Page 110 of Mine to Protect

My mouth fell open in shock. “Wait. Did you sayshe?”

“Yes, sir. Rose Bense. She has a record, plus a sealed juvie record. Lots of stalking, some minor violence stuff. Recently she did a long-term stint in a mental facility for disfiguring a man’s wife.”

“Name doesn’t sound familiar. Send me a picture.”

After I ended the call, I stared at the blank screen.

Fuck, all this time, Alta was right. It was a team, a man and a woman. Fucking hell.

Rose Bense.

Now we had a name, but what did all this have to do with Alta?

41

Alta

“Surprised?”Sarah quipped as she nonchalantly stepped toward the man groaning on the ground. “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,” she said like she was disappointed. “You had to go and fuck all this up, didn’t you? Fucking horny bastard.”

This was a dream. It had to be.

Sarah squatted beside the man and turned back to look at me, her eyes narrowing. A flash of anger passed through her eyes as she pursed her lips and turned back to him. “Did you break his nose?”

I kept quiet, not because I knew it was best, but because shock still had a grip on my vocal cords. Even if I wanted to say something, there was no way I could.

“Good for you. Stand up for yourself. I like that in a woman. We don’t need men like him thinking we’re property, am I right?”

She turned, obviously expecting an answer I still wasn’t able to give.

“Jerry, no touching, remember?” Sarah’s cold, detached laugh was more terrifying than her calm voice. “See what you don’t know is I know about the last one. One fucking rule.” She pressed the barrel of the gun into his temple. His eyes went wide. “It was fun while it lasted. Bye, bye, Jerry.”

“I didn’t touch them. I fucking swear. We had a deal. I didn’t—”

I shrieked as Jerry’s skull exploded, scattering blood and bits across the room. In the now deafening silence, she turned, her face splattered with blood, and smiled.

She was crazy. Sarah was mad.

Slowly she stood and wiped the gore from her hands down the dark denim jeans she wore. Turning, she gave me a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry he hit you, but nothing else, right?” Her gaze shifted down to my disheveled sweatshirt. A frown marred her lips. “Right. Well, enough of that. He’s gone. And you know what? Good riddance. He served his purpose, and when I learned that he touched the last girl, I knew his time was short. See, you have to keep men like him in line or he’d just be raping every woman we brought in here.”

“What’s going on? Sarah?”

“Damn, for someone so observant, you’re pretty stupid, you know that?”

“I don’t understand.” I shook my head. “Tell me what’s going on.” The metal wire sliced deeper into my wrists as I attempted to wiggle free. Warm trickles of blood dripped steadily down my palms and leaked off my curled knuckles.

“Seriously? You don’t understand? This, Birdie.” A sneer tugged at her upper lip at my name. “This was all about you. Every woman, the move from the Smokies to here. You were one hard bird to find. I spent so long tracking you to Tennessee, and what did you do right before I got there? Up and left, again.”

“Me?” I had to keep her talking. The longer she spoke, the more time Cas had to save me.

“You sound surprised. Yes, you. See, you took someone from me, and now you’re going to pay for it.”

I racked my brain, trying to figure out where our paths had crossed before she came to volunteer.

“Who? Who did I take?”

“My brother.” Keeping the pistol in her hand, Sarah paced the small room, not paying any attention to the pieces of skull and brain matter she trampled on. “The one person who ever loved me, who stood up for me, and you took him from me.” I gasped at the gun barrel pointed between my eyes. “Do you know what it was like to get out of that crazy house, expecting to be greeted by the only person who ever loved you, and have them never show? Two days I waited for him. Nothing. It took me five months to track him to Texas, only to find out he was dead. Dead!” she shrieked.

Sarah gripped her head as her eyes slammed shut. “You killed him. And now I kill you. You fuck with me, I fuck with you back. I’m a damn lady like that.”

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