Page 97 of Ruthless Keeper
“Luther Sharpe and the man who pinged facial recognition for his right-hand just got out of the stairwell, on your floor. There isn’t anything I can hit him with in living quarters—”
I’m sprinting out of the room before he can finish his sentence.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Scarlett
The silence stretches endlessly and eerily. Every so often, it’s interrupted by a soft impact that rumbles the ground beneath my feet—some sort of explosive, I assume—but besides that, everything’s still.
In the quiet, I have nothing to do but think, ruminate, and fear. I think about the hundreds of possible ends I’ll meet today—most of my nightmares involving my father. I think of the nightmares I’ve lived through, some of which eventually delivered me contentment. Even happiness.
I think about Eric, who I pray will get here sooner rather than later. I think about my mother, who was too soft to survive in this cruel world. And I think about the very real possibility that Greyson will fail, the Nighthawks here to protect the fortress will die, and then I’ll die a painful, gruesome death.
My father’s here—I’m sure of it. I can feel the pungent stench of his energy permeating the air. The flat, dissonant sort of darkness that fills every building he steps foot in.
I sit behind Greyson’s desk that I struggled to overturn, clutch my phone for dear life in one hand and a gun in the other, and await my doom.
It comes sooner than expected, and in a much different form that I expected.
A blast caves in the front door to the apartment—an explosion that shakes the ground and even rattles the air. I stare at the cracked-open door to the office, panting yet frozen with fear.
I should run up to it and close it. Ihaveto go to it… but I can’t. The terror my father instilled in me every day of my childhood holds me in place, reducing me to the little girl who wasn’t strong enough to fight back.
I have no fancy tricks to rely on. No training. I can shoot a gun, and that’s about all I’m good for. None of the weapons in Greyson’s hidden store are familiar to me—I only ever learned handguns and shotguns, not even AR’s or semi’s.
I’m a sitting duck, and as a single set of footsteps travel closer to me, pushing me nearer to the end of my life, a soft sob gets trapped in my throat.
I drop my phone and clutch the handgun as the door to the office creaks open. Then, a voice fills the air.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” a familiar, cruel,horrificman says. “Come out, little Scarlett. It’s time.”
It isn’t my father—it’s someone who’s quite possibly worse.
James. Dad’s second in command. A man I’ve spent my life fearing as much as my father. Someone who always stared at me in ways that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise, and who delivered beatings when my father ordered him to… and when Dad didn’t.
He’s the only other person who was present when my father killed my mother. James had a small smirk on his lips as he held me in place, forcing me to watch the life leave her eyes.
My fear is overtaken by blind, seething, simmering rage. Of all the terrible ends I could meet, Irefusefor it to be this one. I peek out overthe top of the table, glimpse James, and fire off a shot. By some miracle, it connects, and he jerks… but that isn’t enough to kill him. I’m not that lucky.
He sprints straight for me. I fire off two more shots, but neither land before he leaps over the desk. Blood from his wound, one I can’t see, splatters on my face as he lands on his feet, grabs the collar of my shirt, and smashes the side of my head against the desk.
Stars burst behind my eyes and a scream tears from my chest, which quickly turns into a low moan. Then, his hand is around my throat, cutting off my breathing and putting me face-to-face with death.
Not like this.
Iforcemyself to find strength despite the crushing weakness threatening to drain me. I disregard the nausea, the ringing in my ears, and try to scramble for the gun—but I lost it. I don’t have a chance to find it before James presses me to the ground, brown eyes alight with rage, blood leaking down his bare arm and dripping onto me.
My arms flail around my sides, blindly searching the floor for my lost weapon. This can’t be the end for me.
“That wasn’t a very kind reception,” James hisses. His tone is coated in malice. His eyes scream his wish to murder me. “Little fuckingbitch.”
Not. Like. This.
My hand grasps the barrel of the gun. I call on every drop of power left in my prone body, angle the gun, and shoot.
James falls off of me with the rabid roar of a wounded beast. I gasp, eyes watering, throat swelling, breaths rasping. Through the agony setting my chest alight, I lift my arm, aim the gun at his head, and fire.
He drops flat to the ground. Body limp, eyes emptying of life, face stuck in an expression of agony and fury.
