Three to Fall (Saint View Slayers vs. Sinners #3)

22. Kara

22

KARA

T he huge, corrugated iron shed loomed over me, a dark, hulking figure between the trees. It somehow whispered of the evil things that took place inside the walls, and I shivered, despite the thin trail of sweat dripping down my back from running.

“This way.” Shari didn’t bother to keep her voice down. The shed was at the other end of the main community, well away from the houses we’d been trying to keep quiet around.

Hawk had risked radioing Whip and his team to follow us for backup, even though chasing after Jacqueline had taken us all farther from the getaway cars than any of us really wanted to be.

It didn’t matter. I wasn’t leaving without my sister, and the guys weren’t leaving without me. I followed Shari through the open doorway, eyeing the pin code by the door which clearly Jacqueline had known in order to get in ahead of us.

I hated she knew it. That she’d been forced to work here, lying and scamming people all while being abused herself.

The entire bottom level of the shed was filled with cheap desks that could have been picked up on the side of the road after their owners had considered them trash. There were a few office chairs, but it was mostly hard stools or unmatching dining table seats pushed neatly beneath each desk. Desktop computers or laptops sat at each workstation, along with thick booklets that looked like movie scripts.

Shari saw me glance at one. “They’re the lines we’re supposed to feed the targets. He and Onith created them to streamline the whole process.” She turned away. “You don’t want to read the things in them.”

I couldn’t stop myself from opening one. The lines on the page were familiar. The same ones Alice had used in the beginning of her texts to Golden. I flicked through the pages, noticing where she’d gone off track, the conversation turning personal and their true feelings playing out, script clearly forgotten. But that didn’t stop my eye from skimming farther along and balking at the things Josiah had these women saying to unsuspecting targets. Each page got worse and worse. I shut it quickly. “Let’s just get Jacqueline and get out of here.”

She nodded, pointing to the mezzanine level. “She’ll be up there, probably. In Josiah’s office.”

I headed for the stairs, but Jacqueline appeared at the top of them, holding a small hard drive. Her eyes gleamed with determination. “I’ve got it. I can’t do anything about the photos already out there in text chats. But I have all the originals. And so much more.”

Relief at just the sight of her filled me. I rushed up the stairs as she ran down them, and I enveloped her in my arms, hugging her tight. I didn’t know what she meant by so much more, but I prayed it would be enough to get Josiah arrested. “Clever girl.”

She trembled in my arms. “They’re making me marry him, Kara. I can’t.”

I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her just a little, hoping to get through the terror taking hold of her now she’d done what needed doing. “Who? Who are they making you marry?”

I had to know. Maybe already did, somewhere deep inside me, but I had to hear her say his name.

“Josiah. Please. We need to get out of here. If they catch us—”

“They won’t.” I refused to believe any other alternative. But that didn’t stop the bile churning in my stomach.

Josiah was never going to stop punishing me. Marrying my baby sister was just the latest in a long line of cruel moments.

I caught Shari’s hand at the bottom of the stairs, and Hawk glanced at me, a silent question of, we good to go? on his face.

I nodded.

I just wanted this to be over. Wanted to be back in my bed, safe with my sister and my daughter on either side of me.

“Well, that was too easy.” X practically pouted, wandering through the maze of office equipment. “Saved the day without even breaking a sweat. No knives. No bullets. I could have done this in my sleep.”

Scythe stopped and stared at him.

Hawk practically growled. “You did not just jinx us by saying this was easy?”

Scythe took a knife from a holder around his ankle, and then a gun from the back of his jeans, while shooting X a dirty look. “Seriously, bro. That’s like, rule number one. You never say it’s too easy. You’re just asking for shit to hit the fan.”

X scoffed, practically waltzing to the exit. “You guys are as bad as my old man. He used to say superstitious crap like that too. It’s rubbish. Nothing is going to happen. We’re in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere surrounded by Jesus lovers. What are they going to do? Pray for my soul? Joke’s on them. I don’t have one.”

Scythe glanced at him warily. “Or they surround the place, guns drawn, trapping us all inside, forcing us to shoot our way out.”

X paused at the doorway, the first one to make it that far, and then ducked to the side. He turned wide eyes on Scythe. “Wait, did you peep? It’s cheating if you knew that because you peeped!”

We all stared at him.

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine! I shouldn’t have said anything! But can we deal with the group of men currently surrounding the building first? THEN you can have your I-told-you-so moment?”

All the guys groaned.

But all I could see was Josiah standing outside the door, dressed all in white, like a ghost in the darkness.

A tremble started in my fingers, but Grayson slid his hand around mine. “This isn’t the same as when you escaped with Hayley Jade and Alice.”

“It feels like it.”

Josiah had always made me feel like I couldn’t hide. Even in the middle of the group I’d brought with me, shrouded by darkness, he knew I was here. I could feel it. His gaze pierced through shadows, furniture, and bodies, straight through my heart.

“I’ll die before he lays so much as a finger on you,” Hayden whispered, stepping in close, his big body moving in front of me and going shoulder to shoulder with Hawk so I was shielded from my husband’s stare.

But I knew if I was ever going to move past this, I had to be the one to face my own demons.

“Kara… My beautiful wife. I know you’re in there. Aren’t you going to come out and say hello to your husband?”

His voice sent shivers down my spine, the painful kind you got when you were cold to the bone and anything touching your skin hurt. They felt too much like his fingers, pressing and prodding cruelly at my skin, holding me down, taking what I didn’t want to give.

“If he says your name one more time, I’m going to cut his fucking tongue out with Scythe’s knife.” Hawk gripped his gun a little tighter. “Then feed it to him.”

But this was my fight. Not his. “Let me through.”

All three men around me stiffened.

None of them moved.

“He has the building surrounded.” Scythe ignored me, quietly checking through small windows that I realized Hawk and Hayden had herded us away from. “I can see at least eight guys.” He flicked something on his gun. “It’s fine. I can take out that many.”

X shook his head. “Nope. I count more like twenty. And those look like semi-automatics.”

“Well, that’s not fucking ideal, then, is it?” Scythe perched on the edge of the desk with a sigh. “Fun wreckers.”

“Kara…” Josiah’s taunts came again. “I’m going to count to three, and if you aren’t out here by then, I cannot be held accountable for what my men might do with the threat you’ve brought to our holy lands.”

Gray turned the knob on the walkie-talkie almost all the way to silent and quietly gave Whip and his team the lowdown on what was going on.

Whip’s deep voice came back, barely audible above the heavy breathing of the people around me. “We’re coming but we lost Ice temporarily and had to go back for him. Stall them. We’re probably fifteen minutes out.”

“One…” Josiah called from outside the building, beginning the countdown he’d threatened.

X cracked his neck. “So as far as I can see, our options right now are, sit here and get shot. Run, and get shot. Shoot them, and…”

“Get shot?” Hayden asked dryly.

X grinned. “Hey! How did you know I was going to say that?”

“Not exactly the greatest options.” Grayson palmed the gun Hawk had given him to use. “We don’t have time to wait for the others to get here. We’re out of options. We’re going to have to fight. X is right.”

I clenched my fingers into fists. “No. He’s not. And there is an option you haven’t considered.”

Everyone turned in my direction.

“You trust me to get us out of this alive.”

X lowered his voice and whispered to Scythe, “Maybe she has one of those machine gun bras…”

“That would be insanely cool,” he whispered back.

We all ignored them, my gaze solely on my men. “Do you trust me?”

I’d trusted the three of them with my life more than once. Now I needed them to put the same trust in me.

None of them seemed very happy, but all three nodded without hesitation.

“Then follow my lead.” I glanced at my youngest sister, shielded by Shari’s protective arms, and prayed like hell this would work.

If it didn’t, we were all dead.

I moved to the edge of the doorway. “Husband. Please. We wish to seek your forgiveness.”

“Like hell I do,” X muttered, only loud enough for the rest of us to hear.

Hawk shot him a look. “Just do what she says. She knows him better than any of us do, and we ain’t fucking all dying here tonight by getting in a shootout we can’t win.”

I waved a hand at them, as Josiah’s deep, arrogant chuckle echoed through the night. “You expect forgiveness? After everything you’ve done? You came onto my holy lands and brought men wearing the Devil’s insignia on their backs.”

Actually, it was only Hawk wearing a club jacket with the Slayers’ logo on the back, but Josiah was dramatic to his core, forever in the middle of the constant show he put on for his disciples. He loved the attention. His arrogance thrived on it.

And that was exactly what was going to get us out of this.

Taking a deep breath to calm the shaking in my limbs, I stepped out from the safety of the building. For the first time in months, I faced off with my husband.

It was the first time ever, really. Because I had never dared to openly stare at him the way I did now. I’d spent years staring at my feet in his presence, trying to be the meek, obedient woman he expected me to be.

I never wanted to be her again. And yet I dropped to my knees on the hard ground, small rocks digging in as I knelt before Josiah.

I couldn’t bring myself to look away, even though it was expected. I stared him in the eye, hating him with every fiber of my being. “I have been a disobedient, foolish woman.” The words scalded my tongue, poisoned the air around me as I spat them out, hating every one but saying what needed to be said. “Let them go and I’ll be different. Better. I’ll be whatever you want me to be.”

Josiah laughed from his position on the hill above me. “You always were a stupid woman. I don’t want you, Kara. Didn’t you hear? You’ve been out too long. Tainted by the sins of other men. Your sister is set to be my wife a mere three days from now. You’ve been replaced. Jacqueline! Get out here and see what happens when a wife of mine disobeys me.”

My fingers clenched into fists at my side. Jacqueline and Shari slowly followed me out into the night and knelt either side of me, their gazes firmly on the dirt, their hands tucked behind their backs in the subservient position we all assumed while kneeling in front of the altar at church each Sunday.

A desperation rose inside me, fueled by the sick leer in Josiah’s eyes when he looked at Jacqueline. “That doesn’t need to be.” I distracted him, pulling his attention back to me. “I have returned to take my place at your side. These men I bring with me, they will kneel beside me and allow you to wash away their sins so they, too, can be good men of the Lord.”

The seconds ticked by too slowly. Each one spanning a lifetime and fueling the realization that Whip and the others wouldn’t get here in time to be any help.

Josiah cocked his head to one side as Hawk, Grayson, and Hayden came out of the shed, their hands up, and knelt either side of Shari and Jacqueline. A moment later, Scythe and X did the same, quiet but clearly not happy.

All of their hands were empty. I had no doubt they’d stashed their guns somewhere beneath their clothes, and I felt sick when Josiah’s men moved in and patted the guys down, removing any weapons they found.

Josiah’s gaze stayed hot on Jacqueline. “There she is. The bride-to-be.”

To my surprise, Jacqueline lifted her head. “I’ll never be your wife.”

Shari gasped from beside me, and there was a rumble of disapproving words from Josiah’s men. Sun was starting to rise at the back of the shed behind us, casting a little light across the sharp planes of Josiah’s face.

His expression filled with fury.

“See? She’s a child,” I begged my husband. “Barely thirteen years old. She’s not old enough to be your wife. Not yet. Take me back. Let me train her for a few more years until she’s old enough to make a good wife for you.”

“You know nothing about being a good wife, you fat, useless bitch. You couldn’t even give me a son. Your one responsibility, and you couldn’t even do that. Instead, your sister will. She will give me all the sons I desire until her body is as wasted and useless as you are.”

I shook my head. “No.”

It was a mistake. I knew it instantly, and so did Josiah. He’d seen a weakness.

Seen yet another way to make me pay for the embarrassment I’d caused him.

“Get up here, wife-to-be.”

I grabbed for Jacqueline, but Onith, Josiah’s second-in-charge, stepped forward and knocked me to one side.

One of the guys let out a growl but was instantly met with a gun to his head. I could practically feel the tension radiating from them as they battled to stay on their knees and do nothing.

Josiah dragged Jacqueline across the uneven ground and placed her at his feet.

We couldn’t help her now. Josiah’s men had all moved in tight around our group, weapons drawn and pressed to the backs of each of our heads.

But Josiah’s hate was aimed solely at me. He grabbed Jacqueline’s hair, controlling her with it. “Kneel properly for your Lord and Savior, woman! Did your mother teach you nothing? Are you as useless as your bitch of a sister over there?”

Jacqueline struggled, tears streaming down her face. But at least there was no gun to her head, like the rest of us. At least she would be alive while our bodies lay in a pool of blood and dirt.

I’d thought I could do this. Thought I could save us all.

I’d been wrong.

Josiah’s cruel eyes focused on me. “I don’t need you to teach her how to be a good wife. That is something only a man can teach a woman. Maybe I’ll start now. Right here. While you watch what your disobedience caused.”

No.

He reached for his belt, undoing it with one hand, the other never leaving my sister’s hair, even though she fought him every second.

“No!” I screamed.

He undid the drawstring and let the loose white pants fall at his feet. His long shirt covered him, but his hand went beneath, and I just knew he was stroking his cock, getting himself hard.

I only had one card left to play. One I hadn’t wanted to show, because the thought of it left me in a cold sweat.

But I wouldn’t let my sister suffer the same fate I had. Tears rolled down my face, and I clutched my belly. “Stop. Please, Josiah. I’m pregnant. It’s your baby. I’ve been pregnant this whole time.”

It distracted him long enough for him to loosen his grip on Jacqueline’s hair. He stared at me, his face a mixture of shock, and then smug pleasure.

Then a sweet, sweet pain, as Jacqueline drew the gun from the back of her pajama pants and pulled the trigger.