Page 81 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 4

I shifted to the side just barely avoiding being clobbered by Damon’s gun. His arm came down on my forearm and I grunted, a shot going off and the bullet slamming into the wall across from us.

Lena screamed and ducked as I pushed forward and grabbed his wrist that held the gun. He rammed against me like a bull. I braced for the hit and punched him as hard as I could before we both fell to the bed.

At some point, he must have dropped the gun because his hands locked around my neck and squeezed, his heavy body pinning me to the mattress, making it almost impossible for me to move. I’d never felt anything so painful in my life. Still, I thrashed and kicked, punching him wherever I could get a hit in until he loosened his hold. Just as I was about to hit him again, Lena picked up the lamp on the end table and smashed it over her husband’s head, knocking him out.

I shoved him off of me.

“Are you okay?” I asked as she stared down at her husband’s limp body, blood spurting from a gash in his head.

Her entire body shook. She was clearly going into shock. Then we were both jolted by another gunshot blast going off outside.

“Fuck! Maia!” I roared and ran toward the front of the house.

A few county marshal’s office vehicles rolled up, officers pouring out and standing behind their open car doors with their guns drawn and pointed…at me.

I instantly put my hands up as Lena ran to her children across the lawn.

“Get on your knees!” one of the deputies demanded.

I complied as we heard a series of gunshots going off across the way at the house listed in my paperwork as Derrick’s. And I knew if Damon had come after us, Derrick certainly went after Maia.

“My fiancée! He has her!” I pointed to Derrick’s house across the street, fear and uncertainty plaguing me. “Please, help her!” I begged.

“Face to the ground, now!” A marshal commanded, not a cop from a neighboring city, as I’d hoped, when I’d made the call on our way over here. I’d forwarded the information Bruno’s team had gathered on Damon and Derrick to a local detective in the bigger city a couple towns over. They hadn’t made it in time.

I was so fucked as one of Damon’s deputies pointed his gun at me, cuffs already dangling from his fingers as he approached.

I didn’t resist, even though my body and heart wanted to run across the street. That would only get me killed.

The marshal came up behind me and put my hands in cuffs and held me down. “Stay there!”

“Please help my fiancée. She’s over there!” I said right as I heard Maia scream, “Rhodes!”

I shifted my face on the grass toward where I heard her voice and saw Buddy helping her cross the street. Blood was pouring down her swollen face.

“You have the wrong man!” she cried.

Before she could reach me, another gunshot went off.

I watched it all as if in slow motion.

Her stepfather stumbling out of the house, gun raised.

He fired.

“No!” I roared as I watched Maia’s mother slump to the ground. She had used her body to shield her children.

Another shot went off, but Buddy had already put himself between Maia and Damon. His big body convulsed, as the bullet tore into his back. Maia tried to hold him as they both fell to the grass.

“Hold your fire!” The marshal that was closest to me hollered, pointing the gun at Damon. “Sir, what are you doing? Hold your fire now!” he demanded of his own boss.

That’s when the local cops from the nearby city finally rolled up to the scene as planned… A few minutes too late.

Episode 111

One Down, One to Go

MAIA

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