Raw Redemption (Crossing the Line #4)(3)

It was the loose ends she’d left in Chicago that wouldn’t allow her to relax completely. With prison time hanging over her head and two dogged cops breathing down her neck in an interrogation room, she’d felt…freedom. Ironic, sure. Or perhaps that skewed outlook meant she had a screw loose. As a young girl, she’d dreamed of traveling. Swimming in the oceans of faraway places and eating exotic foods. But as her life had progressed and she’d only seldom been let outside the confines of her father’s marble mini mansion? Prison had not only been a change, it had represented distance from witnessing her father’s violence.

But more importantly, a chance to atone for her part in that violence.

Then all at once, she’d been standing on the sidewalk. Outside the police station, instead of behind the bars of a cell. For once, there had been no one to take her home. No dark car approaching. No meaty paws on her back, shuffling her forward. Without warning, freedom had stretched before her, a swimming pool in which she would sink or swim. So she’d swum…and swum. Away from her past and family name. No longer was her only option to trade one prison for another. She could finally break free.

Being her father’s daughter in certain small ways, she’d assumed there would be surveillance on her after leaving the police station. So she’d done what any girl raised inside the walls of a criminal organization would do. She’d woven through businesses, leaving through back exits and jogging down trash-strewn alleys until she found a parking garage where she could hot-wire a car.

And she’d never gone home.

She had, however, made one quick stop at her father’s “office” to procure funds. It had been risky, but entirely necessary, considering she’d had only the clothes on her back and zero job skills to speak of.

Unless you counted the talents that had landed her in the interrogation room to begin with.

Talents that would get her nowhere on a farm. Thank God.

Creak.

Ailish went still. She knew better than to show any sign that she heard a possible intruder, but such a feat was difficult with your heart punching you in the throat.

Breathe.

Humming the first song that came to mind—“It’s a Small World”—Ailish gathered her hair in a ponytail and secured it with a black band. She took the two steps required to enter the tiny kitchen and slowly removed a knife from the drawer, under the guise of slicing a green apple. When she heard another creak from the rear of the guesthouse, she only hummed louder.

It couldn’t be the farmer or his wife. They usually arrived with all the subtlety of a fireworks display, shouting her name from the backs of their horses. No, someone was lurking and dammit, she’d only been in Wisconsin for two weeks. Who had found her so quickly? The cops or her father?

Which was worse?

Out of the corner of her eye, Ailish watched the back doorknob turn. Slowly…slowly. She gripped the knife’s handle with such force, it made tiny chopping noises against the wooden cutting board. “Come on, just do it,” she murmured under her breath. “Stop playing games.”

Ailish got her wish as the door flew open with a bang against the opposite wall. It only took her a split second to recognize the two men—hopefully only two—and hurl the knife. It caught the taller one in his left shoulder, sticking out at an awkward angle.

Tall Man gave Ailish a look of disbelief as he removed the blade and dropped it at his feet. “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.”

She inched toward the loose floorboard. “How’d he find me?”

Cautiously, a man in a vintage Cubs cap eased up beside his bleeding crony. “Your father is a very industrious man.”

“Don’t tell me about my father. I’ve known him for twenty-one years.”

“All right,” Tall Man said, gritting his teeth. “Here’s what happens now. You get your sweet ass in the car. You don’t want to know the alternative.”

Ailish listened for a third person outside, heard nothing. They’d made a mistake by coming in the same entrance. “Maybe not. Tell me anyway. I want to recount it word for word to my father next time I see him.”

Cubs Cap laughed without humor. “You know, you’ve gotten a hell of a lot more interesting since taking off. Should be a decent car ride back to Chicago.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Tall Man advanced, one hand plugging the knife wound she’d inflicted. Ailish halted her progress toward the loose floorboard and backed toward the front door instead. Dammit. She’d never make it. She had to leave without the money. God, she’d be lucky to escape at all.

No, she would. She had to. This unexpected freedom was too precious, and she’d regret not fighting tooth and nail to keep it.

As soon as Tall Man reached Ailish, she swung her fist, hoping to stun him long enough to get out the front door. It worked. Briefly. She snatched her car keys off the peg beside the entrance, threw open the door—and was caught around the waist before clearing the porch. Operating on instinct, Ailish twisted around and shoved her thumb into Tall Man’s knife wound, as deep as it would go, scrambling away once more as he howled.

“Goddammit,” the man shouted behind her, his nearing voice indicating that he hadn’t stayed down long. Cubs Cap growled an order in the distance. To grab Ailish. Which wasn’t going to happen as long as she was breathing. Not going back to Chicago. Can’t go back.