Page 86 of Three to Fall

Hawk deferred to me, and I nodded.

I caught Scythe’s hand before he slipped away into the darkness. “She’s going to be terrified. She’ll fight you.”

X grinned with a boyish charm. “Don’t worry. Women like me. I’ll have her happily skipping by my side before you guys even get to your house.”

Scythe squinted. “You skip?”

“You don’t?”

“I have a five-year-old. Of course I skip. With a rope and everything. Double Dutch champion of the clubhouse, I’ll have you know. Totally kicked Queenie’s behind, much to her disgust.”

“Yeah? I could never get the double unders. Maybe you could give me some tips?”

Hawk glared at both of them like they’d grown an extra head. “Maybe you could both go do what we brought you here for and save your jump rope tips for a more appropriate time?”

Scythe and X both rolled their eyes as they slunk off toward Shari’s house, muttering about everyone being so serious all the time and how we were no fun at all.

Hawk blinked, turning his attention back to me. “Honestly, I don’t know why we brought them.”

Grayson shook his head. “X talks a lot of shit, but he’ll get the job done.”

Hawk sighed. “Scythe too. They’re oddly alike. It’s disturbing.”

Hayden motioned toward my parents’ house. “Let’s worry less about the psychopaths who can more than handle their own, and worry more about the four of us getting Jacqueline out without waking up the entire commune.”

“Good plan,” Grayson whispered back. “This place is creepy as fuck.”

He wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t sure if it was just that it was the middle of the night, and a wind whistled through the trees, creating an eerie sound. Or if it was just the energy of this place, the bad vibes Josiah had created here that somehow lingered even when people weren’t around.

Maybe it was the memories of every horrible thing he’d ever done to me in the big house he’d built to show his power and wealth.

A house of horrors I couldn’t forget, especially not now, when it was so close.

I wondered if my bedroom was still empty.

Or if he’d found a new wife to torture in my place.

The thought left a sick taste in my mouth. Hayden was right. We needed to get this done and get out of here.

I took the lead, staying low and to the edges of the buildings, but doubling our pace, the beating of my heart now clearing my head and pushing me on rather than leaving me scared and shaking the way I’d been the last time I’d been here

I avoided the creaky porch stair, relieved when the guys all did as well, and waited until they’d crowded around me. “You all stay here,” I whispered. “I’ll get her and come back down.”

“Not happening,” Grayson whispered, gaze constantly flickering over our surroundings to the houses next door and the communal area at our backs.

Hawk instantly agreed with him. “Zero chance of you going anywhere alone, Little Mouse, unless Grayson wants to do CPR and restart my fucking heart after I die from the stress of knowing you’re in that house unprotected.”

I sighed and looked to Hayden to be the voice of reason.

He instinctively knew what I needed, and how to handle Hawk as well. “You two will guard the front and rear entrances while I go in with her.” He glanced at me. “I assume one guide is more satisfactory to you? I’ll wait outside Jacqueline’s bedroom door while you get her, but that’s as alone as you’re going to get. Deal?”

I nodded quickly. Two of us could get in and out easier than four of us, if they were really insisting on me not going in alone.

I couldn’t imagine my own family hurting me.

But then I didn’t really know these people the way I’d once thought I did. The people I’d thought they were would have never forced me into marrying a man I didn’t love. They’d never have let a stranger take my daughter away from me.

Hawk went to argue, but Hayden put his fingers to his lips. “Your finger is hovering over that trigger like you’re just itching for a reason to pull it. This house is full of innocent women and children, and you’re not going to be the reason one of them is hurt.”

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