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

23. Kara

23

KARA

“ A nd then, boom! Little Jax just went and blew Josiah’s balls off!”

I glanced over at X, busily telling the police his version of events, while the officer’s face paled in the early morning light, and he crossed his legs like his own personal area might need protection from the barely five-foot child sitting with two other officers and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

I sat beside her while we told the police everything in a much less dramatic fashion.

Well, almost everything.

We didn’t mention how Whip and his guys had all turned up at pretty much the exact same time Jacqueline had pulled the trigger point-blank at Josiah’s crotch. How the shock of seeing their messiah lying on the ground bleeding had given us the upper hand to take control of the situation, all of Josiah’s men disarmed and herded away into the night along with all the weapons.

Except the one gun Jacqueline had used to make sure Josiah could never hurt another woman the way he’d hurt me.

Ice and Kyle had stayed behind with us. I didn’t know where Whip and Trigger were taking the rest of Josiah’s guys. I doubted it was anywhere good. I’d heard the guys mumbling about not having a pile of bodies here when the cops arrived.

I’d been scared of innocent women and children getting hurt. Hadn’t wanted people I loved to go to jail for murder. But Grayson had given Whip a nod, clearly telling him to take care of the situation, and I hadn’t had it in me to argue.

It had been me who’d called the police.

Because even when Josiah lay bleeding on the ground, it didn’t feel like enough.

It had been me who’d administered first aid, slowing the bleeding while Josiah howled on the ground until an ambulance arrived.

“He needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars. Search that building, you’ll find everything you need as proof of fraud and child pornography,” I said to the police officer shakily, watching the paramedics try to stabilize Josiah before they could move him. “Please save him,” I called out to them.

The police officer paused, shaking her head and mumbling, “You’re a bigger woman than I am. I’d want that mofo in the ground.” She cringed then glanced at me. “Don’t tell my superiors I said that. Please. Men like him, I just…” She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, swallowing hard.

I squeezed the officer’s fingers, telling her silently I understood.

One abuse victim could see it in another.

For Jacqueline’s sake, I didn’t want him to die. Having the knowledge you were responsible for another person’s death, even one as evil as Josiah, wasn’t something anyone should ever have to feel.

But some darkness inside me just wanted him to suffer in prison for the rest of his life. Where I would know that his every minute was miserable, the same way mine had been every second I’d been his wife. Death would be too kind a fate for the things Josiah had done. He didn’t deserve the easy way out his friends would receive at the hands of Grayson’s murder squad.

The paramedic shot something into Josiah’s arm that calmed his howling long enough for them to get pressure bandages on his wounds and him loaded onto a gurney. The legs folded up as they pushed it into the back of the ambulance, and one paramedic climbed in beside him, the other readying to close the doors.

“Wait!” I broke away from the officer interviewing me and hurried to the back of the vehicle.

The paramedic stopped me, but it didn’t matter anyway. Everything I’d wanted to say to Josiah was drowned out by his drugged-up, barely coherent ramblings.

“We will all be judged at the feet of the Lord, our souls melded to our earthly bodies until the ring of fire is crossed. Repent! Repent! The Lord demands your souls be cleansed with fire and rain and blood. Repent! Repent!”

I couldn’t even get a word in amongst his verbal diarrhea.

For a man filled with so much natural charisma and charm that he’d managed to form a cult, what was left of him at the end of the day was nothing but a raving lunatic who I might have actually felt sorry for, if he hadn’t deserved everything he had coming.

Hayden moved a phone away from his ear and let out a wolf whistle that cut through the bustle of the scene. “All interviews end now, until our lawyers are present.”

One of the older officers frowned at him. “That’s not how this works, son.”

Hayden simply held the phone out. “You can explain that to my brother.”

I let out a slow breath. I knew Hayden’s brother, Liam, was one of the best lawyers in the state. We’d met years ago, just after Hayley Jade was born, and I’d never forgotten the calm demeanor he’d handled everything with.

It was clear nothing had changed. The officer listened while Liam barked orders down the phone, and eventually the officer made a face.

He gave the phone back to Hayden. “We’ve already got statements from Jacqueline and Kara. But according to your lawyer, we’ll be finishing these interviews at the station with him present. He tells me he’s flying his whole team in today to take care of this.” He lowered his voice to a mutter, but I still heard it. “Won’t that be fun.”

It sounded like he thought it would be anything but.

The police made shooing motions at us. “Go then. We have more than enough details to track you down should you decide to skip town before we’re done investigating. We need to process this crime scene.”

“They won’t find anything other than proof Josiah is a perverted freak,” Scythe said quietly from behind us.

“Nothing?” Hawk asked beneath his breath. “You sure? If I have to make a scene so you have more time—”

Scythe rolled his eyes. “Don’t be insulting. You know I don’t miss things. Jax has a clear-cut case of self-defense which will never go to court anyway, after they see all the fucking shit on those computers.” He shuddered then looked at me. “You sure you want him in jail? ’Cause he deserves a bullet.”

I nodded at the deadly man who loved Bliss so sweetly it was hard to believe he was the same person I’d seen rubbing her feet just two nights earlier.

He didn’t seem happy with my decision, but he respected it. “If he doesn’t get life, I’ve got friends inside who’ll pay him a visit and make him wish he had.”

“That seems fair.”

Hawk grinned and wandered over, shaking his head. “Rebel will be proud of the two of you.” He tousled Jacqueline’s hair. “Little Jax is even more badass than her eldest sister. Rebel totally lost her title as the biggest baddie in the family.”

Jacqueline grinned at his praise.

He glanced at me. “Apart from you, of course.”

I laughed at his pathetic attempt at saving my feelings. It was unnecessary. I wasn’t ever going to be a badass. I wasn’t my sister with her love of knuckle-dusters. And I doubted I could have even been as ruthless as Jacqueline had, pulling that trigger.

I glanced at her. “How did you get that gun anyway?”

She grinned over at Grayson, her fingers still trembling, though I suspected that might have been more from leftover adrenaline than fear now. “He gave it to me.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You gave a thirteen-year-old a loaded gun?”

He shrugged. “Simple psychiatry, really. People think men do things to impress women, but often it’s the exact opposite. Men like Josiah only care about impressing other men. Everything they do is designed to make themselves appear bigger, stronger. Like the alpha male of the pack. I knew as soon as I walked out there that they’d frisk me and all the other men. We’d be perceived as a threat that the alpha needed to deal with.

“But I also know how Josiah has underestimated you every step of the way. I figured he’d probably be even worse with a young girl like Jax, and she wouldn’t be considered a threat who needed to be searched. I tucked the gun into the back of her pants, beneath her jacket, right before she walked out of the building to kneel beside you.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the nickname they’d all adopted so quickly. After what she’d done here this morning, my sister definitely needed a stronger-sounding name than Jacqueline.

It was weird how in seconds, she’d transformed herself in my eyes from a little girl with pigtails to the badass Hawk had pointed out. She really was a lot like Rebel, and I was glad for it. I didn’t ever want her to be taken advantage of the way I had. I’d had to learn the lesson the hard way and more than once. But I didn’t want that for her.

I also knew I could be strong in my own way. It didn’t have to be in the same way they were.

Hayden put his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get out of here. Liam’s receptionist booked us a block of rooms at a motel in town. More than we need. Deliberately. So we have accommodation for anyone who wants to leave this place.”

I widened my eyes at him. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “I don’t know what comes after that, but for tonight, we take anyone who wants to come with us.”

I glanced over at Jax. “Josiah isn’t coming back. His inner circle won’t be either. No Onith or Jed or Merle.” I squeezed her fingers, listing out Josiah’s closest allies. “That doesn’t mean it’s safe here though. There’s space now for new leadership, and depending who steps up to take it will determine how you all live. I know this is the only life you know, and I don’t want to take away your choices if there’s a chance you could be happy here, but I want you to come with us. Live with me. Be part of our family.” I glanced up over her head at my three men standing behind her. “It’s a pretty special one.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded quickly. “I want to come. Please don’t let them make me stay.”

I hugged her to me fiercely, a protective parental feeling coming over me. “They wouldn’t dare.”

The spark of anger inside me that had lived there ever since my parents had married me off to Josiah, without so much of a hint as to what was happening, burned a little brighter. We hiked back to the main communal area, where police officers held the community back.

“Louisa Kara?” A woman gasped.

I raised my head, gaze meeting the narrowed, dark eyes of Camilla, Josiah’s second wife. A woman I’d lived with for years who had never once lifted a finger to help me, even though she knew exactly what her husband had done to me night after night, day after day, right beneath her nose.

She pushed through the crowd. “What have you done to him? I saw the ambulance! Is he hurt?”

“Yes.” It was the truth. “But I’m sure, like the cockroach he is, he’ll bounce right back.”

“How dare you speak of a Lord’s messenger like that! You truly are the wicked woman he claims you to be.”

I rolled my eyes. “And you’re cruel. But you’re also brainwashed, so I’ll overlook it and hope that one day you’ll see who the truly wicked one was.” I raised my voice, directing my attention to those who were left. Josiah’s other wives and their children. Kyle standing with his parents. So many faces I didn’t know, many of them women but men too, newcomers who hadn’t been here when I’d left. “Josiah isn’t coming back. Ever. So you all have a choice. Stay or leave. I’m making the offer to each and every one of you here. If you choose to leave, we’ll help. We have motel rooms for the next couple of nights, and after that we’ll work something out. You won’t be alone.”

I stared around the crowd. Taking in each face, the scared expressions, and the hushed whispers. I wasn’t surprised when the only people who stepped forward to leave with us were Shari and Kyle’s parents.

But it didn’t break my heart any less.

There was no easy way to convince them. They had to want more than this life. If they were too scared to try, the way I had, then that was their right. All we could do was hope that whoever of them stood up in Josiah’s place would turn Ethereal Eden into a community these people could be proud of. One that shared grown food and took care of each other.

One that did away with a fake religion that had torn them apart.

That was my only hope for them.

I turned and walked away, holding tightly to my sister’s hand. At our old home, we let ourselves in, Hawk, Hayden, and Grayson right behind us. This time, I didn’t try to stop them.

My father stood across from the doorway, his arms folded across his chest and an unhappy frown pulling at his mouth. His eyes flickered to the blood still sprayed across Jacqueline’s pajamas, and then back to me. “Louisa Kara, what have you done?”

I glared at him. “What you should have a long time ago. Protected my family.”

He blanched, and I moved to push past him. “We aren’t staying. I’m taking Jacqueline…Jax…with me.”

“Like hell you are.” Dad reached for Jax, but before even one of the guys could stop him, my mother stepped in between.

Her eyes blazed. “You’ll let her go.”

Her words weren’t directed to me for once, but to my father.

He squinted. “What? You want her to leave? How many daughters do we have to lose?”

My mother shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “How do you not realize we already have? Alice died trying to escape this place. The moment we allowed Josiah to marry Kara, we lost her. And now you’ve done the same thing to Jacqueline.”

“Marrying our leader is an honor!” he yelled. “I was looking out for them!”

But my mother was having none of it. She shook her head. “I believed that with Kara. I really did. She was a grown woman with a child, and she needed someone to care for her. Provide for her.” She shook her head sadly at her husband, staring at him with barely concealed hate. “But then you made the same deal for Jacqueline. Who is neither a woman nor a mother nor in need of a man to take care of her.”

My father’s cheeks blazed red. “She’s old enough. Women got married at her age all the time in my parents’ generation.”

It was then I realized how far he’d sunk. He’d been a different man once. One who’d put us on the backs of ponies and led us around on them. One who’d taken us into town and bought us ice cream. Even as little as five years ago when Rebel had lost her mom, he’d been different.

But a lot had changed. I no longer recognized the man he’d become.

“She’s thirteen years old!” Mom shouted, startling us all. “Thirteen! And you sold her to a monster so you’d have his ear. Something he promised you when you gave him Kara, that he never delivered on. When are you going to wake up and realize that man doesn’t give you an ounce of respect and never will!”

My father’s eyes darkened, his tone threatening. “The Devil has a hold of your tongue.”

Hayden ran his tongue across his teeth. “Watch your mouth, old man. From where I’m standing, it seems a whole lot more like she’s just telling you the truth.”

I might have fallen in love with him just a little more in that moment, watching him stand up for a woman he didn’t even know.

My mom grasped my hand and pressed her fingers into my palms. “Take her. Give her a good life away from this place. Love her like she’s your own. Please. She isn’t safe here, I know that.”

I squeezed her fingers back, knowing this woman hadn’t always done right by me. But willing to forgive her anyway because that was the sort of person I wanted to be. Not someone who held on to hate and negativity.

Those things ate away at a person like cancer, and I already had enough hate for Josiah and his men.

“Come with us,” I begged her. “You don’t have to stay here. Naomi and Samantha—”

My mom shook her head. “I need to stay for them. They’ll never leave. This life is all they know, and they aren’t like you and Jacqueline. They don’t have adventure in their souls.”

I didn’t think I did either. But maybe I had once. Back when I’d first left, full of confidence about finding my place in the world.

It had beaten me down, changed me, but maybe I could get some of that back. For Jax. So she didn’t lose that spark the way I had.

I let out a breath and put my arms around my mother, drawing her in tight and fast. But I held her long enough to whisper, “If you ever change your mind, you’ll always have a place with us.”

It was more generous than she deserved, and I think she knew it.

She pulled away, wiping at her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

I was too.

Hayden, Grayson, and Hawk all glared at my father, just silently daring him to say a word as Jax and I ran up the stairs and packed the few meager belongings she wanted to take with her.

We walked out of Ethereal Eden, my sister and Shari at my side, and the three men I loved at our backs.