Page 96 of Making Home with You
“You wish, you dumb shit,” she says, her words confident and sure.
Her boss takes another step closer, but Sarah doesn’t move and before I even realize what I’m doing, I’ve moved around the stairwell and am halfway up the stairs toward them.
“Sarah,” I shout, immediately regretting my stupidity.
Because even though both he and Sarah both look at me, the distraction is enough that he lunges at her, smacking the TASER out of her hand and sending it flying out of her reach
Sarah’s stare meets mine for a millisecond, her face impassive before she turns back to her boss who’s now grinning like a maniac as he steps even closer.
I move up the stairs, slowly, not wanting to spook him or provoke him into doing something stupid.I don’t get very far though, a hand on my arm, gripping me tight and stopping me.
“What the fuck are you doing?”I hiss, turning and yanking my arm from Ryan’s grip.
Ryan nods toward his sister, his eyes never leaving her as he says, “Watch.”
I turn back and my eyes widen in surprise, maybe amazement and a little bit of arousal, as I see Sarah move in what looks like slow motion, deflecting the hand her boss reaches out toward her, while at the same time, grabbing his wrist and snapping the arm behind his back.
He howls in pain and I feel myself smile, at the same time my heart kicks it up a notch and a tingling starts up low in my gut.
Sarah spins him around, pressing his face into the brick wall of the stairwell, not bothering to be gentle about it.Still holding his arm in her grip, her other hand grabs the back of his neck, holding his head in place while she gives him a quick, hard kick to the back of the legs so his knees buckle beneath him.
“Hey detective,” she shouts, her eyes never leaving him.“Got any cuffs down there?”
I turn to Joe, who’s standing behind Ryan, gun drawn.He grins at her request, holstering his weapon and pulling out his cuffs as he walks around us both and up the remaining stairs toward her.
When he reaches Sarah, they grin at each other and a momentary wave of jealously rushes over me that I quickly squash down.I know this isn’t anything more than two friends and I’d be an idiot to make it anything more than that.
“Can I cuff him?”she asks, letting go of his neck and yanking his other arm behind him so both wrists are now firmly gripped in her hands.
Joe chuckles.“As much as I’d love to let you do that, Sarah,” he says, stepping toward them.“We should really follow protocol.”
“No fair,” she pouts, although the smile on her face suggests she understands.I watch as she transfers her boss to Joe, who immediately snaps the cuffs on his wrists, giving them a hard yank to make sure they are tight.
“Anyway,” Joe continues.“I think you might need to go and greet your audience,” he says, nodding down toward Ryan and me.
Sarah’s gaze travels downwards, her eyes locking onto mine where she offers me a half smile before moving to her brother.She scowls at him though, and when I turn to Ryan I see him standing, arms crossed over his chest and smug look on his face.
“Not bad, kid,” he says, grinning at her as she walks down the stairs toward us.“Guess I wasn’t such a bad teacher after all, was I?”
Sarah rolls her eyes.“Or more likely, I was an excellent student,” she says, turning her gaze back to me.
In that instant, something clicks and I haul ass up the last few stairs and pull her into my arms.“Jesus Christ, baby,” I breathe out, burying my face in her hair.“Are you okay?”
Sarah buries her face against my chest, her arms wrapping tightly around me.“Yeah, I’m okay,” she says, even though I can feel her body shaking in my arms.
“What the hell happened?”I ask, as Joe calls out to the two uniforms to escort her boss to the squad car and take him to the station.
We watch in silence as they move past us, one of them taking her boss by the cuffs and guiding him from behind, the other at his side, hand gripping his arm as they lead him down the stairwell and out into the lobby.
Joe follows, stopping when he reaches us.“You wanna finally tell them what’s been going on now?”he asks.
Sarah glances at him, then her brother before finally looking up at me.I watch as she swallows hard, her eyes flicking between the three of us as though she can’t decide who she should be looking at.
Eventually she settles on me.“So it seems like my boss doesn’t just like to harass people,” she says, an edge to her voice.“Apparently he likes to rape them too, and then pay them off when they try to do something about it.”
“What the fuck?!”Ryan and I both shout at the same time.
My arms tighten around her even as she pulls back.“Let me go, Finn,” she says, a hand on my chest.“I need to tell you this.”
