Page 45 of Dare You to Catch Me
A single shot fires out before the room falls silent again.
My father steps up beside me, before he says. “You're clear.”
I lift myself from Emma's body pinned under me, standing, I reach down for her hand and help her up. I scan her body for any gun shot wounds, anything, lifting her jacket and she grabs my hand. “I'm fine.” She pulls my hands from her before she looks at her father who lays on the floor, blood pooling from his body, groaning and moaning in pain, she smiles and walks over to him.
EMMA
I step up to my father, glaring down at him, a sinful grin spreading across my face seeing him in pain. His right hand, gone, removed at the wrist, jagged, painful edges as the blood seeps from his body. Blood pooling under his legs from the shots Ace made on him. My gaze piercing my fathers as I dig my heel into his neck, cutting off his oxygen. “I'm going to have so much fun paying you back for a fraction of what you did to me, the pain you caused me.” I dig my heel deeper, my lip curling to a snarl when his left hand wraps around my ankle, his words crackling as they whisper from his strangled throat. “Go on, Kill me!” I laugh, then pull my heel from his throat, ripping his hand away from my ankle, before I squat beside him. “There's no fun in that. I have plans for you; big plans.” I take the butt of my gun and slam it down against the side of his temple, knocking him unconscious, before I stand and turn towards Ace. “Well that was fun.”
He chuckles, and my eyes snap over when an unfamiliar man steps through the doorway, throwing my gun up. “No! This is Bear.” Ace says as he throws his hand up. My eyes scan this tall bulky man,his eyes similar to Ace's, he carries the same cocky smirk Ace carried when he first got back home. I lower my gun asking. “I guess I have you to thank for that?”
“Guilty.”
“How did you-” My eyes snap over to Ace as his lips hold a sinful smirk. “Nevermind.” I say with a laugh before I ask Ace. “Can we get out of here now?”
“Yes, Baby Girl.”
“Tie my father up, we're taking him with us.” I order as I look at Ace's men before they nod, getting to work.
“Bossy little thing, I like it.” My head tilts, lifting a brow at Bear, then to Ace he shakes his head with his laugh. “Bear, not now.”
A smile plays on my lips as Bear playfully asks. “Are you bossy in the bedroom too? Ace loves that.” Bear elbows Ace in the side, letting out a chuckle as I bark out a laugh with my words. “What the fuck?”
We are sick and twisted fucking people. We just finished this adventurous evening with shootouts, unalived bodies scattered through my house, I could have got shot, ending my life and we are standing here laughing.
It is nice to see how Bear and Ace interact together, they are brothers at heart, it is clear for the world to see. I step over to Ace and his arm reaches out, snaking around my waist, pulling me into him. He looks down with those blues as they bore into mine, asking. “You good?” I nod with my words. “Yeah, I am.” The feeling of my father within my reach, unconscious on the floor, not having to look over my shoulder for him. I'm fucking great.
I get up on my tip toes and place a soft kiss on Ace's cheek, then whisper over his skin. “I'm fucking great baby.” Another soft kiss to his cheek, before I drop down on my heel, taking a step back. The corner of his lip curls to a smile before he says. “Let's get the fuckout of here.”
Bear and Ryan start to walk out of the room as Ace ushers me out behind them, trailing behind me, as our men grab my father and drag his ass down the stairs. As I get to the lower floor and head for the kitchen pantry which causes Ace to question me. “Now what are you doing?”
“Just one more thing. My father was always right to think I hid stuff in the closet, but I never hid it inmycloset. I hid it in the kitchen where I knew he wouldn't go.” I open the pantry door, before walking in, dropping to one knee, shimmying a board on the floor, popping it open. Reaching my hand in, I pull a lever and the back of the pantry wall opens like a door. Still holding my gaze with Ace, I watch his eyes widen, his mouth parting. I push the door open so Ace can see and when he does his mouth almost falls to the floor. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes, 5 Billion dollars.” The locked boxes on the shelves all contain money. Money I have slowly taken from my father and money I have earned racing. I don't need that much but it was my way of fucking my father.
“Baby Girl, you are one smart twisted woman.” I snort a laugh before my eyes snap up to our men. “These need to go too.” One by one, they come into the room and take a locked box from the wall and carry them from the house. I walk over to the table where a small briefcase sits, knowing it contains the deeds, all the important contracts, whatever I could get my hands on to use against my father.
I wrap my hand around the handle before picking it up and walking out of the pantry with the case gripped tightly in my hand.
I walk to a drawer and pull a long lighter that I had stashed, before I turn and look at Ace with a mischievous smirk to my face. “Let's burn this bitch to the ground.”
“Are you sure you want to do that, Baby Girl?”
“It's not a safe place anymore.” The words burst from my tongue before I turn and walk to the window, swallowing hard, I flick the lighter, igniting the flame, I stare at the flame for a minute. My lips start to quiver as tears sting my eyes. I grit my teeth, trying to bite back the tears, I touch the flame to the curtain, and drag the flame across the curtain.
The curtain quickly ignites, spreading quickly with the dryness to them, but I continue my trail, running the flame across furniture. My safe house, everything I worked for, everything I fought for, all my secrets, everything that meant something to me, it's all gone, it's all fucking gone.
I can't fight it anymore. I can't fight.
The tears gush from my eyes, blurring my vision, continuing to light my future on fire and watch it go up in flames. I'm broken. The events that have played out recently, learning my mother is alive, it's just too much. My heart feels heavy in my chest, not sure if it wants to burst, or just fall deep in my gut and hide away forever but the tears flow like opening the floodgates, feeling my tears fall to my chest.
I let go of the lighter, dropping it to the floor, before I look around, the flames hot against my skin, the smoke filling the air, making it thick to breathe.
“Emma let's go!” I turn and look up to Ace with my very heavy eyes, my heart beating at a pace barely detectable; I'm done, I'm broken.
My eyes close and my head falls forward into my hands, breaking into an ugly cry, feeling my knees buckle beneath me, I start to fall to the floor, but Ace catches me, scooping me up. I bury my face in his chest, his words whispering out. “I gotcha, Baby Girl.”
Ace carries me out of the house, wedding style, my arms loop around his neck, still holding the briefcase in my hand. Ipeek over his shoulder and look up, and watch the flames fill the house before I tuck my head in his chest, finding comfort in his warmth, needing it.
