Page 11 of Road Rage Daddy
Marsha slowly smiles as well, now sauntering closer on bare, manicured feet, mistaking mine as a friendly or even seductive smile, not giving a single shit about her injured husband.
“I’m going to make your life a living hell the same way you did to these kids.” Her smile drops, and I motion to the girl on the stairs. “Come here,” I say softly.
The girl jumps up, rushing toward me with absolutely no survival instinct, just like Harley, letting a man she doesn’t know, covered in blood, sweep her tiny frame up in one arm. Either that or her life has been so awful, her heart so neglected and abused, that anything is better than living with her parents.
“What’s your name, princess?”
“Marsha Junior,” she says unhappily. Her mom really is a piece of work.
“Screw that. What do you want your name to be?”
Without hesitating, she says, “Princess.”
I crack my first genuine smile of the evening. “You want to come live with me and your Aunt Harley, Princess?”
She hugs me tight around my neck, and I take that as a resoundingyes.
Harley, until now, had been quietly observing us, and something hot flashes in her eyes as I get closer. She turns when I lower my hand to her back and gently but firmly hustle her and the boys, who have their skinny arms wrapped around her thighs, out the door ahead of me with zero discussion.
“Emit!” Marsha shrieks from behind, grabbing the waistband of my jeans to stop me, her pitifully deficient maternal instincts finally kicking in. She swings in front, crocodile tears in her eyes. “Thank you!” Then she hugs me tight after slipping her arms between her daughter and me, excluding Princess from the hug.
“What the hell are you thanking me for?” I try to peel her off, finding Harley over her shoulder, loading the kids into a sparkling white SUV in the driveway. She must have stolen their car keys. She’s good at that.
“Thank you for rescuing me. I know you didn’t mean it—what you said back there. That it was all for show so Luther wouldn’t try to stop us.”
“Stop us from what?” I snap.
Marsha bats her lashes. “Stop us from being together again, just like we were always meant to be.” Princess’s chin quivers, fresh tears in her eyes when her mother says excitedly, “Harley can take the brats, and then you and I can start fresh without all this baggage.” She rolls up on her tiptoes to kiss me.
I grab her face before she can plant her nasty lips on mine and shove her away hard enough to snap her neck. “Goddamn, traitorous skank.”
Harley spins on her heels, screeching, “Why don’t the kids have car seats?” And then she hauls ass across the lawn like anenraged mama bear, grabs Marsha’s hair with both fists, and rips her backward, taking her down to the ground.
The little psycho princess in my arms laughs.Laughs!This family is so deranged, they make me look sane.
Marsha is screaming, twisting around in the grass, fighting back. And my woman is losing. Too exhausted, too spent to keep the upper hand. If I wasn’t furious before, I am now when Marsha rolls on top of Harley and slaps her again. I set Princess down, ready to jump in, when the girl lets out a battle cry and wraps her thin arms around her mom’s neck, choking Marsha hard enough to make her lips turn blue.
“Holy shit! Get her, girl.” I laugh, then remember I’m supposed to be the responsible adult here and should probably intercept instead of encouraging her. I give Princess another thirty seconds, letting her work out her rage on her abusive mother while I scoop Harley up to help her onto her feet.
I ease Princess away, pushing her gently toward the SUV. “I can take it from here. Go look after your brothers.” And then I lift Marsha up and simply toss her a few feet away toward the house, pleased to see she’s as filthy now as her kids.
All the while, Luther has been standing quietly in the open doorway with one hand over his nose. He doesn’t go to Marsha. Doesn’t go to his little sister. Doesn’t go to his kids that we’re about to kidnap. Doesn’t try to stop me. Doesn’t care about the neighbors who step out on their porches due to the disturbance, their phones either held up to record us or pressed to their ears. He simply watches me, heaving out a big sigh when we hear sirens in the distance.
Then it’s just a waiting game as I lean against the SUV with Harley tucked under one arm with Aiden, Princess under the other, and the boys hanging on to us. All these souls depend on me to be a better man, and I realize they’re allthe one. Not just Harley but the whole family. They’re mine.
Marsha pitches toward the first cop cruiser that pulls up, throwing herself at the officer who is even taller than me and looks like he eats iron for breakfast. I smile when I recognize my old colleague, Dominic, who has his own gaggle of kids. His spouse, Taylor, is a social worker with a fierce passion for protecting the most vulnerable members of our population, and I’m sure they won’t be too far behind him. Marsha’s in for a world of hurt.
I wave to Dominic, and he fobs off Marsha to the next officer who pulls up. She looks pissed to be brushed off until she spots his replacement, Shaun. He’s a younger playboy-looking man who’s got a smile for everyone—until you touch him, which Marsha just did by grabbing his uniform in a misguided attempt to come off as a damsel-in-distress. Shaun moonlights for me, and one nod is all it takes for him to slam her against his cruiser, cuffing her hands behind her back. This just gets better and better.
And oooh boy, Luther recognizes them as well, collapsing on his ass on the lawn, hanging his head between his knees. Dominic’s face transforms into cold fury when he looks each child up and down, then follows my nod toward Luther. Luther doesn’t resist when Dominic roughly drags him up and across the lawn while Marsha screams for help from the back of Shaun’s cruiser. What a wonderful night this turned out to be.
Epilogue
Harley
The process wasn’t as long as I thought it would be to gain temporary custody of my niece and nephews—the only kin to step forward. After the cops took our statements, everyone was sent to the hospital so Emit and I could be treated for our injuries, both of which we pinned on Marsha and Luther. Oh, I’m sure they kicked up a fuss, claiming their innocence, but who were the cops going to believe? Us or the child abusers?
We were separated from each other and the kids for a time so they could be checked as well. I already hated my brother and his wife, but I’d never thought of murdering them until I found out the kids had fingertip bruises hidden beneath their pajamas, each underweight and dehydrated. If Luther and Marsha hadn’t been arrested, I would have stormed back to their house and grabbed Emit’s knife from his truck. Each bruise would have been mapped out on their parents’ bodies with my blade.
