Page 123 of Santa Daddy
No backup. No cavalry.
Just her and me and the guns.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked, moving closer to the fire. The heat painted her cheeks gold. “We hide in this shack until they get bored and go home?”
“We turn it into a fortress,” I said. I kicked dirt over the ashes once the sigil was nothing but char. Ground what remained under my heel. “If they want this place, they pay for every inch.”
If they wanted a war, they’d come to the right doorstep.
The next hourwas controlled chaos.
I moved through the cabin like a man possessed, turning every board and beam into a weapon. Old nails and fishing line became tripwires. Cans, glass, and some leftover fireworks from a forgotten hunter became noise traps and flashbangs. I rigged what little explosive material we had into crude pressure plates near the approaches.
Every window became a shooting position. Every doorway, a kill zone.
Dani sat at the kitchen table, field-stripping pistols and cleaning rifles with steady hands. She’d found the emergency cache ofweapons under the floorboards—enough firepower to make this a very unpleasant hill to die on for anyone stupid enough to try.
She wasn’t packing bags. She wasn’t begging for surrender.
She was loading magazines.
“You missed a spot,” she said, nodding toward the back of the cabin as I checked the front approach for the third time. “Southeast side. There’s a tree line dip they could use to flank us. No coverage there.”
I paused.
She was right.
“You’ve been paying attention,” I said.
“I’m a fast learner.” She offered a quick, crooked smile. “Perk of being married to a dangerous man.”
Something ugly and proud twisted in my chest at the same time.
As the light faded, the adrenaline started to ebb, leaving behind raw nerves and too much silence. I found myself pacing, checking and rechecking weapons that didn’t need it. Counting ammo. Counting exits. Counting ways this could go wrong.
When Dani’s hand brushed my arm, I actually flinched.
“Konstantin,” she said.
I didn’t turn. Couldn’t. The leash on everything inside me felt too thin.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” she went on. “And your shoulder’s bleeding again.”
I looked down. Crimson had blossomed through the bandage, seeping into the fabric of my shirt.
I’d forgotten about the wound.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“You’re not fine.” She stepped closer, scent of her hair cutting through gun oil and smoke. “You’re coming apart.”
“Waiting is worse than shooting,” I muttered. The admission scraped out of me. “I can handle bullets, bombs, blood. I don’t know what the fuck to do with… this.” I gestured vaguely at the walls. At the traps. At the trees hiding my enemies.
“Then don’t just wait,” she said. “Teach me.”
I looked at her, not sure I’d heard correctly. “Teach you what?”
“To fight,” she said simply. “If they’re coming for us, I don’t want to be dead weight. Show me how to hurt them back.”
