Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 114647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
“Shit.” I hissed trying to cover my arm with my body to reduce the chance of it getting sopping wet.
By the time I made it into the diner, the majority of my body was drenched, and I cursed Marjorie for having my locks changed without telling me. Crazy old bat.
Lizzie, a young mother of three, glanced up from the coffee she was pouring at the bar when I scrambled inside. “You look pretty awful.” She mused.
“Thanks. Marjorie around?” I asked.
“She was here early this morning, but I haven’t seen her since.” She said putting the coffee pot on the warmer.
“I was trying to figure out why...” I was explaining when the roundness of Lizzie’s eyes went to the size of saucers. “What?”
Her mouth worked like a fish, and I turned around very slowly to find a huge ass gun aimed right at my face. The barrel of the gun looked massive, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the bullet that came out of the gun would do to my face when it took me out.
Fuck.
My eyes traveled from the gun’s excessively large barrel to the masked man that was holding it. His stance was twitchy and unsure, but the gun never wavered. “Bring her out here!” He roared.
“W-who?” I asked. The hitch in my breath made it apparent that he was scaring the absolute shit out of me.
“Marjorie!” He roared.
I flinched at the vehemence in his voice. God, but I just couldn’t freakin win. My life was one huge clusterfuck to the tenth degree. Here I was, twenty-six, going on twenty-seven, and I was about to die. Alone. Unloved.
Hooray.
Fuck it. If I was going to be shot, I damn sure won’t be going out without trying to fight.
***
James
“Okay, where the fuck are you?” I growled as I came back down the stairs of Shiloh’s apartment.
I rounded the corner to the diner and my heart nearly stopped.
Shiloh had her hands hanging down limply at her sides standing next to the bar. A young woman, twenty two at most, was behind the bar, mouth slack jawed and her hands up by her ears, and a man in his late sixties who resembled a grizzly bear with his wild brown hair and large round body stood in front of them both with a .357 revolver pointed straight at Shiloh’s face.
My basic survival instincts, the ones that were honed to a razor sharp point in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ones that kept me and most of my brothers alive during the most brutal of times, took over. My vision sharpened, my hearing fine-tuned, my adrenaline coursed thickly through my veins. The rapid beat of my heart thumped an erratic tattoo against the wall of my chest.
When my eyes stayed locked on the man with the gun, even when Shiloh’s scream ripped down my spine and settled deep in my gut. My hand tightened minutely on the gun that I had in my hand, even though I had no knowledge of pulling it. Nor did I have knowledge of aiming it.
However, I found myself with one eye closed, staring down the length of the barrel. Tritium sights framing the large man’s center mass, ready to pull the trigger. With one breath, I found my calm. The next, I pulled the trigger.
***
“Mr. Allen, can you please repeat what happened again one more time?” Detective Pierson Howell asked with condescension dripping like acid from his every word.
“Are you arresting me?” I finally asked.
“No. I’m just trying to procure what happened here. Some things don’t line up.” He ground out.
“I’ve already explained the encounter in its entirety. I’ve explained what I saw happen. I explained that I couldn’t afford to wait, that I felt like the situation would deteriorate very fast. Therefore, if I’m not under arrest, then I’ll be leaving. I have a young daughter at home, as well as an inconsolable woman to take care of. If you’ll excuse me, Detective.” I snapped and turned.
Detective Pierson didn’t like the way I said detective, and I saw his hackles rise as soon as I said it. “Oh, yes. I’ve heard about the allegations that are being filed against you. Tell me, is it true? Do you rape your daughter?” He droned from directly behind me.
I froze. My hands clenched, and my body tensed in anticipation.
My eyes rose and my mouth opened, but Shiloh, who was standing to my right, erupted. I say erupted, because there were no other words for what happened next. She simply exploded.
“You have got to be kidding me!” She screeched.
The men and women loitering, as well as the crime scene techs, male and female officers, and brothers, froze and watched the explosion unfold.
“This man,” Shiloh gestured to me with her pointer finger. “This man saved my mother fucking life! That man was about to blow my head off. He had a fucking .357 pointed at my face. Do you know what a .357 does to a watermelon? It fucking explodes. Every fucking inch. There is no way you would ever be able to fit those pieces together again.”
She got closer as her temper raged. The next thing I knew, she was in Pierson’s face, finger millimeters from his chest. She knew better than to touch him, but that didn’t stop her from rising on the tips of her toes and getting in his face.
“And the nerve. The guts it takes to imply that this man,” Another finger pointed in my direction. “to say that this man rapes his child.”
“You don’t know their relationship. You don’t see how he dotes on her. Gives her everything she needs and wants. Adores her. He would never, ever, do anything so vile as to rape his daughter. To even imply that is so beyond the element of reason that it’s practically hilarious. That man would castrate anyone that even thought about harming his daughter. He’d chop off their balls, open a gash in their belly, and make them bleed. You are a pathetic use for human flesh, and I will see your superior officer about this. You will be taken off this case so fast your fucking head will spin.”