Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86126 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86126 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Then as quietly as I could, I shut Cian’s door and walked calmly down the hall and into Titus’s room. I was back out in a second. It only took me a few minutes to shove clothes and toys into our suitcase and bag before carrying them from the girls’ room to mine, shutting each door between. I paused, just for a moment, my hands resting on the bags.
My heart was thundering but my steps were steady as I walked to the top of the stairs.
“I’m all packed,” I called down. “But I can’t carry them down the stairs.”
The relief that hit me as I heard Carl’s heavy footsteps on the stairs made me light-headed.
“Where?” Carl barked.
“They’re on my bed,” I replied, leading him down the hallway.
I walked inside my room and gestured toward the bags.
“Where’s the baby?” Carl asked as he lumbered forward.
“I put her in her crib,” I murmured.
As soon as he’d passed me, I took a shallow breath and closed the door between us, fitting the key into the lock in almost the same movement. He wasn’t an idiot, and his palm banged against the door just as I ripped the key back out.
I’d realized the first night we slept there that Titus had bought the wrong kind of doorknobs for our bedrooms. While they did have locks that required a key to get in, the opposite side didn’t have a latch. So, while you could lock the door from the outside, it was impossible to unlock or lock it from the inside. I hadn’t known that they even made locks like that, but needless to say, we hadn’t locked them at any point and Titus had assured me he’d go get new knobs, but we’d forgotten.
I was thankful for that as Carl’s hand slammed against the wood again. The doors weren’t very sturdy and Carl was a big man. I’d corralled him for the moment, but I knew with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t stay in there for long.
I’d never moved faster in my life than I did as I raced back for Cian’s room. Diana was silent as I yanked her out from under the bed, her face swollen and covered in tears. Carl slammed against the door again as we reached the hallway, and the door splintered.
Diana didn’t even flinch as we flew away from him, down the stairs and through the living room. The girls weren’t there. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“Flora?” I called, looking everywhere as I ran toward the kitchen. “Ariel?”
“Here,” Flora called back quietly. She and Ariel tumbled out of the empty kitchen cabinet.
“Let’s go,” I ordered, reaching for Ariel’s hand and lifting her off the floor. “Hurry.”
I grabbed my purse off the hook just as I heard Carl break through the doorway upstairs.
“Run,” I breathed, dragging the girls with me as we raced toward the front door.
We just needed a little more time.
I flung open the front door and shoved the girls out ahead of me, Diana hanging like a monkey from my neck as Carl stomped down the stairs.
Then we were running, down the porch, across the grass, and onto the gravel, my car like a beacon in the driveway.
Carl’s bellow reached me just as I threw open the back door of my car and shoved the girls inside, not bothering with car seats or belts. I slammed the door behind them and reached for the driver’s side door, Carl getting closer and closer with every second, when the sound of Harley pipes roared up the road.
It was so loud that I could feel the rumble beneath the soles of my bare feet.
When I’d seen Flora reaching onto the couch I hadn’t realized what she was doing. It hadn’t been until she whispered in my ear that I’d known she’d seen my phone on the cushion and called her dad.
I’d known they were coming. I just wasn’t sure if they would make it in time.
I yanked my door open and fell inside, jerking it closed behind me. My fingers scrambled for the door lock as Carl reached us.
Locked.
“Open this door,” he roared, pounding on the window.
It was as if he didn’t even notice the men that were suddenly filling up the driveway.
He hit the window harder.
“Get down on the floor,” I ordered the girls. “Cover your faces.”
He was going to break the glass. He was going to break it and then he’d be able to reach me. I scrambled across the center console, the parking brake scraping down my back as I tried to get away. My hands shook as I tried to pry my keys out of my purse. If I could just get the car started, I could drive away from him.
I had just got the keys free and was separating the car key from the rest on the ring when suddenly, Carl was no longer there.