Page 26 of Stalking Christmas

“One of you start explaining, or I swear to fuck, I’m going to start shooting at all of you.” I release a huge sigh, knowing whatever is about to be spoken is going to blow me away, while confusing me further. I keep running Nic’s words through my mind, and I don’t have a way to make sense of them.He’s in love with me? How is that possible?A warm feeling radiates through my chest at the thought that maybe he did all of this because he feels that strongly for me. It still doesn’t excuse drugging and kidnapping me, or murdering all those people, but at leastit’s a start. Do I feel more than just attraction for him, well, besides anger at the whole ‘keeping me captive’ scenario? On the surface, I want to answer immediately that it’s all hormones and physical attraction, but in my heart, I know that’s a lie. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, and it’s always been more than just attraction.

Something about him has always drawn me in, even when I didn’t know it was him behind the mask. Does that make me as insane as he is?Maybe.

“Sweet temptation, please put the gun down; I don’t want you to risk getting hurt,” Nic utters in a soothing and placating voice, as if he is speaking to a wild animal, and not the woman he has chained to one of his bedroom walls.

“Oh my goodness, he calls you that, girl?Swoon!“ Daisy giggles, and I’m forced to roll my eyes.”I can’t wait to hear your explanation for all this shit, and how you think you’re getting out of it,” Micah groans as he swipes at his bleeding lip, and pushes Nic away from him.

“Go on, explain, and make it good, or you can go explain to the devil why I shot you,” I hiss.

Chapter 34

Santa

My eyes meet Chrissy’s furious brown ones, and in their depths, I witness how serious she is. She’ll fire that gun if I don’t give her a reasonable explanation. The problem is I don’t know if I have one; I can’t even make sense of all that has happened. In all my years of murdering people, never once have I found myself in a situation like this. In fact, up until half an hour ago, no one, including my asshole brother, even knew where my cabin was located. Now, it feels like all my secrets are being ripped open like a festering wound, and everyone can see all the darkness I so carefully hide. I look over my shoulder at mybrother, and the fucker has the audacity to stick his tongue out at me like a juvenile. “Temptation, I promise I’ll answer all your questions, but first, I want to know why my brother was hanging around your house.” Chrissy’s lips open, I’m sure to deny my request, but I give her a pleading look, and she acquiesces by nodding, but her eyes narrow in my direction in warning that I’m trying her patience.

“Well, fucker, how did you even know where they live?” I’m furious that this asshole knew where to find my temptation. What was his game plan? Was he planning on trying to seduce her, or bribe her? The mere thought of him hitting on Chrissy has my blood pressure rising, and I have to cross my fisted hands over my chest, to prevent from lashing out at him. My body is wired tight with aggression, and with one wrong move from him, I’m likely to end him. This little fucker has been causing me nothing but trouble since the moment he left our mother’s womb. There is nothing that I have that he doesn’t covet, except maybe a work ethic.

“I got their address from the missing person’s report that one filed,” he nods his head in Daisy’s direction with a grimace. “It’s not like it’s hard to get access to those files, even without your hacker skills.”

“You’re a hacker? That’s very cool!” Daisy interrupts with excitement, and I blatantly ignore her approval. “Get to the part where you were hiding in the damn shadows,cunt. What was your plan?“ I demand.

Micah sighs, and slides down the wall until he’s sitting with his back against it, his knees drawn upwards. “Honestly, there wasn’t one, at least not a sinister one. I just wanted to know what you were being so secretive about. I’ve never seen you possessive about a woman, and I was curious.” He shrugs his large, lanky shoulder, as if that’s a reasonable explanation for hiding andpulling a gun on not one, but two people, and then insisting on going along with kidnapping.

“Geez, I wonder why I don’t believe you?” I cock an eyebrow in his direction, letting him know that I think he’s full of shit.

“Okay, so maybe I was going to hit on her, and get her to sleep with me, film it, and send it to you as a Christmas gift. Now are you happy, asshole?” Micah throws his hands up in the air, in a sign of defeat as an obnoxious, taunting grin crosses his lips, and I’m flying across the room, before I can even think about it, and cracking his head with my fist. “She’smine, I’ll fucking end you if you even think about touching her.”

“Babe, I think you have to stop him. He’s gonna kill his brother, and it’s Christmas; there should be no murdering kin at Christmas. Santa would disapprove,” Daisy screams behind me, as I kick and punch my brother as hard as I can. This fucker has been ruining, and stealing, my shit from the moment he was old enough to crawl.

Fingers grab onto my hair, yank hard, and pull me off of him. “This is getting us nowhere!” Chrissy yells, as I finally release my hold on Micah and stumble back on my ass, almost taking her down in the process, when I get tangled in the chain attached to her collar. Fuck, I should release her from that. Shit could go south, and one of these assholes could set fire to this house, and she wouldn’t be able to escape and save herself. Loud, rancorous barking sounds in the background, and it’s only a matter of time before that hellhound breaks out of my bathroom. I’m running out of time to get control of the situation. The only thing that matters is that I can’t lose her.

I wrap my arms around her waist, surprising her with the action, and forcing her to land on my lap. The barrel of the gun ends up lodged between us, and even though I know I could end up taking my last breath in the next moment, I can’t do that without telling her how I feel. Whether she accepts my truth, ormurders me, after that, is something I’ll deal with as it comes.Here goes nothing and everything at the same time.

“I hate everyone, temptation, people as a rule, annoy me with their scheming, manipulative natures and rampant emotions. I take immense pleasure in bringing others pain. You started out as a means of revenge, for kicking me out of your strip club, and then something inside of me changed. You changed me like a fucking virus I was powerless to fight. You infected me.” I raise my hand, halting her attempt to respond. “I’ve never understood what love is, never felt the emotion or questioned whether I would, until you. I’m not sure if I am obsessed with you, or if this overwhelming feeling that is driving me insane is love. It feels volatile and dangerous, like it could destroy me completely.”

I release a deep sigh, watching as her eyes become larger and larger with my words. Does she think I’m just spewing nonsense? I’m starting to think I’ve utterly lost my damn mind, not that there was much sanity to begin with. “I’d like to think that I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, but the truth is, I think my heart has always been in love with you, and it was just waiting to meet you.You, Chrissy Cranbrook, are the reason it beats, and without you, there is no reason for me to keep breathing.“ I bite down hard on my bottom lip, as anxiety rises within me at her silence. She just sits on my lap and stares, her mouth opening and closing, like a fish out of water, and no words leave her at my confession. Shit, I fucked up, and she’s going to leave me the second she gets the chance to run.

Sniffling noises can be heard beside us, and I raise my eyes over her shoulder to look at Daisy, who has tears running down her face. I don’t bother to look in my brother’s direction, not wanting to see his judgmental face. Every single word I uttered was the truth. Somewhere along the line, I must have realized that she was what I always wanted. A world withoutChrissy Cranbrook is not a world I want to live in. “Please, say something,anything,“ I beg.

Before she can utter a single word, alarms start going off around the house, and I quickly rise to my feet, dragging her up with me. “What the hell is that noise?” Chrissy questions, as she brings her hands to her ears, the gun still precariously clutched in one of them. I quickly disarm her, much to her fury, and pull my phone out of my pocket, bringing up the multitude of cameras I have around the property. What greets my sight is my worst nightmare. Various cars come to a halt just outside of my cabin. Doors open and close, and a horde of men dressed in tactical gear surround the property. My eyes quickly look toward my brother, who has rapidly gotten to his feet, despite the beating I just gave him, and shock registers on his pale and swelling face. “What the fuck did you do?” I shout.

“Fuck! I might have mentioned to Dad that you were abandoning us for a woman, and acting out of character.” Micah’s eyes meet mine, and I witness the fear in their depths. He’s realizing what he’s done; our father is a paranoid psychopath. Anything that might be a threat to his power base, and control, must be eliminated. If my father thinks I might betray him, or stop serving his cause, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill his oldest child. His actions and words have signed mine and everyone in this room’s death warrant, including himself. My father wouldn’t hesitate to use our deaths to gain political sympathy from the public. He’ll spin it so he looks like the grieving father. Meanwhile, he’ll wipe the slate clean of the two people who know all of his secrets and misdeeds.

My fingers work quickly on my phone screen, activating the various defense methods I have hidden around the property. With one push of a code, I disarm the collar around Chrissy’s neck, and it falls to the ground with a clang. “My father’s here tokill us all. We have to get ready to defend the cabin, or none of us are making it out of here alive.”

“Who the fuck is your father? Why would he want to kill us?” Chrissy asks in a panic, as she grabs the gun I forgot from the floor, and rubs at the red mark on her neck left behind from the collar.

“He’s a fucking deranged psychopath, with control and trust issues,” Micah yells, as he makes it out of the door. Toothless’ barking, and his body hitting the bathroom door, are getting louder despite the alarms blaring. That fucking beast is moments away from tearing out of there, and then we will have a new threat to deal with. I hope Chrissy can get him under control before he tries to rip out my throat.

“My father is Governor Brantford, and he’ll stop at nothing to keep his grasp on power, including killing both his sons who know his secrets.”

Chapter 35

Santa

“What the hell do you mean your father is thegovernor?“ Chrissy’s panicked voice follows me out of the room, as I start making a checklist of all the weapons I’m going to need, and arming the electrified windows. There is no way my father came here just to have a chat, the asshole saw this as an opportunity to clean house, and means to end my life. I have no intention of allowing that to happen, especially with Chrissy inside the cabin. He must have had Micah followed, it’s the only explanation for him knowing where we are.

My thoughts are confirmed when I spy two of his henchmen for hire, Chris and Henry, on one of the cameras, trying to approach the back of the cabin. Those two fuckers will be the first to die, simply because they’ve always pissed me off with their shitty, alpha male, toxic behavior. “NIC! Are you even listening to me?” Chrissy grabs onto my shoulder and forces me to halt in my tracks, and for the first time in my whole life, I don’t feel revulsion or rage at the uninvited contact. In fact, if I didn’t have to deal with all this shit at my door, I’d press her against one of the walls right here in the hallway, and fuck her brains out. It hasn’t escaped me that she never responded to my declaration of love. I’m just choosing to place that on the back burner for now, but we will be having a chat the minute I have parted my father’s head from his shoulders.

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