Page 92 of Three Stepbrothers Save Christmas

“They will kill me!” he yells again.

“Good. I hope they make you suffer.”

I end the call and stop myself from throwing my phone against the wall. Fuck I have never been as angry as I am right now. How can he call himself a father when he’s willing to sell his daughter to clear his debts?

“Take it that was the prick?” Ethan asks as he walks into the room with a big bag in each hand.

“Yeah, fucking bastard has no intention of protecting his daughter. It’s purely down to us.”

Ethan walks over to the wardrobe, grabs a load of clothes, and tells me to get the stuff from the bathroom.

I look at my watch and realise we only have eight hours to pack up Verity’s stuff and take my car to a barn near the safe house, so we have a spare vehicle in case we need to make a run for it. As well as buy supplies for my brothers and me as we only have a few things with us and no time to go back to our houses to gather stuff. All of this and return at the O’Reilly’s by two AM to get Verity and Ryan.

I take a moment to lean against the sink and take a breath. Everything has been running a million miles an hour, and I don’t think I have had time to process everything. After telling Verity everything, I kissed her and left to come here and get everything she needed. Taking one last deep breath to try and clear my head, I focus on packing her things up.

I quickly grab the bottles of soaps and shampoos from the bathroom. Making a note of them so I can get her some spare. As I place a bottle in a wash bag, I catch my finger on something sharp.

“Son of a bitch,” I hiss through gritted teeth looking at my bleeding finger. I open the bag to see a razor blade sitting on the bottom. My heart breaks for the girl who has sat; God only knows how many times she has cut her skin and drawn blood. The little girl who just wanted the love of their father, who thought they had it, but was only being trained to make him money.

I look at the blade in my hand and vow that she will never question if she is loved again. She will never crave the love she deserves because the three of us are going to love her until our last breath and long into the afterlife.

Verity always wanted a dad, but now she has a Daddy, Bear and Ethan to shower her in love every single day. She will never be alone again, and I will die before we have to see her in the hands of someone else. She is ours, and we will fight to keep our family together.

46

Verity

“We’re nearly there. Is she asleep?” Travis whispers over the sound of the car engine. It’s still pitch-black outside, and we must have been driving for a few hours. I have no idea where we are or what time it is.

“I’m awake,” I whisper as I roll onto my other side. I’m lying in the back seat of a borrowed car, resting my head on Ryan's lap. Travis and Ethan are in the front, Travis driving as usual.

“Did you manage to get any sleep, Sweetheart?”

“No.” I catch him watching me in the rearview mirror. Ryan runs a hand over my head before placing it on my shoulder. I look at the dashboard and see it's just gone five in the morning. No wonder it’s still dark.

“We’ll be there in less than ten minutes; you can go to bed for a few hours then. I think we could all do with a nap,” Ryan says, squeezing my shoulder slightly. I don’t reply; I just nod against his thigh and look ahead to find Ethan watching me.

“I wish this wasn’t happening to you, Baby.”

“You and me both,” I sigh, sitting up.

We are running out of things to say on the matter, so the rest of the journey is in silence. I don’t miss the way all three guys keep checking on me or the looks they share. But I have a feeling that’s not going to change any time soon.

We pull off the main roads and start travelling down dirt ones. There are no streetlights or even many houses on the way. The further we drive, the less there is around us. I guess it is the ideal place for a safe house.

Travis mutters to himself as he looks out for the property. He still misses the turning and has to back up and take the sharp turning Christian warned him about. I almost find myself smiling at how he sits behind the wheel, calling Christian every name under the sun as he navigates down the thinnest road I have ever seen.

“It’s a path, not a fucking road.”

I look to Ryan, who rolls his eyes. “Someone needs to feed the daddy; he’s getting hangry,” he jokes. I giggle as Travis manages to tell him to fuck off and nearly crash the car at the same time.

When the cabin comes into view, I notice a car parked outside. I lie down quickly out of view, having already been warned about not being seen.

“The licence plate is the same as the guy who’s meeting us. But I’m not taking any risks.” I watch Travis lean over and open the glove compartment. He pulls out a gun and checks it's loaded.

“There is another one in there. Anything happens, get her out of here,” he says before climbing out of the car and leaving the engine running. Ethan unfastens his seatbelt and climbs behind the wheel, ready in case we have to make a quick getaway.

I hold my breath and count in my head. I don’t even get to thirty before Travis comes back into view with his thumb up. Ethan turns off the car as Ryan opens the door. I hear Travis calling that all is fine as Ryan helps me out of the car and hurries me into the house. It all seems so unreal.

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