Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 121728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
The man glanced toward the living room and she knew exactly when he spotted Val. His lip lifted in a sneer.
Fuck! “Val, run! Go to the neighbors and have them call the police!”
“Shut the fuck up!” A boot swung in her direction and made contact with her temple.
For a second she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t even think. All she saw were stars mixed in with the impending darkness.
Then it cleared and an angry face above her replaced it. “Where’s Sadie?”
She tried to blink away the dizziness. “Get out of here! The cops will be here any minute. I pushed the alarm when you broke the window.”
“Fuck you, you cunt. That motherfuckin’ Hatchet stole my moneymaker and I want her back.”
“Sadie’s not here! She—” She was not telling this asshole where her sister was. Not now. Not ever.
“Where the fuck is she?”
When she began to sit up, the man—who had to be a Demon even though he didn’t wear a cut—pushed her back down with a boot to her chest. “Nowhere you can get her. She’s in protective custody. You need to leave this house and leave her alone.”
“Bullshit, bitch. Where the fuck she at? You don’t tell me, gonna take you instead.”
What?
“Yeah…” Grabbing a fistful of Sloane’s hair, he used it to rip her head back. His eyes narrowed and when they slid over her face and down her body, she fought a shudder. “Look just like her, but so much fuckin’ better. You’d be a good replacement for what that fucker stole from me. I can make a shitload off you since you ain’t all strung the fuck out. Bet your cunt’s tight, too.”
Her eyes flicked from his sneer to her broken phone just out of reach, then to the knife block on the counter. She just needed to get free long enough to grab one.
“Sloane!”
Oh no! No, no, no! She was supposed to leave!
“Val, get out of the house! Go to a nei—”
Her head snapped to the right when he clocked her with his fist.
“Fuck you, bitch. How ‘bout I take her instead? Bettin’ that’s Hatchet’s kid, ain’t it?”
She struggled to answer since her brain felt like it had been knocked loose and her face was in severe pain. “No… She’s mine. Not Hatchet’s. She’s not his.”
Baring his teeth, he went nose to nose with her. “Think you’re a lyin’ cunt.” When he flung her away, he released her hair and her head smacked against the tile.
She groaned and pressed a shaky hand to her scalp finding warm liquid.
Blood.
“Sloane!” Val screamed through her tears, rushing up to her.
Oh God, no. “No, sweetie. Run.”
She tried to push to her feet when the biker hooked Val around the waist and hauled her up against his chest. She was fighting him with flailing fists and feet as tears streamed down the little girl’s cheeks.
When Val screamed for her daddy, it made Sloane even more determined to shake the fog clear of her head and save her.
No way was she letting that asshole remove Val from the house.
No fucking way. Even if it was the last thing she did.
Before she could push to her hands and knees again, a growling flash of orange shot past Sloane. With his back arched and his tail twice its normal size, Finn hissed and the cat launched himself at the intruder, digging his nails into the man’s jeans and clinging to his leg as he sank in his teeth.
She’d never seen a cat attack like that before but she was thankful he did. The Demon dropped Val to fend off the furious feline and the more he tried to pull Finn off him, the harder the cat held on, biting and scratching the biker’s hands and arms.
With Finn yowling, Val sobbing and the biker bellowing, Sloane needed to act.
“Get out of here, Val! Go next door! Bang on it until someone answers and then have them—”
With the darkness swallowing her vision, she couldn’t see Decker’s daughter but heard her small feet thundering away.
Please, please, please, don’t let him catch you.
She tried to focus on the man as he continued to fight off Finn. With bleeding hands, he finally got a good grip of the cat’s scruff and flung him away. The cat landed on his feet and as Finn crouched to launch himself for a second attack, the intruder’s boot made contact and the cat was punted across the room where he landed in a heap.
Oh my God!
With an expression of pure rage, the man’s eyes turned from the motionless cat back to her.
She needed her body to cooperate. She needed to run just like she told Val or to find a way to protect herself and disable the intruder until police arrived.
The second she was able to push herself to her knees, he again grabbed her hair and flung her around. Like Finn, she clawed at his hands and arms, ripping at the exposed skin where his thick long-sleeved shirt had been shredded by the cat.