Out of Love(74)

If …

Easing up the backstairs with two swift steps, I listened at the door, but I heard nothing. Off to the side, I turned the handle slowly, praying the stupid thing didn’t creak when I opened it.

Once inside, I inched my way down the small hall, checking the bathroom before entering the kitchen with my gun pointed forward and my knife readied in my left hand. My movements stopped when a set of dark eyes locked on me along with the third eye … the barrel of a gun.

Slade stood to the left of the screen door, a peculiar situation. If they were working together, their set up was shit. He said nothing.

I remembered those days … eyeing my target for hours if necessary, never saying a word, no matter what. Fortunately, I played by a different set of rules. I was no longer an assassin. Just a dad picking his girl up from a cabin outside of LA.

“Livy?” I said her name calmly, using my best father-ese.

Slade said nothing.

“If I don’t hear her voice soon, I’ll have to assume she’s dead. If she’s dead, this will be the worst fucking day of your life because I won’t kill you. I’ll spend the next month right here with you and that fuckup hiding by the Jeep, torturing you until your heart gives out because you just can’t handle any more pain. And even then, you’d only know a fraction of the pain I’ve felt since you took my wife. Now … where is my daughter?”

It was like looking in a goddamn mirror. Not only did my daughter find a guy who had an eerily physical resemblance to me in my twenties, she found a guy who didn’t flinch, blink, or so much as swallow. It was hard to put the fear of God in someone’s eyes when they didn’t believe in a god. Slade clearly didn’t believe in a god, and he wasn’t afraid to die.

“She’s not here, is she?”

I took a step forward, gaining an odd admiration for the young man staring me down like I was nothing but a fly buzzing around his head. I wondered what his number was. We all had a number. Mine was five. I let my prey get within five feet of me before I’d strike. Most others had bigger numbers like eight or ten.

Not me. I liked to draw them in so close I could feel the warmth of their skin, hear the exchange of their breaths, and kill them with my bare hands.

I took three more steps, reducing the distance to about six feet, keeping my body just to the left of the window, but still to the right of the screen door—out of Abe’s sight.

One more step.

Slade’s left hand lifted, pointing two guns at me. Five … what were the chances that the kid’s number was five like mine?

“If she’s not here, I can’t let you live.” I shrugged. It wasn’t my fault. Everyone needed rules. Mine were pretty simple.

“Daddy?”

*

Livy

Slade’s gaze shifted from my dad to me as I took slow steps down the hall toward the kitchen. They stood five feet apart, guns pointed at each other.

Jericho stayed right at my side.

“Hey, baby. I just have a few things to wrap up. I have a score to settle for you and your mom. Why don’t you wait for me in the bathroom,” Dad said like he was asking me what I wanted for dinner.

Slade said nothing with his mouth, but the look on his face conveyed anger. He was angry at me for not following his instructions.

“Please put the guns down. He didn’t kill Mom. Abe did it.” My feet continued toward the two men.

“Doesn’t matter. He was going to try to take you away from me. Weren’t you?”

Wylder gave him nothing. A goddamn iron expression—fearless and steadfast. Why didn’t he plead his case? He didn’t kill my mom. He didn’t know anything about it.

Dad grunted, cocking his head to the side at Slade. “You actually think you love her? Is that why she’s still alive and that fuckup is outside?”

Still … Slade said nothing. Did nothing. Not a blink.

“Well, you’ll have to come through me to get to her.” Dad slid the knife from his left hand into the back of his cargo pants and retrieved a gun from the same spot, handing the gun to me. “Livy, take this and wait in the bathroom. If anyone but me opens the door, pull the trigger.”

“Dad …”

He dropped the gun in his other hand. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m giving him the advantage. Two guns to no guns. Now take it and go.”

My attention stuck to Slade. He made the tiniest nod of his head and slid both guns back into the holster. “Go,” he whispered, eyeing my dad.

I backed up slowly, my heart torn apart, my world on the edge of imploding. As soon as I shut the door. I heard the unmistakable sound of flesh and bones colliding. The grunts. Crash! The thunk of bodies falling to the floor and against the walls, rattling everything else in the house.

“Stop,” I whispered, shaking my head and releasing a new round of emotions. “Stop …” I said a little louder before opening the door.

My eyes homed in on Slade’s back against the kitchen floor as my dad took a menacing step toward him preparing to plant his boot into Slade’s ribs. Slade swiped my dad’s leg, bringing him to the ground. His fists brutally planted into my dad’s face, sending blood splattering along the floor. My dad’s hand cuffed Slade’s throat and they rolled, giving my dad the advantage on top of Slade. I couldn’t tell if Slade was breathing. He gripped my dad’s wrist with one hand while his other hand flew in a hard fist toward my dad’s jaw.