Page 89 of Finding Home with You

“I mean from everyone,” Erin shouts, throwing her hands up. “Do you even realize that I have to testify against my father next month?” she continues. “That I’ll be questioned about everything? Everything,” she adds pointedly.

“What?” Anthony says, taking another step closer to her.

Erin laughs a little. “Oh my god, he didn’t tell you?” she says, shaking her head. “Well I am,” she continues. “And guess what Anthony, I’m not about to fucking perjure myself when I do.”

“Erin,” he says, reaching for her.

I take a couple more steps toward them, maintaining my cover but knowing that the second he touches her, I’m there.

“Please, don’t do this,” he continues, his voice softening a little. “For me?”

“For you?” she asks incredulously. “Why the fuck would I care about you?”

I swallow nervously, amazed at the balls she’s currently displaying as she all but goads her ex-boyfriend, a known mobster who she knows is more than capable of murder.

“Come on, babe,” he says, his voice turning sleazy. “It wasn’t all bad between us, now, was it?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Erin shouts, leaning forward. “That was the worst period of my life, ever,” she says. “You think I didn’t know about the other women, Anthony, the whores?”

“Erin, they meant nothing.”

“The murders?” she continues, crossing her arms over her chest.

Even though I’m still thirty feet away, I see the dark cloud that passes over Anthony’s face as he stares back at Erin. It’s a look of pure evil that has me inching even closer, ignoring the voices in my ear that are asking me what the fuck I’m doing.

“You listen here,” he says in a voice of steel as he grabs her roughly by the arm and pulls her toward him. “You say one fucking word…”

“How about I say, you’re under arrest, you fucker,” I shout, stepping out onto the path, gun pointing directly at Anthony.

Erin shrinks back, her body desperately trying to get away from him. But Anthony’s grip tightens, holding her in place as he slides his other hand behind his back.

“Don’t fucking move!” I shout, stepping closer as I hear Finn’s warning, the words lost as I desperately try to handle this situation. “Erin, come here,” I say, glancing quickly at her.

Erin yanks her arm, pulling it from Anthony’s fingers as she moves away from him. I hold out a hand to her, my gun still trained on him. Before she reaches me though, Anthony’s other hand slides out from behind his back, the gun that’s now in his hand swinging over me and pointing directly at Erin.

“And to think you said to come alone,” he says, sneering. “Guess you are still that lying bitch you’ve always been.”

Chapter Thirty

Erin

I feel the cold barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my neck followed by Anthony’s hot breath hissing in my ear. My entire body shakes with fear and I swallow down the scream that looms on the tip of my tongue.

“I will fucking kill her,” he says, but he’s not speaking to me. I’m just the pawn in all of this, and I knew going into it, that I could ultimately end up here.

And he could kill me.

I have no idea what is going through his mind right or how angry he is at me for what I’ve done, what I’ve said. But I do know his rage for Ryan lies far deeper than it has ever has for me.

Together though, we can ruin him.

When I look up into Ryan’s eyes, any sense of calm has been lost. His eyes are wide and trained on Anthony, and I suddenly know how a face can change when a heart aches with fear.

Ryan is no longer the well-trained detective, the stoic and composed man he was before this went down.

He’s now my boyfriend, and I worry that neither of us will leave here alive. His hand shakes as he continues to point the gun at Anthony. I watch his chest rise and fall with each heaving breath he takes. His composure is nearly gone.

The seconds tick by, the silence between us growing and I know that something needs to be done, something needs to break through all of this.

---