Page 103 of Hurt for Me

The large man let go of Lily’s arms and came at Rae. She positioned the whip again and struck him above his eyes, and red streaked his forehead, giving her the opportunity to aim lower. It didn’t stop him, and she grabbed a large metal-studded wooden paddle from the table. She threw all her weight into her arm as she slammed it against the side of the man’s head with a sickening crunch. He went down hard, blood dripping from the paddle in her hands.

Her breath came fast and harsh, her body and mind seeing nothing but red. She wanted to destroy them all. She glanced over at Clint and saw him pressing his T-shirt to his eyes, the white cotton soaked through with red. When she turned to face Bobby and Pearson, whatever Bobby saw in her eyes made him turn and run. A few members of the small audience started to leave the great hall as well. Pearson’s once impassive expression was now angry, his lips curled back in a snarl.

“Come on, Pearson, I thought you saw yourself in me,” she taunted him. “Too much of a chickenshit to get your hands dirty?”

He motioned to the two men holding Dayton down. “Take care of her.”

As soon as the men started coming for Rae, Dayton threw his bound arms around one man’s neck, using whatever strength he hadleft to choke him. Benson, the other man, didn’t turn around and kept coming for Rae.

She held the studded paddle up, ready to strike, but her adrenaline was waning, the paddle feeling heavier in her hands. When she barely made contact with Benson, she didn’t pull back fast enough, and he latched on to the other end of the paddle. She was in a tug-of-war with him and was losing. Her head was pounding from when Clint hit her, making her dizzy, but she fought to keep a hold of the paddle. She had to. But Benson was stronger, and he won.

He backhanded her, and she fell to the ground.

Benson touched the side of his face where she’d grazed him. He saw the blood on his fingers and glared down at her. “You fucking cunt!”

He readied his thick arm to swing the paddle at her head. She shielded herself as she tried to crawl backward from him, but no hit came. A loud thud echoed in the large room, followed by an even louder thud as Benson fell next to Rae, his body completely still. She looked up and saw Lily holding a long, thick wooden paddle, her eyes wild and red from crying.

“Mom!”

“I’m okay, honey. You did so good.” Rae forced herself to stand up and gave Lily a quick, tight hug before facing Pearson again. She saw that Dayton had taken down the other man, but he didn’t look good. His normal olive complexion was gray, and he was leaning against one of the intricately carved wooden pillars in the room.

“You’re out of men, Pearson.” She tried to grin, but her face hurt too much. “And I hear sirens.”

Everyone noticed the blaring sirens then, and the few audience members left were already scattering. Pearson shot her one hard look before trying to hightail it from the hall as well, but there was no way in hell she was letting him escape like a cockroach under bright lights.

Just as she seized the long whip from the floor, the end of it covered in blood, she looked up to see Dayton throwing himself at Pearson,slamming him to the ground. Dayton pulled back his bound arms and punched Pearson’s face, instantly breaking the man’s nose with the force. When he punched him again, Pearson was already unconscious, but Dayton kept punching him until he collapsed across the older man’s body.

Rae took Lily’s hand, and they rushed over to Dayton, who had rolled off Pearson and was nearly unconscious on the floor.

“Dayton?” She touched his skin, which was cold and clammy. “Try to stay awake, okay?”

He was trying to tell her something, but his words were dribbling out in incoherent gibberish as he fell in and out of consciousness.

“Don’t talk. Help is coming.” She put pressure on his thigh wound and directed Lily to untie his bindings.

Dayton’s police chief must’ve come through because officers and paramedics were now swarming the great hall.

“Over here! Please hurry!” she called to them. “And there are people locked in the basement—one is badly injured!”

She looked back at Dayton, at his shallow breathing and the blood soaked through his pants, and she knew he didn’t have long. She pressed down on his leg wound harder, trying to stanch the bleeding.

“Just hang on, okay, Dayton? Please. Hang on for Carli.” She couldn’t lose him now, not after everything. “Hang on for me.”

CHAPTER 63

RAE

2024—Two Months Later

When you want something bad enough, you need to pay the consequence.Rae didn’t want to hear her mother’s words as she thought over the last two months—the rush to the hospital, the blood on her hands and clothes. Dayton’s blood. All the fear of possibly losing everything. She wanted to be in this moment, surrounded by people she cared about, people who had been worth any consequence to save.

The July evening was hot, but it didn’t prevent people from coming to the Paseo District’s First Friday Art Walk event. Rae watched Lily and Klo strolling ahead of her and Angel on the sidewalk, their musical laughter mingling with the sounds of the various street musicians playing at every corner of the historic stretch of over twenty art galleries.

Even with the excitement buzzing around her and the Oklahoma sunset flaunting its dazzling hues, it wasn’t easy for Rae to forget how close her daughter had come to dying only several weeks before. She tried not to relive that night and the unbearable pain of watching Dayton slipping away from her.

She didn’t like to think about what might’ve happened if Dayton hadn’t called his police chief for backup after he’d killed the man who attacked him outside the Coulters’ mansion. The truth was Pearson and Bobby probably had more men they could’ve called on to help them if it weren’t for the arrival of the police. Instead, they were now sitting in jail, awaiting trial, along with many others being indicted every day as the police gathered more and more evidence of the money laundering and sex trafficking. There were dozens involved, and she hoped each one would rot in prison.

And Clint, he would rot too. Only, his right-eye blindness would make his confinement feel that much smaller. Anytime Rae thought she might feel a tiny bit of remorse for permanently blinding his eye, she thought about Beth or Maria ... or her younger self—all the people he had destroyed.

---