Page 169 of Happily Never After

He stalked toward her, hands outstretched like he was going to strangle her. She took two steps forward and punched him full in the face. He wailed like an animal and lunged for her.Blood dripped from his nose. He tackled her at waist height. She managed a scream before crashing to the floor, wind completely knocked out of her.

His fingers found their way around her throat. Claire gasped, but there wasn’t any air to fill her lungs. She wriggled underneath him, aimed wild punches all over his torso. And still he choked her.

His weight pressed down on her like an anchor. Everything slowed to a crawl. The edges of her vision darkened. Voices echoed far away. Her heart beat in her ears. Was she going to die in Big Z’s foyer next to a tacky zebra-shaped umbrella stand?

Suddenly, the weight vanished from on top of her. She sat up and scrambled into a corner, gasping for air. Her throat burned. What the hell had happened? The sirens were closer, but the police hadn’t come in. Unless he practiced close-up magic in his free time, he couldn’t have just disappeared.

A sound Claire had heard too many times from the punching bag in Luke’s garage was now emanating from a few feet away. With one knee on the professor’s chest, Luke pummeled him.

The front door swung open, and an agent ran in with a fire extinguisher. Claire pointed to the basement doors, and he disappeared. He was followed seconds later by a small battalion of cops. One dragged Luke off the professor and stopped, staring between the two of them, one completely nude and covered in blood, and one still looking impossibly put together in a tuxedo and bowtie.

Claire waved the other cops down the stairs. “It’s him,” she croaked to the female cop who paused with her hand on her radio. “Check the FBI Most Wanted list. He’s an escaped felon from Pennsylvania.”

The professor growled and lunged for the front door. Claire stuck one foot out and managed to send him sprawling. The cop jumped on him and slapped on a pair of handcuffs.

“Bri,” Claire said to Luke, struggling to her feet.

He dragged her up. “Wait. Are you okay?”

His hand lingered at her throat, and she flinched.

“My naked, bloody business professor just tried to strangle me. Let’s go with ‘no.’ Come on.” She pulled him down the stairs, back into the smoky basement.

A dozen naked men covered in fire extinguisher foam were lying face down on the hardwood.

“We need more handcuffs,” an agent called.

Claire and Luke ran past them to the observation room.

Brianna sat on a couch, sipping from a water bottle. Jack and Charlie sat on each side of her. Luke shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” Claire dropped to her knees in front of her sister.

“I’m fine,” Brianna said. She touched her throat and drew Luke’s jacket tighter around her. “But I’d love to go home. It’s been a day.”

No freakin’ kidding.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

To Do:

- Hound the LAPD day and night

- Make sure they’re ALL in prison

- Figure out what comes next

“I can’t believeit’s actually over.” Claire’s bruised knuckles curled around a wrought iron staircase spindle. Luke sat next to her, still looking way too put together for someone who had just brought down a serial killer ring.

Cool marble pressed against her battered legs. Streams of dried blood ran into her emergency flats. Every part of her body ached like she had run a half marathon while wearing a backpack full of toddlers. Not even the world’s most legendary dry cleaner could save her champagne-colored cocktail dress.

Luke slung an arm over her shoulders. She leaned into him, reveling in his warmth. A handful of cop cars, lights still flashing, littered the front yard. The naked ESA honchos had been marched out, one by one, and taken to the police station. Therewas a sizable scorch mark by a palm tree where Luke had tossed the Molotov cocktail. Brianna sat in the back of an ambulance, first responders falling all over themselves to take care of her. She laughed, a bright, silvery sound in the silence. Tanya flittered around her, continuously offering vials of essential oil to the paramedics.

Was it really over? Twelve chapter heads were in custody. Big Z, the unseen cult leader, had been dragged screaming into a cop car. The many heads of the ESA snake had been lopped off. Would the FBI be able to pressure them into giving up their rosters? At the very least, with no one around to give orders, hopefully her family was finally safe.

Her head popped off Luke’s shoulder. “Do you think Big Z is going to sue me? I’m pretty sure climbing a ladder and throwing myself into his backyard is the textbook definition of trespassing.”

Luke nodded in the direction of Charlie, who was standing underneath a palm tree talking to Jack. “Considering all the dirt that Charlie has on him, I really don’t think he’d risk it.”

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