were.

Where Tessa was.

Rage blurred my sight, and I hustled faster, tossing myself right over the top of the fence in one leap. I landed hard on the other side, nearly tripping as I was set off balance, but I righted myself quickly and hurtled into the thick.

The forest rose up on all sides.

It cloaked the faint rays of moonlight. Dimmed them to nearly nothing.

I was surrounded by grisly shadows on each side, spindly branches and fallen trees and the sharp pricks of pinecones and needles beneath my feet.

But I didn’t slow.

I ran.

I fucking ran through the forest, an arm coming up to guard my face as branches whipped and lashed at my flesh.

The tangled gnarl of roots below tried to slow my path.

A rock cut into the sole of my foot.

I didn’t give.

Didn’t slow.

Adrenaline sloshed through my veins, fueling the aggression that seethed.

With all of me, I hunted the light.

Still, it grew farther away with each step.

Fuck.

My heart hammered as I raced through the maze of trees.

The darkness disorienting.

My breaths too shallow.

I suddenly broke out of the forest.

Confused, I looked around, realizing it had landed me halfway down my gravel drive that ran for more than a mile.

The asshole had made a big loop around my property.

Ragged breaths jutted from my lungs as I searched for which direction he’d gone, then I shielded my eyes when headlights suddenly speared through the darkness.

An SUV peeled out from where it’d been hidden just off the drive about a hundred yards in front of me, whipping around and heading in the opposite direction toward the main road.

Gravel spewed as his tires spun, and the fucker gunned it.

I chased him like it might be of use.

Like it wasn’t fruitless.

Like I could catch up. Head it off. Stop it before the horrors of my past were the ones catching up to me.

Taillights disappeared around a corner, and I kept lumbering forward before I bent in two, gasping for air that I couldn’t find.

A guttural roar ripped from my lungs, rage blustering beneath my skin.

Motherfucker.

He wanted to come here? I was going to find him first.

Fear roiled with the desperation.

I knew it. Knew how this would end.

I glared down the road where he’d escaped until everything settled.

The dust.

The scream of his engine as he took off down the main road.

My breaths that I couldn’t control.

But it did nothing to settle the chaos.

No peace found in the middle of the mayhem.

Swiping my forearm over the sweat drenching my face, I turned and walked back up the drive, not giving a shit that the soles of my feet were shredded, barely registering I was leaving a trail of blood behind me before I caught sight of Tessa, who was on the front porch freaking out, her arms hugged across her chest as she paced.

She gasped when she saw me in the distance, and she fumbled down the steps and came running my way, wearing shorts and a tank and unlaced tennis shoes she’d clearly stuffed her feet into.

All that red flew around her beneath the pale moonlight, and my chest panged so hard, clutched in this love and this fight.

This girl.

The sun who’d risen on a darkened day.

But how could I ever stand in the light when wickedness still enshrouded?

She threw herself against me with a hard thud, grasping my shoulders when we made contact. “Oh my God, Milo, what happened? I heard the back door burst open, and I went running out there. I couldn’t find you. I called and called. I…I wanted to get in the car and come find you, but the kids are still sleeping, and I didn’t know what to do.”

The words tumbled from her in a deluge of worry.

I curled my arm around her waist and inhaled, struggling to keep my shit together.

To keep from losing it.

She yanked away, ocean eyes searching me in the night.

A frenzied current that battered at the shores of my heart.

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” I grunted.

“What happened?” she begged.

“Someone was out in the forest.” Could barely force it out around the razors that lined my throat.

Terror ripped through her features. “Are you sure?”

I managed a harsh nod.

“Oh my God…” Her brow pinched in alarm, and she let go of the words like a secret, “Was it him?”

I unwound her from my hold and turned away, unable to face her when my body still vibrated with hostility.

Wrath still firing from my cells.

I looked to the ground. “Likely someone he sent.”

Horror wrapped me from behind, her energy throbbing and thrashing and battering against my back.

“I don’t understand. What do they want?” she whispered like she was praying for a different outcome.

I whipped back around, the confession tearing out of me on the hatred I would forever hold. “They killed her, Tessa.”

Tessa stumbled back like she’d run smack into a wall.

Pale skin blanching a ghostly white. Thought I could see the blood drain from her head and pool in a vat of dread in her belly. “What do you mean?”

My jaw screwed in indignation as my fists curled in malice. “They killed her.”

I could feel her heart seize.

My teeth ground as I forced myself to continue. “Because of me.”

“No,” she whimpered.

My nod was savage.

“Her death was labeled an accident. Paula has always believed it a suicide. I let her believe it.”

A barbed cry got loose of her mouth that she covered with shaking hands. “Oh my God, Milo.”

“I hunted him…for a full fucking year…I hunted him. Abandoned my kids, gave them over to Paula and Gene without so much as a fight because the only thing I could do was hunt the monster so I could make him pay for what he’d done.”

Torment crumpled her face.

Mine and hers.

Did she see it now?

Who I really was?

“I’d taken out a bunch of his men. One after another, trying to get to him.”

Tessa choked over my blunt confession.

“Plus, word on the street was he owed a bunch of money to some people more powerful than he was. Guess that was enough to run him out of town and into hiding. He was a fucking ghost. I’d finally given up. Figured someone else had beaten me to the honor of sending that piece of shit to the ground. But I should have known he would come back for me. Should have known he was biding his time until he found the right time to strike.”

I stared down at this gorgeous girl who’d stood beside me all this time while I admitted it.

The one I’d warned wouldn’t like what she saw if she got too close.

Now that she could see, tremors rocked her.

Violently.

Savagely.

“Milo.” It was a whimper.

“And I don’t know exactly what his game is, Tessa. But make no mistake, now that he’s returned, he won’t touch my family again.”